Wednesday, January 28, 2009

US/Mexico smuggling

First, don't you love snow days? Yesterday ended up being one (the classes were called off piece by piece--at first, classes were just canceled until 10, and then until 1, and then until 4...) Today they decided to give us the whole day in one shot, which means I won't be showing up like I did yesterday. Also--when the roads are slick, the best way to travel is definitely a public bus.
Anyway, if you think drugs smuggled in from Mexico are a problem (and they are), there's a different problem that Mexico faces. Guns smuggled in from the US. That's right.
What's ironic here is that these guns, bought from US dealers, are used quite effectively by Mexican drug cartels against Mexican police. These weapons are enabling the Mexican drug trade, and are to blame for much of the drug problem the US has.
Mexico has stricter gun laws than the US. It's too bad that the US doesn't tighten down on its own gun laws so tragedies like those described in this article don't occur.
It's easy to blame Mexico for our problems. Too many times, though, Mexico's just a scapegoat for problems we've largely created ourselves.

1 comment:

childishkim said...

I agree completely. We tend to focus on how others have wronged us, not about our contributions to the problem. On a slightly related subject, Obama did his first television interview as president on an Arab news network. I thought this was a good choice as it is a focus on the US contribution to our problems with terrorism, largely isolation and persecution of all things having to do with all things Islam. Here is a sweet video from the daily show, I know it isn't a serious news source, but it is funny. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=216984&title=qatar-hero