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An indication close to the U.S. border in San Diego warns that it is unlawful to usher in weapons from the US.
This text was initially revealed by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative information outlet and journal. Join their weekly e-newsletter, or comply with them on Fb and X.
Firearms had been used to commit 1,799 homicides in Texas in 2023 — a devastating human toll. But weapons bought in Texas doubtless contribute to much more homicidal violence south of the border that empowers fentanyl traffickers and pushes extra migrants towards the US.
Of crime weapons recovered in Mexico from 2017 to 2021 (amongst circumstances by which gun traces recognized a rustic or U.S. state of origin), a couple of of each 4 (29 p.c) was sourced to Texas, in keeping with new knowledge from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
Greater than 22,000 gun homicides happen in Mexico annually. With 29 p.c of crime weapons traced to purchases in Texas, which means 5,500 murders in Mexico doubtless concerned weapons from Texas. That’s three to 4 instances as many gun homicides reported yearly within the Lone Star State. (Texas had 1,799 homicides dedicated with firearms final 12 months in comparison with 1,339 in 2019.)
In Could 2024, greater than three years after I submitted a Freedom of Data Act request, the ATF launched knowledge on firearms recovered in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras and traced to purchases in the US over an eight-year interval. That new knowledge exhibits 52,541 firearms recovered in Mexico between 2015 and 2022 had been traced to a U.S. buy. The brand new knowledge reinforces the significance of Texas within the illicit gun pipeline: Of these, greater than 40 p.c got here from Texas.
A earlier leak of gun tracing knowledge additionally exhibits that some particular Texas firearms sellers are the supply of numerous crime weapons recovered in Mexico. Based on knowledge on weapons traced from Mexico to the US in 2019-2020, Main Arms in Houston bought greater than 40 carbine rifles (most of them had been Anderson AM-15s) recovered from crime scenes in 2019-2020 alone.
Greater than half of firearms traced to Texas from Mexico got here from a dozen cities: Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Fort Price, Dallas, El Paso, McAllen, Laredo, Brownsville, Pharr, Corpus Christi, and Grande Prairie.
Licensed gun sellers in simply six zip codes in Texas border cities had been the supply of practically three thousand firearms trafficked to Mexico, recovered, and traced to a purchase order. Gun sellers in McAllen had been the supply of greater than a thousand crime weapons recovered in Mexico from 2015 by way of 2022; many of the 18 gun sellers on this border city are pawn brokers, however there may be additionally an Academy Sports activities — and Dynamic Tactical Options. Dynamic Tactical Options, on its web site, states that the Second Modification is “the one factor standing between freedom and tyranny” and that it seeks the “normalization of gun tradition.”
John Linday-Poland
Academy Sports activities + Outside, a series of sporting items shops headquartered in Katy, has been recognized as a supply for a lot of trafficked weapons, in keeping with knowledge launched on the origins of Mexican weapons. The leaked knowledge on weapons recovered in Mexico in 2019-2020 and traced to the US contains 349 firearms bought at Academy Sports activities shops, principally in Texas. A single Academy Sports activities retailer in El Paso, situated three blocks from the border with Mexico, was the supply of 33 firearms recovered in 2019-2020, together with 9 carbines within the house of simply over a 12 months, in keeping with the leaked knowledge.
In Uvalde, an 18-year-old bought two rifles from Oasis Outback in 2022 and fewer than per week later murdered 19 college students and two lecturers at Robb Elementary Faculty utilizing the rifles. Uvalde County was additionally the supply of greater than 30 firearms recovered in Mexico from 2015 to 2022, per the ATF knowledge.
Zeroed in Armory in Pearland bought eleven .50 caliber Barrett rifles that had been trafficked to Mexico and recovered in 2020, the leaked knowledge exhibits. Fifty-caliber Barrett rifles shoot giant rounds precisely for over a mile and have even downed a Mexican police helicopter. Round 60 .50 caliber Barrett rifles recovered in Mexico had been traced to a purchase order in Texas from 2019-2020, the information exhibits.
Firearms bought in Texas and trafficked to Mexico are widespread. Knowledge exhibits that firearms had been bought in 212 Texas counties earlier than being trafficked to Mexico and recovered as crime weapons from 2015-2022, for a complete of practically 22,000 firearms.
But the variety of crime weapons recovered in Mexico represents solely a small portion of the general variety of weapons really trafficked into the nation, as with estimates of all forms of contraband. Essentially the most rigorous examine of weapons trafficked from the US to Mexico, a multinational analysis venture referred to as “The Manner of the Gun” launched by the College of San Diego and the IGARAPÉ Institute in 2013, estimated that 253,000 firearms yearly had been bought in the US with the intent to site visitors them to Mexico.
Mexico itself already limits authorized entry to firearms. Mexico’s gun manufacturing business may be very small, and Mexico-produced weapons symbolize a tiny fraction of weapons recovered within the nation.
All of us have an curiosity in stopping cross-border firearms site visitors. With the brand new knowledge on the origins in native communities in Texas and elsewhere of weapons utilized in violence in Mexico and past, neighborhood leaders, elected officers, and firearms sellers have a possibility to take measures to scale back the illicit gun trafficking of firearms that’s strengthening fentanyl producers and accelerating pressured displacement and migration.
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