sancho - 2-8-2011 at 04:46 PM
I remember a topic on gun ownership in Mex, several
opinions. Not suggesting anyone pursue this, this
is off Rollys site
Owning a Gun in México
Last Update 26 January 2011
In the last decade there have been some changes in the gun laws of México. There may be more in the future, so this article should be viewed as a
general guide, not the definitive word on the subject. The only place where you can get THE word on gun ownership is from your nearest army base.
General
Mexico's gun laws are quite restrictive, and extremely harsh if you run afoul of them.
Temporary gun import licenses for sporting purposes may be issued to tourists, discussed below. Mexican law provides penalties of at least five to as
many as 30 years in prison for tourists who attempt to bring a firearm, or even a single round of ammunition, into Mexico without prior permission. In
the past, the law was enforced harshly, even in cases where the violation was accidental. In December 1998 the Mexican Congress enacted legislation
relaxing the law for first-time, unintentional violations involving only a single gun. Now, first-timers will be fined $1,000 dollars, but not
imprisoned. The exemption does not apply for prohibited guns -- any handgun above .380 in caliber, as well as a wide variety of rifles
Ownership law
The Mexican Constitution says:
Article 10 - The inhabitants of the United Mexican States have the right to possess arms in their residences for their security and legitimate defense
with the exception of those prohibited by federal law, and those reserved for the exclusive use of the military. Federal law will determine the
cases, conditions, requisites, and places in which the bearing of arms by inhabitants will be authorized.
“The inhabitants of the United Mexican States” means Mexican citizens and, as defined in other laws, foreign citizens who hold a valid immigration
status beyond FMM.
Mexican federal law regarding firearms and explosives (Ley Federal de Armas de Fuego y Explosivos) is here. Note in particular Article 27:
Article 27. The right to carry arms will only be authorized for foreigners when, in addition to satisfying the requirements indicated in the previous
article, they accredit their status of "Inmigrado" except in the case of temporary license permits for tourists with sports-related intentions.
Visitors/tourists (FMM) do not have gun rights without a license. This license is only issued for "sporting purposes."
The privilege of carrying a firearm outside of one's home is limited to what is authorized by Mexican federal law. Mexican citizens and inmigrados
can apply for a carry permit. Convincing evidence must be presented showing why a carry permit is needed. Such a permit is very hard to get. There
are work-arounds by membership in a hunting or gun club as discussed below.
All privately-owned firearms must be registered with the Mexican army.
Owning a gun for personal protection
If you decide to get a gun for protection in your home, you better be prepared to take a human life and be able to live with the consequences. Among
those are facing retaliation by the dead man’s family. This is no small threat. If you kill a man, or especially a boy, you can expect big trouble
from the family. You also can also expect a long and expensive legal battle to prove that your action was justified.
Types of guns allowed
Article 11 of Ley Federal de Armas de Fuego y Explosivos lists prohibited "military firearms" in México.
They include:
full-auto and semi-auto handguns larger than 380
revolver .357 Magnum or larger
rifles larger than .30 caliber
shotguns larger than 12ga or with a barrel shorter than 25".
Allowed hand gun calibers are .380 auto, .38 and .22.
Allowed long guns: rifles no larger the 30 caliber; shotguns 12, 20 and 410 with barrels longer than 25”
Buying from the government
There is only one legal gun store in the country; it’s at an army base in Mexico City. There you can legally buy a gun and get a 24 to 72 hour
transport permit back to your home. You can buy two boxes of ammo with the gun. You will need a letter from the local police department attesting
that you have no criminal record. You will also need your immigration document (or voter ID car if you are a citizen) and passport with copies, your
CURP and proof of address. When you arrive at the army base you will not be allowed to enter with any electronic device – cell phone, computer,
camera, etc.
Buying from a private person
You can buy from a private citizen, but you must register the gun at the nearest army post.
