Guns from the United States have been used to commit crimes approximately once every 31 minutes across Mexico, Canada, Central America, and the Caribbean, a left-leaning U.S. policy group reported last week.
The Washington DC-based Center for American Progress said that figure was based on analysis of U.S. government data that showed 50,133 guns recovered in criminal investigations across 15 countries between 2014 and 2016 originated in the United States.
The report, titled Beyond Our Borders, said weak U.S. laws were contributing to trafficking of firearms from the United States into countries suffering from violent gangs such as Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras.
Mexico’s murder rate jumped to the highest in more than two decades of modern records last year, according to official government data issued last month.
TSA officers prevented a man from bringing this handgun onto an airplane on Friday, May 5, 2017 at BWI Airport, the suspect’s flight was bound to Cancun. Photo courtesy of TSA.
Mexico’s legal market for guns is tightly restricted but the number of murders committed there with a gun rose from 15% in 1997 to roughly 66% in 2017, the Center for American Progress said in an analysis of that data.
Some 70% of 106,001 guns recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing from 2011 to 2016 were originally bought in the United States, the report said, citing data from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Mexico has asked the United States to do more to fight gun trafficking but experts have criticized officials on both sides of the border for a lack of cooperation and failing to stem the flow of guns south.