That the aid sent by the U.S. Government (i.e., us) to Mexico is not just cash to be spent as Mexico deems most wise. It's corporate welfare for American defense contractors in the form of helicopters, weapons and surveillance systems made in the U.S., bought in the U.S. from defense contractors and shipped to Mexico to be used in the WoD -- though I'm not sure our government much cares how they're used, the point being to transfer wealth to American defense contractors. Running the amount of "aid" up from $40 to $400 million must've made a lot of folks at Sikorsky REAL happy.

Keep in mind that the cartels frequently steal from Mexican Army stockpiles, so simply cutting off the flow of weapons from the US southward won't be enough - they'll do the above, plus smuggle in weapons in a more roundabout fashion (I'm guessing through a third-party country in Latin America).

This isn't going to truly wind-down until the US decriminalizes the purchase and consumption of cocaine (within reasonable restrictions such as taxation, time and location, DUI laws, and so forth), which would allow for cheaper cocaine and direct legal purchase of coca leafs from the Latin American farmers and their groups (like the Coca Growers Union in Bolivia). Cocaine consumption in the US would probably go up, but I'll take that and rehab (plus the extra tax money on it) over international crime gangs turning neighboring states into failed states.

The only way to put the cartels out of business is to legalize and regulate drugs, just like we harmed American gangsters by legalizing alcohol 75 years ago.

Otherwise, we can just keep chasing our tails round and round and round while innocent folks die and traffickers get rich.

Learn why more cops, judges and prosecutors who fought on the front lines of the "war on drugs" are now saying it's time to end prohibition: http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com

Legalizing the drugs is the best course of action for many reason the most important of all is that it's simple that's why nothing will be done. Legalizing the drugs would instantly dissolve the black market system these drug move on. Just like how Prohibition created or enlarged the Mafia so does the war on drugs. My fear is that the CIA makes to much money that it uses to fund many of it black projects on the sale and shipment of illegal drugs. Any real attempt will be stone walled and never be brought to bear.

Please give me directions to all those gun shops that sell hand grenades and RPGs if you don't mind. I'd love to go shopping there - that is if they even existed.

No gun shop, on the border or anywhere else in the US, sells hand grenades or RPGs. That is reserved for the gun shops in the shadow of the Khyber Pass in Pakistan.

As to "cop killer" guns and bullets, are you referring to deer rifles and the cartridges used in them? The average Kevlar vest is only meant to stop handgun rounds and not those from a rifle. Virtually any rifle ammunition legally sold in the US that is greater in size and velocity than your little .22 rimfire will penetrate the Kevlar vest worn by your average street cop. Ceramic inserts are required if protection against rifle bullets is required.

I would think that the editors of Foreign Policy would expect more from an "expert" than what they received from Dr. O'Neil.

"They sell thousands of hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47s, and "cop killer" guns and bullets that cut through Kevlar body armor." - This is totally false. Not just a little false, blatantly false.

This BS has been spouted by a lot of people lately who should know better. Go see if you can buy a few Grenades or RPG's over the counter at one of those stores and get back with me.

In order to post a comment on this site I had to agree to not post false information. Shouldn't that same standard apply to the author?

There are nearly 7,000 gun shops along the southern U.S. border, about three for every mile. They sell thousands of hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47s, and "cop killer" guns and bullets that cut through Kevlar body armor."

I hold a master's in National Security Studies, and am a published author. I have never seen such a blatant case of academic dishonesty, and will be contacting the Council on Foreign Relations to express my concerns. This is a clear case of an academic making an emphatic declaration of fact which he obviously made up out of thin air.

Since I published a short article on the drug war in Mexico on Tuesday (and re-published it in a posting below) I’ve received a number of responses and questions related to gun shops on the border and the weapons they sell that end up in the hands of drug cartels in Mexico. I’d like to thank everyone who sent feedback and clarify a few points.

I do incorrectly imply in the article that gun shops on the border sell hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The border gun shops do not legally sell these. However, these type of weapons used by Mexican drug cartels have been seized by customs officlas making their way south through the border. How they are purchased is somewhat unknown, but many of these are making their way to Mexico through the United States.