Registering a gun
You must fill out an application. It can be done online here. In addition to the completed application, you will need your immigration document (or
voter ID car if you are a citizen) and passport with copies, your CURP and proof of address. When you have all of this, you may then transport the
weapon to the Army base for registration. The registration application is your permit to transport the gun to the base. The gun must be in a box or
wrapped so that it is not visible. The approved application will serve as your carry permit on the way home. Thereafter, you must not take the gun
out of the house without a special carry permit.
Carry permits
The right to keep arms in your home is not the right to transport them outside your home; this is a crime. If you want to target practice or engage
in competitive shooting or hunting, you will need to be a member of a gun or hunting club that can arrange the proper permissions. Even then there are
restrictions on days and places you can transport.
Importing guns for hunting or competition
There are ways to temporarily import a weapon for hunting or a shooting competition. In those cases special paperwork and guidance will be provided by
the outfitter or sponsoring club. Getting permission to import the guns on your own is so complicated and restrictive that the only practical way is
through a licensed gun or hunting club.
The federal government sets the gun laws. The states set the hunting laws – season, bag limits, etc.
Return to Main Directory
The 90% Myth
beercan - 2-10-2011 at 06:37 AM
By Scott Stewart
For several years now, STRATFOR has been closely watching developments in Mexico that relate to what we consider the three wars being waged there.
Those three wars are the war between the various drug cartels, the war between the government and the cartels and the war being waged against citizens
and businesses by criminals.
In addition to watching tactical developments of the cartel wars on the ground and studying the dynamics of the conflict among the various warring
factions, we have also been paying close attention to the ways that both the Mexican and U.S. governments have reacted to these developments. Perhaps
one of the most interesting aspects to watch has been the way in which the Mexican government has tried to deflect responsibility for the cartel wars
away from itself and onto the United States. According to the Mexican government, the cartel wars are not a result of corruption in Mexico or of
economic and societal dynamics that leave many Mexicans marginalized and desperate to find a way to make a living. Instead, the cartel wars are due to
the insatiable American appetite for narcotics and the endless stream of guns that flows from the United States into Mexico and that results in
Mexican violence.
Interestingly, the part of this argument pertaining to guns has been adopted by many politicians and government officials in the United States in
recent years. It has now become quite common to hear U.S. officials confidently assert that 90 percent of the weapons used by the Mexican drug cartels
come from the United States. However, a close examination of the dynamics of the cartel wars in Mexico — and of how the oft-echoed 90 percent number
was reached — clearly demonstrates that the number is more political rhetoric than empirical fact.
By the Numbers
As we discussed in a previous analysis, the 90 percent number was derived from a June 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to
Congress on U.S. efforts to combat arms trafficking to Mexico (see external link).
According to the GAO report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information
pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these
7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.
Mexico's Gun Supply and the 90 Percent Myth
This means that the 87 percent figure relates to the number of weapons submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF that could be successfully
traced and not from the total number of weapons seized by Mexican authorities or even from the total number of weapons submitted to the ATF for
tracing. In fact, the 3,480 guns positively traced to the United States equals less than 12 percent of the total arms seized in Mexico in 2008 and
less than 48 percent of all those submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF for tracing. This means that almost 90 percent of the guns seized in
Mexico in 2008 were not traced back to the United States.
The remaining 22,800 firearms seized by Mexican authorities in 2008 were not traced for a variety of reasons. In addition to factors such as
bureaucratic barriers and negligence, many of the weapons seized by Mexican authorities either do not bear serial numbers or have had their serial
numbers altered or obliterated. It is also important to understand that the Mexican authorities simply don’t bother to submit some classes of weapons
to the ATF for tracing. Such weapons include firearms they identify as coming from their own military or police forces, or guns that they can trace
back themselves as being sold through the Mexican Defense Department’s Arms and Ammunition Marketing Division (UCAM). Likewise, they do not ask ATF to
trace military ordnance from third countries like the South Korean fragmentation grenades commonly used in cartel attacks.
Of course, some or even many of the 22,800 firearms the Mexicans did not submit to ATF for tracing may have originated in the United States. But
according to the figures presented by the GAO, there is no evidence to support the assertion that 90 percent of the guns used by the Mexican cartels
come from the United States — especially when not even 50 percent of those that were submitted for tracing were ultimately found to be of U.S. origin.
