On weapons, there are two problems in addition to futile Mexican posturing. First, firepower is fungible. Even granting that most arms used in Mexico come from the U.S. (in fact, only the traceable ones do), there is no reason to suppose that if they stopped moving south, other sources and suppliers would not fill the void. Otherwise, the abundance of guns in countries from Brazil to Afghanistan would be inexplicable. Most important, though, violence in Mexico did not increase when, in 2004, the assault weapons ban expired and George W. Bush declined to resubmit it to Congress. (Obama hasn't either.) Willful homicide and every other form of crime had been diminishing in Mexico since the early 1990s and continued to do so until late 2007, precisely when Calderon's war on drugs went into high gear.
Read Original at: Time Magazine
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