I received many skeptical emails regarding the number of gunshops along the border. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) estimates that there are about 6,650 Federal Firearms Licensees in this area, and the border is 2,000 mile long, meaning that there are 3.3 gun shops per mile (I said 3 per mile in the article). If we include all the shops in border states (not just near the border), the number rises to 9,161 locations.

Lastly, I received e-mails questioning the term “cop killer,” or “mata policias” in Spanish, which is a term commonly used in Mexico to refer to the FN Five-seveN, a weapon which if loaded with the right bullets can shoot through body armor, vehicle doors, and windows. Other weapons commonly bought on the border and trafficked to Mexico include AK-47s , AR-15 assault rifles, Colt .38 Supers, and Glock 9 millimeters.

This is not new news. The U.S. government recognizes that U.S.-purchased weapons are fueling Mexico’s violence. In fact, ATF acting director Michael Sullivan said last year that investigators have traced 90 to 95 percent of weapons seized in Mexico to the United States. William Hoover, Assistant Director for Field Operations at ATF said in a congressional testimony last year that “It is a major challenge for ATF to adequately identify and disrupt the illegal sources of firearms and ammunition, while participating in the interdiction of shipments firearms and ammunition destined for Mexico.”

What’s impressive is the lackluster response to such a serious problem. About 100 U.S. firearms agents and 35 inspectors patrol the border for gun smugglers, compared to 14,400 Border Patrol agents that patrol northward movements.

"I do incorrectly imply in the article that gun shops on the border sell hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The border gun shops do not legally sell these. However, these type of weapons used by Mexican drug cartels have been seized by customs officlas making their way south through the border. How they are purchased is somewhat unknown, but many of these are making their way to Mexico through the United States."

No, you did not "imply" this. You said directly that these are sold in gun shops on the border.

There are nearly 7,000 gun shops along the southern U.S. border, about three for every mile. They sell thousands of hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47s, and "cop killer" guns and bullets that cut through Kevlar body armor.

You might want to learn what that word "imply" means before passing yourself off as an expert about English.

Doubtless such weapons are making their way through the U.S. to Mexico--but there is simply no ordinary legal civilian market for hand grenades or RPGs in the U.S. They may be smuggled through the U.S., or stolen from the U.S. military. Yet you make as a statement of fact something that is utterly false--that they are being bought in gun stores.

Why should we trust you to be an "expert" when I can immediately demonstrate that one of your "facts" is utterly false? If you can't even get facts right, how good can your analysis be?

Unfortunately, these numbers pale in comparison with the funds the United States supplies to Mexico's bad guys. U.S. drug consumers send at least $12 billion a year back to Mexico's cartels, and the U.S. government does little to stop it. Dealers gather individual sales of $20, $50, $100, or more from the streets of New York, Chicago, Charlotte, or Fresno. Through bank transfers, money wiring, and even Greyhound bus, the cash is amassed at the southern border, then put into cars and trucks, and shipped south -- without a glance from U.S. customs officials. This money keeps the cartels in business, funding corruption and violence.

I'm curious what you mean when you say that the U.S. government does "little" to stop the funding of drug cartels in Mexico. Do you mean that we don't enforce the laws against importation and sale of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin? Or perhaps that we are just going through the motions on enforcing these laws? This will doubtless be a big surprise to those who argue that the current drug laws are crowding our prisons.

Do you mean that we are making no effort to prevent proceeds from the drug sales from being returned to Mexico? That's a pretty substantial charge. You mean that there is no serious effort to locate drug-related cash shipments--when such shipments will be seized and immediately declared to be contraband, for the benefit of the agencies that find it? That's a rather astonishing claim--one that requires substantiation.

If you are an expert on these matters, I shudder to think what an unqualified amateur might write.

