For every illegal firearm the Mexican government turns over to the US, we give them back one Mexican here in this country legally.

Wouldn't it make more sense to give back Mexicans that were in this country illegally?

Love your idea for a gun exchange program. I'd be willing to go two or three to one just so they won't feel they are getting the short end of the stick.

Problem with the ABC story is it basically isn't true. There is some cross traffic to Mexico via guns stolen from americans and some people have been arrested for suspicion of purchasing weapons in order to take them to Mexico. Reality is that you can't legally purchase a firearm without being a citizen, or documented, legal resident, have proof through valid ID or other documents and have to be approved by the national instant background check. Purchasing firearms to pass to an individual not allowed to possess/purchase is a federal and state crime. Stolen weapons and the odd mix-and-match ammuniton needed for them mostly go to low level criminals and the mexicans that need to arm themselves as defense against the criminals.

The high quality arms the Drug Cartels are using aren't coming in from the U.S. They aren't buying fully automatic weapons in the U.S, nor are they buying hand grenades, RPG's etc. A couple high profile murders of police chiefs used weapons not even available in the U.S. With Billions of dollars available and control of the smuggling routes the cartels can afford to bring in weapons from China and the former Soviet Bloc.

Dude,

Why be a hater? It's just American weapons doing jobs that Mexican weapons won't do.....

:-)

Mattnu,

Most of what you say is true, but the drug cartels are getting U.S. manufactured weapons as well as those made in China and Russia. However, these are military type full-auto weapons, not the look-alikes carried in civilian gun stores. That didn't matter to ABC because their real goal is political and there target is civilian ownership of guns.

The anti-gun crowd and their media puppets are chomping at the bit given the prospects that the next president could be solidly anti-gun. The ball is really in the hands of the Supreme Court. If they drop the ball then we can kiss our guns good-by.

If they are getting U.S. Manufactured military small arms, then the problem should be easy to solve. The government knows each manufacture of full auto small arms and keeps pretty sharp track of them. It should be relatively easy to audit the manufactures records to find out the source.

Of course, that wouldn't solve the possible problem of them being aquired from the Mexican Army or from other governments that we sell weapons to.

ABC's story started with the U.S. Attorney General for AZ. It's several months old at this point. I think the impetus behind the story is to justify more and stringent gun control. I'd suggest one of the possible "reasonable" solutions would be stricter sales requirements in border states or counties, or "gun free" zones adjacent to the borders.

Call me a pessimist, but I think the Supreme Court is going to fumble this decision. I believe they will affirm the second amendment as an individual right, subject to "reasonable" restrictions with the caveat that the D.C. total ban is not "reasonable", but others like NY's are.

Some ideas are just too easy and progressive for some people.

Easy to get and progressive could describe a fatal disease. Some of us are smart enough to avoid such things.

Another anti-gun ABC article in which the writers can display their woeful ignorance. But like that dufuss at Time says, they get to state their point of view, what with their being experts in everything.

Much of the military arms that the Mexican gangs obtain, they obtain through the corruption of their own government. Other arms come through international arms trafficing. There exist illegal channels that ship arms by the freighter load to drug cartels, terrorists etc. Only a fraction come through illegal transactions that involve ordinary civilian American gun transactions.

Garandfan, ABC is not ignorant. This piece was intentionally fraudulent.