http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/12/AR2009111211331_pf.htmlA binational task force on U.S.-Mexico border issues will call Friday on the Obama administration and Congress to reinstate an expired ban on assault weapons and for Mexico to overhaul its frontier police and customs agencies to mirror the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The recommendations are among a broad set of security, trade, development and environmental proposals that come as President Obama and his Mexicans counterpart, Felipe Calderón, move to deepen engagement on issues including economic recovery, climate change, illegal immigration and narcotics trafficking.
Robert C. Bonner, the U.S. co-chairman of the private task force, which included several former senior government officials from both countries, said the changes could be included in a follow-up to the Merida initiative, a $1.4 billion three-year commitment of U.S. aid to support Mexico's crackdown on drug cartels that ends next year. The proposals "will transform management of the border from a source of contention and frustration into a model of cooperation," states a report by the Los Angeles-based Pacific Council on International Policy and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations titled, "Rethinking the U.S.-Mexico Border." The 30-member task force blamed lack of collaboration for violence, billions of dollars in lost economic opportunities and a public perception of a "broken" system.
In Mexico City in April, Obama pledged to push the Senate to ratify an inter-American arms-trafficking treaty but backed away from a campaign promise to reinstate a ban on assault weapons that Congress let expire in 2004. Obama said that it would be too difficult politically to enact new gun legislation soon and that enforcing existing measures would have a more immediate effect.
Mexican officials want a ban, saying that 90 percent of guns seized in drug crimes in Mexico and submitted for tracing to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives originate in the United States, including most assault rifles.
Brace yourselves...