So there are gun shops every 600 yards along the border, even in the unpopulated desert. No wonder there are so few left in the big cities in California, they've all moved south to attract the obviously huge pickings selling illegal weaponry to the Mexican cartels. No wonder I have to drive for an hour or more to reach one of the very few left in my part of California.

And oh my gosh, your follow up comment: "Other weapons commonly bought on the border and trafficked to Mexico include AK-47s , AR-15 assault rifles, Colt .38 Supers, and Glock 9 millimeters." The implication is that these can be lumped in with grenades, RPG's and cop killing guns including FiveseveNs. So, apparently the ubiquitous Glock 9mm is a cop killer! Golly, if we describe 9mm (considered by many to be underpowered against even unprotected bad guys) as Cop Killers, there's not much left. Actually, even a .22 or a knife will penetrate body armor better than 9mm, so we'd better ban those too. And if by Assault Rifles, our Ms. O'Neil means the fully automatic version not available to citizens like me, then they have been tightly controlled or banned since 1934. The semi-automatic versions used for sports shooting are no more, or less, deadly than any other sporting rifle.

Never mind. Let's mislabel sporting rifles as "assault rifles" because they are painted black, and the sheeple don't know the difference. Let's demonize all firearms by attaching the emotionally loaded "Cop Killer" label. Let's cripple Americans who use firearms by invoking the horror of drug cartel members killing each other in Mexico. Let's fail to mention that Mexico has far more stringent firearms laws than the U.S. but that these don't work any better than any gun control law ever has anywhere. Let's remove the need for self defense weapons by culturing the belief that submitting to rape or murder is morally superior than using force and thus reducing yourself to their level. Tell people they don't need guns, because the police will turn up eventually and catch the people who just beat you to death for your cellphone (which you were using to try to dial 911).

Maybe Ms. O'Neil forgot to mention some of these ideas, I'm guessing she didn't want to make her piece more of a parody than it is already.

Never mind, most of the sheeple will fall for it.

BTW, what the heck has the picture got to do with the article? Couldn't you find a collection of AK-47's and cop-killer bullets? Are the gun shops hidden in the smoke?

I do incorrectly imply in the article that gun shops on the border sell hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The border gun shops do not legally sell these.

You did not imply anything. You categorically stated as fact that licensed federal firearms dealers sell fragmentation grenades and RPGs.

Now you're saying they don't legally sell these, thereby leaving your readers to infer that American FFLs are in fact selling these on the black market. In case you didn't know, that's an implication, and before I question your academic intregity to the CFR, I'd like to give you the opportunity to reveal your source or openly admit you made up your allegation from whole cloth.

Regarding your silly claim that the FiveseveN defeats police-issue body armor, allow me to inform you that even the most anemic centerfire rifle rounds penetrate body armor. This is information that, as a self-proclaimed 'expert', you ought to know. The types of weapons being used in Mexico by human smugglers, drug runners, and the Mexican military (with great overlap) cannot have come from the U.S. because they're automatic weapons - illegal to manufacture or transfer *into* the U.S. since 1986.

They fetch 10x the money on the legal American market as they would on the black market - you know, supply and demand being what they are. We can also confirm what these people are carrying, since the Mexican military has deliberately made over 250 armed incursions far into the U.S. in the last decade. Of this I can provide you photographic documentation.

I anxiously await your response...

Come to think of it, I've seen this article, stripped of the Obama connection and rephrased, before -- maybe a year ago.

I remember commenting at the time that the claimed leakage of AR-15's was a substantial proportion of the manufacturer's output and therefore would be easy to trace. I note that numbers are left vague this time around.

Of course, Ms. ONeil might have written that article as well, in which case it is more acceptable. Wish I could remember where it was.

Shannon-
Please show your supporting documentation for the quote below:

"There are nearly 7,000 gun shops along the southern U.S. border, about three for every mile. They sell thousands of hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47s, and "cop killer" guns and bullets that cut through Kevlar body armor. The weapons quickly flow south, again with barely a nod from U.S. Border Patrol."

