The Attorney General has agreed to allow Mexican authorities access to the DOJ’s E-Trace data.
The US has said it will give Mexico access to an electronic database to trace weapons smuggled from the US to powerful drug gangs across the border.
I would have less of a problem with this if it wasn’t for the fact that I know from personal experience how hopelessly corrupt the Mexican justice system is. To use a colorful turn of phrase, I’d call it rotten to the core.
I’m also opposed to it because I don’t like that we’re essentially kowtowing to the demands of a foreign government to surrender information on our citizens to said foreign government. It only reinforces that we’re completely willing to compromise our sovereignty on an issue that appears to an internal problem with Mexico.
The core issue is that the Mexican smuggling gangs often better armed than the Mexican authorities; often with automatic weapons. The Mexican government says that they gangs are having said automatic weapons smuggling into Mexico from the US. We’ve discussed this in the past as well, and words like “ludicrous” and “far-fetched” were tossed around. Ask anyone who has ever done law enforcement in that area about where the Mexican gangs are getting AK47s from, and I’m pretty the US won’t make the top five.
So, ultimately what we have here is exactly what I’ve said before. The US government selling out the best interests of their citizens to placate a foreign government which has demonstrated nothing but contempt for our laws. Good job, Mr. Mukasey.
I would expect a lot of handguns could be traced back to the U.S., but any sort of machine gun probably comes from their army or LEOs. It’s really a bait-and-switch tactic.
The only way to stop smuggling is to stop trade, and even then something would still get across the border.
here is the problem i see… what happens if it turns out that the semi-auto AKs and ARs are being bought in large numbers here in the US, and that the FA conversions are being done in Mexico… in that case, at best, we will start hearing how easy these “killing machines” are to make FA… at worst, some gun dealers will get raided by the ATF for “Selling” unregistered FA weapons…
Back when I was a dispatcher I asked a guy in charge of telecomm at the agency if there’d ever be a direct link through NLETS to Mexico for checking drivers licenses and such. His answer was basically “Not a chance” specifically because of the security problems.
And now this is being handed over?
Hey Mexico, here’s an idea, arm the border and shoot anyone crossing unauthorized in either direction.
Everyone should be writing their senator to protest giving this data to mexico