This point leads us to consider the types of weapons being used by the Mexican cartels and where they come from.
Types and Sources of Guns
To gain an understanding of the dynamics of the gun flow inside Mexico, it helps if one divides the guns seized by Mexican authorities from criminals
into three broad categories — which, incidentally, just happen to represent three different sources.
Type 1: Guns Legally Available in Mexico
The first category of weapons encountered in Mexico is weapons available legally for sale in Mexico through UCAM. These include handguns smaller than
a .357 magnum such as .380, .38 Super and .38 Special.
A large portion of this first type of guns used by criminals is purchased in Mexico, or stolen from their legitimate owners. While UCAM does have very
strict regulations for civilians to purchase guns, criminals will use straw purchasers to obtain firearms from UCAM or obtain them from corrupt
officials. It is not uncommon to see .38 Super pistols seized from cartel figures (a caliber that is not popular in the United States), and many of
these pistols are of Mexican origin. Likewise, cartel hit men in Mexico commonly use .380 pistols equipped with sound suppressors in their
assassinations. In many cases, these pistols are purchased in Mexico, the suppressors are locally manufactured and the guns are adapted to receive the
suppressors by Mexican gunsmiths.
It must be noted, though, that because of the cost and hassle of purchasing guns in Mexico, many of the guns in this category are purchased in the
United States and smuggled into the country. There are a lot of cheap guns available on the U.S. market, and they can be sold at a premium in Mexico.
Indeed, guns in this category, such as .380 pistols and .22-caliber rifles and pistols, are among the guns most commonly traced back to the United
States. Still, the numbers do not indicate that 90 percent of guns in this category come from the United States.
Additionally, most of the explosives the cartels have been using in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Mexico over the past year have used
commercially available Tovex, so we consider these explosives to fall in this first category. Mexican IEDs are another area where the rhetoric has
been interesting to analyze, but we will explore this topic another time.
Type 2: Guns Legally Available in the U.S. but Not in Mexico
Many popular handgun calibers, such as 9 mm, .45 and .40, are reserved for the military and police and are not available for sale to civilians in
Mexico. These guns, which are legally sold and very popular in the United States, comprise our second category, which also includes .50-caliber
rifles, semiautomatic versions of assault rifles like the AK-47 and M16 and the FN Five-Seven pistol.
When we consider this second type of guns, a large number of them encountered in Mexico are likely purchased in the United States. Indeed, the GAO
report notes that many of the guns most commonly traced back to the United States fall into this category. There are also many .45-caliber and 9 mm
semiautomatic pistols and .357 revolvers obtained from deserters from the Mexican military and police, purchased from corrupt Mexican authorities or
even brought in from South America (guns made by manufacturers such as Taurus and Bersa). This category also includes semiautomatic variants of
assault rifles and main battle rifles, which are often converted by Mexican gunsmiths to be capable of fully automatic fire.
One can buy these types of weapons on the international arms market, but one pays a premium for such guns and it is cheaper and easier to simply buy
them in the United States or South America and smuggle them into Mexico. In fact, there is an entire cottage industry that has developed to smuggle
such weapons, and not all the customers are cartel hit men. There are many Mexican citizens who own guns in calibers such as .45, 9 mm, .40 and .44
magnum for self-defense — even though such guns are illegal in Mexico.
Type 3: Guns Not Available for Civilian Purchase in Mexico or the U.S.
The third category of weapons encountered in Mexico is military grade ordnance not generally available for sale in the United States or Mexico. This
category includes hand grenades, 40 mm grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, automatic assault rifles and main battle rifles and light machine guns.
This third type of weapon is fairly difficult and very expensive to obtain in the United States (especially in the large numbers in which the cartels
are employing them). They are also dangerous to obtain in the United States due to heavy law-enforcement scrutiny. Therefore, most of the military
ordnance used by the Mexican cartels comes from other sources, such as the international arms market (increasingly from China via the same networks
that furnish precursor chemicals for narcotics manufacturing), or from corrupt elements in the Mexican military or even deserters who take their
weapons with them. Besides, items such as South Korean fragmentation grenades and RPG-7s, often used by the cartels, simply are not in the U.S.
arsenal. This means that very few of the weapons in this category come from the United States.