I find these statements to be exaggerated to the point of propaganda. Do you really believe that hand grenades and RPGs are for sale at your local Tex-Mex gun shop? I hope for all our sakes that your AOR is not NORTHCOM.

edit:
After reading your response, I humbly withdraw my request for your documentation as it is my opinion that you simply made this story up. I also withdraw my comment regarding your professional responsibility as it is obvious that you are a rank amateur in the arena of national security.

That's what is happening when you publish papers not based on truth and serious research but crap that you made up yourself cover up to your ignorance on the subject while passing your biased fabulations as "facts"
Maybe somebody should start digging into her other papers...I bet there are a lot of other gems of pure idiocy to be uncovered.

Hey Shannon...a couple more question before I leave...what's a "cop killer bullet"? It's some sort of modern variant of the vampire killing silver/garlic alloy bullet made famous in Hollywood vampire flicks? You mean that cops are somehow protected by black magic powers and they are impervious to regular bullets that can kill ordinary people? Gee, if that's true, I wanna be a cop too! Another question: is a Glock pistol capable of shooting those "cop killing bullets"? You know, Glocks are those plastic firearms that cannot be detected by the airport X-ray machines...got a few of them at home and since they are already magic I was thinking to buy and shoot some of your magic bullets with them. The only problem is I cannot find any of the 7000 gun stores that sells them. I live fairly close to the border and nobody seems to know where those gun shops you are talking about are. I called the the gun shop where I got my X-ray proof guns and asked if they carry any of the stuff you say the drug cartels are getting from them - grenades, RPG's and stuff. They said I should go see a psychiatrist.

You write:
I received many skeptical emails regarding the number of gunshops along the border. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) estimates that there are about 6,650 Federal Firearms Licensees in this area, and the border is 2,000 mile long, meaning that there are 3.3 gun shops per mile (I said 3 per mile in the article). If we include all the shops in border states (not just near the border), the number rises to 9,161 locations.

This quote is a terribly misuse of numbers; let me give a few examples of your abuses. You claim that there are 6650 FFLs (Federal Firearms Licensees), then you make the leap of faith that those are gun shops. Do you understand that a large fraction of all FFLs are not actual gun stores? There are many categories of FFLs. Some are actual gun stores (places that have guns in stock or will order them for you, and sell them to you). Then there are transfer dealers (sometimes known as kitchen-table dealers) - who do not stock guns nor order them, and only act as transfer agents between out-of-state sellers and in-state buyers (because all cross-state gun transfers have to be done through a licensed dealer). Those transfer dealers can not possibly sell guns to the drug cartels, because they don't have any to sell. Both gun stores (with store fronts and weapons in stock) and transfer dealers use the same category, namely 01 FFL. The next category is 03 FFL - which are private individuals who are collectors of Curio and Relic guns, which is why the 03 FFL is also known as the C&R license. Those are people who have guns that are over 50 years old, and can buy and sell those without going through a normal gun dealer (because those ancient guns are not considered all that dangerous). The next category are gun smiths, many of whom have a 07 FFL license (because many gunsmiths occasionally manufacture a gun). Then there are categories for ammo dealers, wholesale, and so on. Counted in there are many police agencies and advocacy groups (both the California DoJ and the Brady organization in Washington, DC have FFL licenses). Think about that for a moment: Your assertion of 6650 "gun stores" includes the licenses issued to anti-gun advocacy group! So the number of actual "gun stores" is hugely smaller than the number of ATF-licensed FFLs. I don't know how to even count actual "gun stores" (places that stock, order, and sell guns), but their number is probably one or two orders of magnitude lower than the number of FFLs.

Or to put it in plain English: Your statement about the number of gun stores is a fabrication, over-estimated by a factor of about 10 or 100 (not by 10% or 100%, but by a factor).

