Guns Without Borders

“Make no mistake about it: U.S. firearms are fueling a drug war.”
– Bill Newell, a Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) special agent

Eighteen months ago, Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels. Since then, more than 4,150 people have died, including 500 policemen and soldiers. Most of them were killed with guns bought in the U.S.

Bill Newell, the ATF’s special agent in charge of the situation, describes an escalating conflict that is increasingly violent, because of CalderÛn’s aggressive attacks on the cartels and because of the ferocity with which they are fighting back.

The steady increase in the firepower of the arsenals—which include long-range assault rifles, grenade launchers, mounted machine guns and a whole host of other hard-hitting weapons—being used in battles between the cartels and Mexican authorities is also taking its toll.
Watch a video interview with Bill Newell about the escalating drug war south of the border, and the increasing amounts of U.S. weapons that are fueling that war.Since most of those guns come from the U.S., Newell says, “we have a responsibility to do something about it.” Although that is easier said than done, over the past year, Washington has at least begun to try.

In May, that federal effort led to one of the ATF’s most spectacular busts in recent years, when authorities raided X-Caliber Guns, located north of Phoenix, and seized more than 1,300 weapons.

Police arrested the owner of the store and two brothers, who they believe had provided around 750 high-powered guns—including as many as 250 AK-47s—to Mexico’s drug cartels. Some of those weapons already had been recovered from crime scenes in Mexico, which helped ATF agents build their case against X-Caliber.
The investigation revealed the growing reach of Mexico’s cartels, which are making concerted efforts to acquire ever-larger amounts of the most high-powered weapons and ammunition they can find. Because Mexico has some of the world’s strictest gun laws, the drug lords are stocking their arsenals from places where these laws are weakest—states like Texas and Arizona.
Upping the Ante: our interactive graphic and slideshow feature highlights the specific numbers of assault weapons, handguns and grenades confiscated in the first five months of this year.As these stocks make their way south of the border, authorities are seeing a drastic increase in the quality and quantity of the guns being used against them. Through mid-June of this year, with the combat between the government and cartels verging on open warfare, the Mexican government has seized 833 assault weapons, 293 handguns, 364 grenades, massive amounts of ammunition, and numerous rocket and grenade launchers.

But even as the crackdown on the cartels continues south of the border, it’s clear to authorities in both Washington and Mexico City that stemming the flow of guns starts in the U.S., where an estimated 95 percent of those illegal weapons originate.
Just as the U.S. has failed to halt the northward flow of drugs and migrants, Mexico has been unable to stem the southward flow of guns and money. At this point, two thousand miles of shared border, thousands of daily border crossings and millions of tons of moving freight are providing unlimited—and largely unregulated—opportunities for smugglers.

Although few in the government want to talk about it, corruption also plays a role—in part because of the enormous amount of money generated by illegal drug purchases in the U.S.

According to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the drugs that flow across the U.S.-Mexico border generate as much as $23 billion in revenue every year (PDF). Seven different Mexican cartels, which are linked by a shifting series of alliances, are in an ongoing struggle to control the U.S. drug trade and get their share of Mexico’s growing domestic demand.
Which is why when CalderÛn’s government started shooting, the drug cartels armed themselves and shot back.

Power Play
When the ATF began to get serious about helping Mexico clamp down on the gun trade, they relocated supervisory special agent Peter Forcelli from New York to Arizona to help work on the problem. During his first weekend on the job, he was called in to take part in a gun raid. “On that one day, we seized more AK-47s than I had seen in 23 years of law enforcement in New York,” he recalls.

Lax state gun laws are part of the issue. States like Texas and Arizona have no waiting period for gun purchases, no restrictions on buying high-powered assault weapons and no limits on the number of weapons that can be purchased.

Every month, states along the U.S.-Mexico border host dozen of gun shows, some of which look like Middle Eastern bazaars and offer everything from handguns and rifles to machine guns and grenades. In many cases, all you need to purchase these weapons is cash and an I.D. And if no shows are scheduled, more than 5,000 gun shops in Texas and Arizona—never mind the rest of the country—sell a vast array of weapons and ammunition.

According to a February report from William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the ATF, “an in-depth, comprehensive analysis of firearms trade data over the past three years shows that Texas, Arizona and California are the three most prolific source states, respectively, for firearms illegally trafficked to Mexico.” The irony is that unlike the other two states, California has relatively tough gun-control laws.