In recent years the cartels (especially their enforcer groups such as Los Zetas, Gente Nueva and La Linea) have been increasingly using military
weaponry instead of sporting arms. A close examination of the arms seized from the enforcer groups and their training camps clearly demonstrates this
trend toward military ordnance, including many weapons not readily available in the United States. Some of these seizures have included M60 machine
guns and hundreds of 40 mm grenades obtained from the military arsenals of countries like Guatemala.
But Guatemala is not the only source of such weapons. Latin America is awash in weapons that were shipped there over the past several decades to
supply the various insurgencies and counterinsurgencies in the region. When these military-grade weapons are combined with the rampant corruption in
the region, they quickly find their way into the black arms market. The Mexican cartels have supply-chain contacts that help move narcotics to Mexico
from South America and they are able to use this same network to obtain guns from the black market in South and Central America and then smuggle them
into Mexico. While there are many weapons in this category that were manufactured in the United States, the overwhelming majority of the
U.S.-manufactured weapons of this third type encountered in Mexico — like LAW rockets and M60 machine guns — come into Mexico from third countries and
not directly from the United States.
There are also some cases of overlap between classes of weapons. For example, the FN Five-Seven pistol is available for commercial purchase in the
United States, but the 5.7x28 armor-piercing ammunition for the pistol favored by the cartels is not — it is a restricted item. However, some of the
special operations forces units in the Mexican military are issued the Five-Seven as well as the FN P90 personal defense weapon, which also shoots the
5.7x28 round, and the cartels are obtaining some of these weapons and the armor-piercing ammunition from them and not from the United States.
Conversely, we see bulk 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm ammunition bought in the United States and smuggled into Mexico, where it is used in fully-automatic
AK-47s and M16s purchased elsewhere. As noted above, China has become an increasingly common source for military weapons like grenades and fully
automatic assault rifles in recent years.
To really understand Mexico’s gun problem, however, it is necessary to recognize that the same economic law of supply and demand that fuels drug
smuggling into the United States also fuels gun smuggling into Mexico. Black-market guns in Mexico can fetch up to 300 percent of their normal
purchase price — a profit margin rivaling the narcotics the cartels sell. Even if it were somehow possible to hermetically seal the U.S.-Mexico border
and shut off all the guns coming from the United States, the cartels would still be able to obtain weapons elsewhere — just as narcotics would
continue to flow into the United States from other places. The United States does provide cheap and easy access to certain types of weapons and
ammunition, but as demonstrated by groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, weapons can be easily obtained from other sources via
the black arms market — albeit at a higher price.
There has clearly been a long and well-documented history of arms smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border, but it is important to recognize that,
while the United States is a significant source of certain classes of weapons and ammunition, it is by no means the source of 90 percent of the
weapons used by the Mexican cartels, as is commonly asserted.
Blowing in the Wind
MrBillM - 2-10-2011 at 10:00 AM
OR, more accurately, pee_ng into the Wind.
That's what "Attempting" to dispute the 90 Percent canard is like.
NO MATTER how often anyone cites THE FACTS regarding the study, the Rabid Gun-Control fanatics will simply ignore it and continue to spout the same
nonsense. In a technique patented by Political Despots early on and continued to this day, the thinking is that, as long as they keep repeating the
same the same line over and over from different sources, it takes on the mantle of truth in the simple minds of the masses which are important to
them.
The Truth NEVER has set anybody or anything FREE.
bajamedic - 2-10-2011 at 11:17 AM
Amen, MrBillM. JH
bajatravelergeorge - 2-10-2011 at 08:08 PM
IMHO, I think the US Gov't doesn't want to shut down the US Mexico border. If it did, the drugs would then flow in from the Canadian border. Much
longer and way harder to try and shut that one down and alot harder to sell the Canadians as bad guys. I've heard rumors that alot of pot comes over
the border from Canada.