Next: You count all the FFLs in the border area, and you come up with 6650; if you expand that to all of the border states, it increases to 9161. Let's look at the geography, using my home state of California as an example. CA is about 600 miles "tall", and a significant portion of its population and economy is in the northern half, at least 300 miles north of the border. Counting FFLs (or gun stores) in San Jose, San Francisco, Redding, or Yreka as a source for the "border zone" is ludicrous. I very much doubt that a mexican cartel dealer will drive 9 hours north to Weed or Dunsmuir, just because the local hunting supply store up there has a sale going on. If you want to count 2/3 of California as the "border zone" (about a 6-hour drive), then adding a few more hours of driving also adds Oregon, Idaho, and so on, which makes your argument even mor laughable. The actual border zone (say within an hour or two by car from the border) is a small fraction of the state's population, economy, FFLs, and gun stores. Once again, your estimates are high, by a large factor.

In summary, the number of actual "gun stores" that are in the border zone is probably wrong, by a huge factor. Within California, there are probably a few dozens gun stores in the San Diego / Orange county metro areas, and the inland areas along the border (say for example Imperial county), not thousands.

You also write:
Yet the arms that cartels can and do buy from the open U.S. market -- completely illegally -- leave Mexico's police force and even its military outgunned. There are nearly 7,000 gun shops along the southern U.S. border, about three for every mile. They sell thousands of hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47s, and "cop killer" guns and bullets that cut through Kevlar body armor.
No FFL or gun store in the US can legally sell hand grenades or RPG launchers. That was already pointed out above. If there is a black market in those weapons, that has nothing to do with above-board gun stores or federal licenses.

Let's talk about AK-47s. A large fraction of the economic action (and gun stores or FFLs) in this count are in California. Because CA still has an AWB (assault weapons ban), they can not sell AR-15s, nor semi-auto imitiations (variants) of the AK-47. This does not apply to AZ, NM and TX.

Real AK-47s are machine guns (they shoot more than one round for each pull of the trigger). They can not be sold by any gun store (or FFL) in the US, except under extremely controlled circumstances, with special ATF licenses (also known as NFA tax stamps); they can not be sold in California at all, whether the buyer has an ATF license or not. So including the AK-47 in your article is utter nonsense: it is not legally available to the masses in the US, in particular not at gun stores.

Now let's talk about "cop killer" bullets. Here, we have to distinguish two variants. First is armor-piercing handgun ammo. Which is illegal in the US, and not available; it might be available through special channels to law enforcement and the US military, but not at FFLs or gun stores. Then there is rifle ammunition. Nearly all rifle ammo (which includes nearly all hunting ammo) will go through a majority of bulletproof vests, in particular through "kevlar body armor", but not through bulletproof vests that have metal or ceramic plates (those are extremely bulky and heavy; it's what you see on the TV pictures of soldiers in Iraq). Because regular rifle ammo already penetrates regular body-armor, there is no US-wide ban of armor-piercing (or AP) rifle ammo, which usually means steel core ammo. AP rifle ammo is widely available, although not usually at gun stores: it is a specialty item, usually obtained mail-order, and usually used by collectors who have old military rifles, for example WW2 rifles, and prefer to use original-style ammo). Matter-of-fact, many shooting ranges in hot and dry climates (southern CA, AZ) ban the use of steel-core or AP ammo, because the steel projectiles can cause sparks, which leads to wildfires. So using the term "cop killer" for rifle ammo is meaningless: nearly all rifle ammo will go through body armor, and AP rifle ammo is nothing unusual, and not illegal or particularly controllerd. Making either all rifle ammo or AP ammo illegal would be impossible, as it would de-facto end shooting of either all rifles, or a large class of them (WW2 relics).

Your whole article's point is that the small arms used by the cartels originate with the legal US gun retail industry. This statement might have a small grain of truth in it: legal US residents can certainly buy guns and ammo legally (assuming they pass all the waiting periods and background checks prescribed by law), and then sell those guns on the black market, for example to buyers for the cartels. Or guns can be obtained illegally (thousands of weapons are obtained in burglaries per year), and resold on the black market. It is even a fact that a small number of crooked FFLs sell guns under the table, and those regularly get shut down by the ATF (which is why the number of retail gun stores has been dwindling). Remember, the whole US retail gun market is only about $1 billion per year, and clearly the vast majority of that is being sold and handled legally, and ending up in the gun safes of shooters and collectors, not south of the border. Any huge number of guns (you speak of billions of $), and any extra-ordinary guns like RPGs or AK-47s do not come through that legal channel.

