Guns Flow Easily Into Mexico From the U.S.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-guns8jan08,0,1178825.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The most popular instruments of robbery, torture, homicide and assassination in this violence-racked border city are imported from the United States.

"Warning," reads the sign greeting motorists on the U.S. side as they approach the Rio Grande that separates the two countries here. "Illegal to carry firearms/ammunition into Mexico. Penalty, prison."

The signs have done little to stop what U.S. and Mexican officials say is a steady and growing commerce of illicit firearms in Mexico — 9-millimeter pistols, shotguns, AK-47s, grenade launchers. An estimated 95% of weapons confiscated from suspected criminals in Mexico were first sold legally in the United States, officials in both countries say.

Guns are the essential tools of a war among underworld crime syndicates that claimed between 1,400 and 2,500 lives in 2005, according to tallies by various newspapers and magazines.

are NOT available in the United States, as they are very strictly controlled in this country by the National Firearms Act of 1934. If automatic weapons, grenade launchers, and RPG's are in the hands of criminal gangs south of the border, they did NOT come from the United States...

in Mexico who have the ability to convert them to full auto. On the other weapons, I bet some get smuggled out of our National Guard and Reserve Armories.