Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard declared on Thursday that the country is in a “firearms pandemic”. During his speech at a conference in Mexico City, the minister said that since the beginning of 2020, 56,000 guns have been seized by authorities.
Ebrard pointed out that the states of Yucatan and Oaxaca were the only areas where a few guns were found. The minister presented a map showing the different degrees of intensity to which the entirety of Mexico has been gripped in a firearms pandemic. Between January and September of this year, nearly 2,200 guns were seized in Ciudad Juarez while over 3,200 weapons were confiscated in Tijuana alone, which is pegged to be one of the most violent cities in the country, Mexico News Daily reported.
The cities of Guadalajara, Queretaro and Leon had over 1,000 weapons secured by authorities. Other firearm hotspots that were shown on the map are Cancun, Mexicali, Celaya, Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa all of which had nearly 800 weapons confiscations each.
Last year, Ebrard argued that reducing violence in the streets of Mexico will be a nearly impossible task if the United States refuses to step up its measures in stopping the flow of illegal weapons through its borders. He reiterated that the U.S. needs to apply the same stringent checkpoints on vehicles leaving the US as they do with those that enter the U.S. from Mexico. Ebrard further added that the southward flow of weapons could be an easier task than battling drug trafficking in the south of Mexico and the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S.
“The effort the United States has to make to drastically reduce the flow of firearms to Mexico is very small compared to the effort Mexico has to make to control precursor chemicals and the flow of drugs that reach the United States,” Ebrard said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbot earlier signed an order designating Mexican drug cartels as a terrorist organization in a bid to keep the Texas-Mexican border safe. However, the same border is being destabilized by the laxity of Texas gun laws. This has allowed Mexican cartels to fully arm themselves legally.
Mexico has pressured the United States government to hold the latter's gun manufacturers and vendors accountable for the major role they play in illegal weapons trafficking. The Mexican government has filed a lawsuit against these manufacturers accusing them of negligent business practices because, despite the well-documented gun violence in Mexico, the nation only has one store that legally sells guns.
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