In summary: I agree with your point that there is a huge problem: the drug cartels are arming themselves heavily, and are outgunning law enforcement in Mexico (but not in the US). The same applies to the inner cities and the slums of the US: It is trivial to find an AK-47 (and here I mean the full-auto machine gun version, not semi-auto imitations) in the blighted areas of Oakland, while it is impossible for a law-abiding person in California to obtain or own such a rifle, and extremely time-consuming and expensive in other parts of the US. There exists a black market in guns, which needs to be drained. Looking at the legal gun industry as a scapegoat is silly; the stuff is not coming from there.

But your statements and insinuations that FFLs and legal US gun stores have something to do with the Cexican drug civil was problems is pure nonsense, which you support with misunderstandings and contrafactual assertions. Clearly, those weapons come from a black market. That black market does not begin with US gun stores and FFLs.

Either you have no knowledge at all of the legalities of gun ownership and of gun transfer (in which case you are not qualified to write articles such as the one above), or you are deliberately making false statements. Tertium non datur.

I am officially in awe of treelogger. *sniffs* It brings a tear to my eye to see such a well-written response that is both more informative and longer than the original article. Although I am a bit peeved that all of the points I thought to use were already posted, and posted more coherently than I would have.

"There are nearly 7,000 gun shops along the southern U.S. border, about three for every mile. They sell thousands of hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47s, and "cop killer" guns and bullets that cut through Kevlar body armor. The weapons quickly flow south, again with barely a nod from U.S. Border Patrol."

For an expert in Mexico/US foreign policy, she got this wrong. NO gun shops sell this. She also forgot that we supplied Mexico with enough training and money for them to outfit an elite anti-drug police/military unit. One that promptly defected to the drug lords. Mexican drug lords don't need to buy guns from gun shops. They get it from the Mexican police and military and from their drug suppliers. RPGs, hand grenades, and AK-47's (I assume she means real automatic AK's) are not available in the US. And cop killer bullets is a spurious label. All bullets will kill you and any medium rifle bullet will go through police issue body armor.

That said, there is gun running. Just as there is drug and illegal alien smuggling. But to imply that the Border Patrol is allowing this, is ludicrous. Hmmmm, perhaps we need to reinforce the border and put up a wall or something....Wouldn't that help stop the "gun running" down south.

What's your source for this statement, "They sell thousands of hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47s, and "cop killer" guns and bullets that cut through Kevlar body armor." That is a complete and total falsehood. I don't know if you're making it up of whole cloth, or even if you know it's false. But I'd like to know if you can find even a single gun shop that sells AK-47s that are automatic (as you imply).

Is this a surprise to anybody pro-gun really? The anti-gun factions have been making up their own statistics and "facts" for decades. They say whatever they feel will sway people in their direction no matter how big a LIE it is.

Shannon O'Neil obviously did all her "research" at the Brady website or just manufactured her own "facts" because she is wrong on so many counts it is laughable.

So who do we complain to? Like it would do any good . . .

Where do you think the guns are coming from? Any GUN SHOPS been robbed for large amounts of guns and ammo? (I think so actually I'm sure there have been). Liberals? What is that crap? I'm a liberal and now conservatives here in TEXAS that are involved in the smuggling business in and out of TEXAS and Cali, liberal friends that help move money out of the country. The article above is telling you the TRUTH. Noone exactly knows how they are obtaining any of this stuff but the people doing the dirt. I got a nice stack of 5.7 bullets and we do call them "cop killer bullets" here on the streets and we use them in hand guns. By the way the gun cost about 1100 dollars. Anyway get off that "crips and bloods" crap you tell Blacks and Latins to stop, why don't you AMERICA.