As the drug war has intensified, so has the demand for more powerful weapons. According to ATF officials, .38-caliber handguns were long the most popular weapons among the cartels.

However, recent seizures and arrests have turned up an ever-increasing number of higher-caliber weapons. These include an armory of AK-47 variants, fragmentation grenades, .50-caliber sniper rifles and FN Five-Seven pistols—popularly called mata policia (“cop killers”) for their ability to fire ammunition that readily penetrates bulletproof vests.

ATF senior special agent Thomas Mangan says that the Barrett sniper rifle is now “the weapon of choice of the cartels” due to its range of more than a mile and ability to fire ammo that can penetrate the light armor on government vehicles. Cartel gunmen use the Barrett to target top military and police commanders, who typically travel in armored cars and trucks. Since April, six senior Mexican police chiefs have been murdered.

One of the reasons these weapons are so readily available is that there’s money to be made. According to Newell, guns that “cost $300 to $500 in the U.S. command $2,000 to $3,000 in Mexico.” That’s an enormous incentive for traffickers, who buy large caches from networks of straw purchasers and then bundle them into smaller shipments for the journey across the border.

Can the War Be Won?
There are two elephants in the room in any discussion about the flow of guns into Mexico: the National Rifle Association and corruption.
The NRA zealously fights any effort to reduce gun sales in the U.S., regardless of the kind of weapon or ammunition involved. Meanwhile, otherwise open government officials, who are deeply committed to defeating the cartels, go silent whenever the NRA is mentioned.

A more concrete measure of the NRA’s power was the 2004 expiration of the ten-year federal ban on the sale of semi-automatic assault weapons to civilians. Not surprisingly, after the ban ended, the number of large-caliber weapons being used in Mexico quickly increased.
Explore the weapons of choice of the cartels in our rollover graphic, from AK-47s to MK-1 multiple grenade launchers.Watch ATF Agent Thomas Mangen as he discusses the high-powered guns that floating around the drug cartels.Corruption is also key in making the whole process work. American officials often point out that drug cartel dollars have corrupted many Mexican border officials, policemen and authorities. But it is almost heresy to raise the same issue north of the border, as somehow Americans seem to imagine they are immune to the attraction of narco dollars.

However, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics as reported by the New York Times, some 79 new cases of alleged corruption were filed against border agents in 2007, with another 19 filed during 2008. Almost all revolved around efforts to help smuggle illegal aliens into the U.S.
Nevertheless, thousands of weapons that are bought in the U.S. continue to find their way across the border. And although evidence is scant, it’s hard to imagine that no money changes hands to assure that shipments are able to pass undetected.
But the fight still contines.

Since CalderÛn launched his assault on the drug cartels, the Bush administration has stepped up support for their efforts. Washington officials talk about the “valiant” efforts of CalderÛn and his team and describe the level of cooperation among intelligence, justice and border agencies as “unprecedented.”
Operation Gunrunner, led by the ATF, has been the most visible initiative, leading to the seizure of thousands of guns and the arrests of suspected gun smugglers on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

In Phoenix, for example, the program has been so successful that the ATF has had to rent extra storerooms to handle the overflow. Still, the huge stockpiles of captured weapons primarily demonstrates the magnitude of the fight, not that its end is near.
More recently, the House and Senate have passed—but not yet reconciled—similar versions of a $1.4 billion Bush administration proposal to provide equipment, technology and training to combat the cartels. Included in the package is $74 million for the ATF to increase its efforts to combat gun smuggling.
Follow the trail of guns from states throughout the U.S. to cities in the Yucatan Peninsula in our interactive map feature, which also gives you the details on how the guns got where they are.Watch William Hoover describe the process of smuggling guns across the border and into dangerous territories.But those amounts pale in comparison to the money the cartels are making selling drugs to Americans. Until that changes, the cartels will have almost unlimited resources in their battle with authorities.

Alan Bersin, a former U.S. Attorney in San Diego who has long been involved in border issues, believes that real progress won’t be made until the U.S. recognizes Mexico’s drug war is also a U.S. national security issue. “We have to shift from a mindset that we are helping the Mexicans address a problem that threatens them to a mindset that we are facing a problem that threatens us as much as them.”
Or as the ATF’s Newell puts it, “when violent criminals are engaged in shoot-outs on the Mexican side of the border, those bullets don’t magically stop when they get to the U.S.”