{"id":39579,"date":"2025-05-28T13:25:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T13:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=39579"},"modified":"2025-05-29T05:34:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T05:34:45","slug":"guns-bought-in-the-us-and-trafficked-to-mexican-drug-cartels-fuel-violence-in-mexico-and-the-migration-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/guns-bought-in-the-us-and-trafficked-to-mexican-drug-cartels-fuel-violence-in-mexico-and-the-migration-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Guns bought in the US and trafficked to Mexican drug cartels fuel violence in Mexico and the migration crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sean Campbell<\/a>, The Conversation<\/a><\/em> and Topher L. McDougal<\/a>, University of San Diego<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mexican security forces tracking Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes \u2013 the leader of a deadly drug cartel that has been a top driver of violence in Mexico and narcotic addiction in America<\/a> \u2013 thought they finally had him cornered<\/a> on May 1, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four helicopters carrying an arrest team whirled over the mountains near Mexico\u2019s southwestern coast toward Cervantes\u2019 compound in the town of Villa Purificaci\u00f3n, the heart of the infamous Jalisco Nueva Generaci\u00f3n cartel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the lead helicopter pulled within range, bullets from a truck-mounted, military-grade machine gun<\/a> on the ground struck the engine. Before it reached the ground, the massive helicopter was hit by a pair of rocket-powered grenades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This .50-caliber cartridge was found stuck in the truck-mounted Browning M2HB machine gun that the Jalisco Nueva Generaci\u00f3n cartel used to damage a Mexican Security Forces Super Cougar helicopter. ATF<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Four soldiers from Mexico\u2019s Secretariat of National Defense were killed in the crash<\/a>. Three more soldiers were killed in the firefight that followed, and another 12 were injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The engagement was the first known incident<\/a> of a cartel shooting down a military aircraft in Mexico. The cartel\u2019s retaliation for the attempted arrest was swift and brutal. It set fire to<\/a> trucks, buses, banks, gasoline stations and businesses. The distractions worked. Cervantes, also known as \u201cEl Mencho,\u201d escaped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Browning machine gun that took down the helicopter was traced to a legal firearm purchase<\/a> in Oregon made by a U.S. citizen. And a Barrett .50-caliber rifle used in the ambush was traced to a sale in a U.S. gun shop<\/a> in Texas 4\u00bd years before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many military-grade weapons like these are trafficked into Mexico from the U.S. each year, aided by loose standards for firearm dealers and gun laws that favor illicit sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We \u2013 a professor of economic development<\/a> who has been tracking gun trafficking for more than 10 years, and an investigative journalist \u2013 spent a year sifting through documents<\/a> to find the number, origins and characteristics of weapons flowing from the U.S. to Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives \u2013 the agency known as ATF tasked with regulating the industry \u2013 publishes the number of U.S. guns seized in Mexico and traced back to U.S. dealers<\/a>, but it doesn\u2019t provide an official trafficking estimate. The 2003 Tiahrt Amendments<\/a> bar the ATF from creating a database of firearm sales and prohibit federal agencies from sharing detailed trace data outside of law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To estimate weapons flow, we gathered trafficking estimates, including leaked data, previous research, firearm manufacturing totals and the ATF trace data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The model we generated<\/a> gave us a conservative middle estimate: About 135,000 firearms were trafficked across the border in 2022. In contrast, Ukraine, engaged in a war with Russia, received 40,000 small arms<\/a> from the United States between January 2020 and April 2024 \u2013 an average of 9,000 per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our analysis also found:<\/p>\n\n\n\n