Dear Promeythozine, you wrote:
Where do you think the guns are coming from? Any GUN SHOPS been robbed for large amounts of guns and ammo?
Certainly it is true that gun shops occasionally do get robbed. Matter-of-fact, I have personally spoken to the owner of a small gun store in Northern California, a day or two after he had one shotgun stolen from his shop; a traumatic event for him, the first robbery in several decades in the gun business. But the number of guns stolen from US gunshops is small - it not not hundreds of thousands of guns per year, but extremely much smaller, probably hundreds of guns per year in the border area (the ATF might have accurate statistics, as these events are reported to them). Even if all of the guns stolen from gunshops in the border area were to be smuggled to Mexico, they would make a tiny difference to the arming of the drug lords in Mexico, which must consume tens of thousands of guns.

Also, Mrs. O'Neil talked about AK-47s, RPGs, and hand grenades. Those are simply not sold in gun shops in the US, because they are not legal to own or sell. Therefore, they can not be stolen from gun shops in the US. A very small number of full-auto AK-47s are legally sold in the US (with full NFA paperwork), but I'm sure that only a vanishingly small number of AK-47s are stolen from gun shops in the US (most likely zero, NFA guns tend to be carefully guarded, as they are very expensive in the US, tens of thousands of dollars).

I agree with you that there is a huge amount of smuggling, in both directions, on the border. The drug trade does indeed prove that. But I continue to assert that the smuggling of guns for arming of drug lords that have come from the legal gun business in the US towards Mexico is a vanishingly small component of the smuggling, and a vanishingly small component of the arms used by those drug lords. Their sources are elsewhere. I would like to point out the discussion about the original article by Mrs. O'Neil in the guntards forum, at http://guntards.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=649, where a poster very carefully debunks her assertions about the gun trade.

You further write:
I got a nice stack of 5.7 bullets and we do call them "cop killer bullets" here on the streets and we use them in hand guns.
I presume you are referring to the 5.7x28 round. You may call them "cop killers", but for the most part that moniker is wrong, when applied to the non-police market. There are two different types of ammunition for this round (which can be used in handguns, like the FN five-seven pistol, and in rifles). One is armor-piercing, I think it is called SS190 and several variations on that. That armor-piercing ammunition (also called "cop-killer ammunition) is not legal for sale in the US, except to law enforcement. If you indeed see that for sale "on the streets", then it very much behooves you to contact your local police department and the ATF as quickly as possible, as black-market sales of AP handgun ammo are a serious problem. If in the above quote you are trying to indicate that you have indeed purchased "a nice stack of" armor-piercing 5.7 ammo "on the street", then you just admitted to a federal felony, namely possession of AP handgun ammunition. Go directly to Club Fed, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

On the other hand, there is different ammunition in the same caliber, which is legal for regular citizens (not military or law enforcement) to buy and own, and which is decidedly not armor piercing. It is marketed as a "sporting" round, intended for sale to hobby shooters. If that regular ammo were indeed capable of "cop-killing", do you think the (very restrictive) ATF would have allowed its importation and unrestricted sale?

By the way, how many law enforcement personnel have been killed in the US with the 5.7x28 round? Unless someone finds a single case, the answer remains: zero. If the "cop-killer" round were as freely available on the black market as you indicate, and if it were as lethal as you insinuate, wouldn't you think that this round would have felled dozens of officers?

Please note that from a ballistic point of view, the 5.7x28 round is very similar to the age-old .22WMR a.k.a. .22 magnum rimfire hunting round, which is chambered both in rifles and in pistols. Very similar bullet weight (30-50grain, typically 40gr), similar muzzle velocity and energy (about 300-350 ft-lbs). That round has been around for decades, without being considered particularly "cop-killing". It's more of a squirrel and groundhog killing round. I regularly use my .22WMR revolver with shotshells at home, on rattlesnakes; the idea of "cop-killing" with it is at best amusing.

