I’ve written twice about the Washington Post’s series of articles on gun dealers in the US. In October, they wrote about gun dealers in the DC area and earlier this month about guns that make their way to Mexico. In each article, the reader can just feel that there’s another shoe to drop on the subject.
Well, the shoe dropped today when the Washington Post wrote about Mexico’s only gun shop;
To go shopping for a gun in Mexico, customers must come to Mexico City – even if they live 1,300 miles away in Ciudad Juarez. To gain entry to the store, which is on a secure military base, customers must present valid identification, pass through a metal detector, yield to the security wand and surrender cellphones and cameras.
To buy a gun, clients must submit references and prove that their income is honestly earned, that their record is free of criminal charges and that their military obligations, if any, have been fulfilled with honor. They are fingerprinted and photographed. Finally, if judged worthy of owning a small-caliber weapon to protect home and hearth, they are allowed to buy just one. And a box of bullets.
Mexico has some of the toughest gun-control laws in the world, a matter of pride for the nation’s citizens.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that Mexican citizens are proud that they have to be treated like a criminal until they prove themselves innocent to buy a single gun. I’m pretty sure that they don’t get to pick the gun they buy either.
So now we get a glimpse of the gun control we can have if the regulations are suited for the Washington Post.
More than 6,600 federally licensed firearm dealers operate on the U.S. side of the border. At least 14 million guns are thought to have been sold in the United States last year, according to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. But no one knows the exact number.
Cryin’-ass shame ain’t it?
Members of the military, police and security firms are exempt from the handgun-control law that applies to the general public. If a business owner wants a gun to protect his cantina or muffler shop, he can apply for a permit. A different permit is required to transport the weapon from one place to another. The paperwork for the latter takes a couple of weeks.
“In most cases, we suggest hiring a private security company, and, to refrain from the use of a weapon, we invite people to use other security mechanisms,” Manzano said
Yeah, having all of the guns in the hands of the police and military has worked out so well for the Mexicans hasn’t it? Now, only civilians are getting gunned down along the frontier with the US – the unarmed public bears the brunt of the drug war.
I am sure those permits come with a hefty under the table “fee”.
An awful lot of folks are dying in Mexico from lead poisoning.
Maybe they could switch to latex paint.
Yes, I’m being sarcastic.
Of all the peeps who should suffer a violent home invasion, I’d say the hack-propagandists of the Wa-Po deserve it the most…
Could it be that because of the restrictions that it is easier to buy guns from the black market then anything else.
Mexico, Gun Control at Work: Only Underpaid, Corrupt Cops and Vicious Paramilitary Criminal Gangs Have Guns There! (Put it on a bumper sticker today!)
Perhaps they can do a series on the kidnapping industry of Mexico
Dan, if they did, it would take the focus off of their pet issue, gun confiscation. I like the ideas for bumper stickers in #5, though.
Idiots. The people dying in Mexico are NOT dying from being shot. It simply is not possible that people can be killed by these supposed “black market” weapons, since only law-abiding and verified citizens are allowed by the mexgov to own weapons. Since there laws are SO strict, it only goes to reason that there are NO illegal guns in Mexico, because they made them illegal. Just like criminals in the UK don’t have guns, because they are illegal there, and criminals in Australia don’t use guns, because they too have outlawed them.
See, if you make the inanimate object illegal, the inanimate object ceases to exist. The evil-doers will obey the anti-gun laws, as they are always willing to support the public good, (except when they dont’t.) If you severly limit access to hand held weapons, the society will in turn be safer. This has been proven time and time again throughout history.
For example:
Um.
Uh.
Oh.
Damn.
A great case in point is the WoW post written the other day about the massacre at the funeral. Buncha people decided to lay down their arms and protection to mourn a dead player, and bad people decimated them. Had there simply been a rule that no one in WoW was allowed to carry weapons (and this rule would be easy to enforce with a little software code)the society in WoW would be completely safe from each other. Blizzard would go out of business, however, because they would then be about as interesting as the Sims.