Common Gunsense is a blog run by a Brady board member (their board positions, much like the NRA, are uncompensated, so not a Brady employee), and we once again get the narrative that all the guns in Mexico are coming from the United States, and discusses this situation:
Her remarks were discussed while listening to a Colombian mother and her two daughters talk about the tragic story of watching their husband and father assassinated by a gun before their very eyes. They were in their home when members of the para military came to their door wielding weapons. This man was an elected official in his small town in Columbia. The woman and her two daughters escaped but the situation in Columbia was too dangerous for them. They sought political asylum in the U.S. and are now living in a suburb of Minneapolis. They were brave enough to stand before us and share their tragic story.
They weren’t assassinated by the gun, Ms. Japete, they were assassinated by narco-terrorists wielding guns. And what purpose does it serve for only the corrupt government, and narco-terrorists being the ones that are armed? What if instead of running, our Colombian friends had the ability to shoot back? How many narco-terrorists would they find willing to make housecalls like this if they knew there was a high likelihood several of them wouldn’t make it back? These are unpleasant thoughts, to be sure, but when you have armed people showing up to your home willing to you harm, you’re out of pleasant solutions, you have before you a choice of evils.
But even aside from that, Ms. Japete needs to explain how this was purchased legally in the US. Or how these guns were purchased legally in the US (have you ever seen anything like this at a gun show? Or at a shop? I sure as hell haven’t). I’d also, using this same article, ask her to go through this mental exercise:
Monterrey is Mexico’s wealthiest city, its third largest, and until a few years ago, one of its safest. But in the last six months the metropolis has been turned upside-down. Drug gangs have set up scores of roadblocks on major highways, murdered the mayor of a prominent suburb, intimidated the media, and taken control of many neighborhoods. The military, federal police, and local police are everywhere but are almost as feared as the gangs. Systematic police and mayoral assassinations are causing entire towns to go dark.
Take this out of Monterrey for a minute and try to imagine what would happen in Texas or Arizona if drug gangs were trying to take over whole inhabited towns and the government and police stood by and did nothing. Do you think the narco-traffickers have a large enough supply of thugs to keep manning those roadblocks after a few of them get picked off from a distance every night? Is anyone going to be willing to take the job after the first few nights? If you think Texans or Arizonans wouldn’t do such things, you don’t know Texans or Arizonans very well. Hell, I don’t even think Californians would take it for very long.
When you start to understand this, you understand why this violence is only peripherally spreading into the United States. I am not at all suggesting that the availability of your average person to arm themselves is the only variable at work here; a fairly uncorrupted police and military force is still our primary line of defense, but Mexico is the prime example of what happens when you disarm every day people so that they can be properly terrorized. Whether that’s by government or criminal thugs is of little matter. The people of Mexico have two choices. Submit or die. North of the border, there is at least a third option.