A friend of mine recently bought a FN five-seven pistol (the price you quote is in the ballpark, a bit higher here in California), and I was able to test-fire it on the range. The ergonomics of the pistol is so-so, and the accuracy is not very good. On the other hand, the recoil is minimal, which makes the pistol pleasant to shoot. But the real advantage of the 5.7x28 round is the very high magazine capacity (the rounds are very small), which we can't utilize here in California with our 10-round magazine limits. So what's left? An expensive gun, not very easy to operate, that fires extremely expensive ammo that's only available from a small number of makers, it's pleasant to shoot but inaccurate? Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to 9mm.

In summary: If you claim that the 5.7x28 as sold on the civilian market is a wonder weapon which will kill lots of cops, that's nonsense. If you have evidence that illegal AP ammo for this round is widely sold on the street and you have not notified LE, you are at the minimum shielding a very serious crime; if you have actually purchased illegal AP 5.7 ammo "on the street", you are in serious trouble already.

Your post also had a variety of remarks regarding "liberals", "TEXAS", "crips and bloods", and "Black and Latins", which I can't understand well enough to comment on. Please explain your thoughts in more detail, if you want to enter into a scholarly debate.

I would really enjoy a spirited debated with Mrs. O'Neil regarding the various criticisms leveled at her original writing here. In particular, she should study the further discussion on her article that can be found in the Guntards forum, at http://guntards.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=649.

Sadly, her voice has been absent from this discussion.

Clearly, I can contact the editors of FP, or Mrs. Sweig or Mr. Haass at the CFR, requesting that they defend the statements made by Mrs. O'Neil, or disavow themselves of these statements if they find them indefensible. But it would be much more pleasant to have this discussion with Mrs. O'Neil herself.

Reading the comments posted in reaction to this article, I am surprised by how quickly the point was missed.

I, for one, applaud the author's efforts to comment on a frequently missed angle of this war on drugs - US demand fuels the violence and corruption that is tearing the social fiber of Latin American countries.

Never could it be said more so than today that Mexico is playing its part and has proven its commitment to combating the war on drugs on the supply side. The nation faces it numerous challenges on this front, chief among them is corruption which can be found at all levels of government and law enforcement.

Let us put the issue of where the drug trade is procuring its weapons from to a side for a minute. I will go one step further; let us make the liberal assumption that none of the weapons in the hands of the drug trade came from the United States. The fact still remains that there are dangerous levels of drug related violence and corruption in Mexico and both of these elements are fueled by demand from the United States.

When the largest and most vigorous consumer of drugs is your neighbor, your financing problems are limited. Suppliers can afford to buy equipment to transport their goods (i.e. submarines: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/14/drug.subs/), defend their trade (weapons) and pay-off government and law enforcement to conveniently look the other way (corruption). Yes - the United States is serious about preventing drugs from coming into the country. Yes - the United States is serious about preventing cartels from laundering money. Yes - the United States is serious about ensuring legally purchased guns and rifles do not fall into the hands of criminals. However all of these efforts, along with those of Mexico (and Columbia, and Brazil, and Argentina, and Panama, and Costa Rica, etc.) are all attempting to tackle the supply side of the problem.

So long as there is a gluttonous party willing to consume at whatever price, the supply will never end. Supply will always meet demand. The problem stemming from the demand side is where the United States has not tackled the issue with the same level of seriousness and commitment as Mexico (and the United States) has combated the problem from the supply side.

Citizens of the United States need to be made to understand that every joint, every line, every syringe and every pill they put into their bodies is brightly tainted with the blood of families in Latin America that have been murdered and mutilated. They need to understand that the fact that they are consumers means that corruption runs rampant, hindering good governments' efforts to reduce poverty, hunger and disease. They need to understand the seriousness of the consequences of their irresponsible consumption.

I do not know if the solution is legalization. What I do know is that the United States needs to step up to plate accepting the serioussness of its addiction problem (with the same level of commitment that Latin America has been as of lately dealing with the supply side) and put in place heavily financed programs aimed at mitigating demand and creating awareness for the consequences of consumption. Until the demand of the product is not eliminated, or at least reduced, violence, corruption and poverty will remain constants south of the border with American consumers bearing a great deal of responsibility.