The Mexican drug wars taking place south of the border are causing problems here in the United States. Those peddling Mexican narcotics have setup shop in all major US cities and have even engaged in kidnapping here in the US. You might think that this activity would be a wake-up call to speed up border fence construction and border enforcement activities. But there is a growing movement among the liberal fringe to another route. And that route includes more stringent gun controls and threatens the Second Amendment rights of every law abiding US citizen.
There is little doubt that Mexico is in trouble. Over the past several years, the Mexican army has had more than 150,000 deserters. Many of these people have sold their military training and skills to drug lords because the pay is much better.
All along the southern border, towns and cities on the Mexican side of the border are living in terror. Beheadings and shootings have become almost common place. Corruption in local police forces has forced the Mexican government to send in military troops to patrol the streets but even this has not stopped the violence. The situation has become so bad that the US State Department is warning Americans against visiting Mexican border states.
Mexico wants American’s to think of them as victims, but the truth is that Mexico itself has only made half hearted efforts to control the drug trade until recently. There is good reason for this. Drug sales bring hard cash into the Mexican economy. And Mexico has done everything it can, including advocating breaking US law, to insure that money continues to flow from the US to Mexico. A little over a year ago the Mexican government even printed a comic-book-like pamphlet with instructions for those coming to the US illegally. The book provided information about how to elude the US Border Patrol and police. Any country that would do this is no friend, but what do you expect from a country that has encouraged 10% of its citizens to live in a neighboring country illegally.
Now Mexico is blaming the US for being the primary supplier of assault weapons to the drug cartels operating along the border. And there are indications that certain people in the US government are willing to listen to the argument because it may help them put stronger gun control laws in place in the US. Attorney General Eric Holder is one of those who have expressed concern that the drug cartels are purchasing assault weapons in the US and shipping them back to Mexico. "As President Obama indicated during the campaign," Holder said, "there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons (which expired in 2004). I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum."
Of course, Holder was a proponent of an assault weapons ban long before anyone fired a shot south of the border. As of now, there is little evidence that there is much support in Congress for such a ban. And there is equally little evidence that members of Congress – even Democrats – are willing to buy into the Obama administration’s argument involving Mexico.
The emphasis by the administration on gun control is misguided and misplaced. There is virtually no evidence that the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 did anything to reduce crime. And there is no reason to think that banning such weapons in the US would do anything to prevent Mexican drug lord from procuring such weapons from other sources.
Instead, the emphasis should be on strict border control and immigration enforcement within the US. A good start would be to complete the border fence; something the Obama administration appears to be resisting. But their resistance could prove costly.
There is a very real possibility that the Mexican government could fall. In fact, according to a paper published by the Pentagon, only Mexico and Pakistan made the list of countries that the US believes are subject to rapid collapse. If that happens, and the US has not fenced off the entire border, there is a very real prospect of millions of Mexican citizens flooding through the border and asking for asylum. This is problem that we can not afford but for which we appear to be unprepared.
Completing the border fence would make this type of a mass migration much more difficult. It would also help with enforcement; not just immigration enforcement but also of our drug laws and import & export control. It would make it more difficult for the drug cartels to move money, guns and narcotics across the border.
In the end, there is no way for the United States to reasonably stop all criminal activity that takes place across the border. But we can certainly make such activities a lot more difficult without giving up any of our Constitutional rights. And in so doing, we may also be able to help stabilize the situation in Mexico; making a collapse of the government less likely.
byJim Malmberg
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