It is estimated that a quarter of a million illicit guns flow south of the US border into Mexico every year.
How is it a US problem that Mexico and countries further South won't enforce their own laws? I also estimate that those estimates are over-estimated.
It’s an influence best summed up by the fact the current chairman of the NRA’s international affairs subcommittee is John Bolton. Bolton was the onetime US ambassador to the UN and the diplomat who effectively hobbled the Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons – the UN’s largest attempt at stemming the illicit gun trade to date. Bolton watered down the most compelling aspects of the treaty. Today, partly because the world’s largest small arms producer refused to support its bolder initiatives, the Programme of Action is considered by many as having largely failed.
And yet there's that quote from the movie
Lord of War "While private gunrunners continue to thrive, the world's biggest arms suppliers are the U.S., U.K., Russia, France, and China. They are also the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council." I guess not quite precise since the UK has slipped to #6 behind Germany but isn't it a bit disingenuous when the security council is made up of giant arms suppliers?
Curious facts about some curious facts:
1:
There are almost a billion guns in the world. About a third of those guns are controlled by governments across the globe.
3:
Home to just 14% of the world’s population, Latin America accounts for 42 per cent of all firearm-homicides worldwide. This is obviously the fault of their laws (which heavily control or ban firearms) and has nothing to do with drug trade and gang activity.
4:
Alaska has a firearm suicide rate 700 per cent higher than New Jersey. Is there any data comparing the non-firearm rates of suicide? That suicide rate wouldn't involve living somewhere with very high costs, much longer periods of darkness and higher rates of season affective disorder and the influence of friends and neighbors moods during those dark months.
14:
German snipers in the second World War got wristwatches after 50 kills; a hunting rifle after 100; 150 kills won a hunting trip with Heinrich Himmler. The reward to NVA snipers for GySgt C N Hathcock was $30,000 in the mid 1960s.
20:
Only nine states in the US prevent people jailed for stalking from, once released, purchasing a gun. Maybe that's the case for stalking specifically but offenses which get you over 1 year of jail time will add you to the NICS prohibited list.
22:
At almost 130,000, there are about 10 times the number of federally licensed firearms dealers in the US than McDonald’s. Obama's recent EAs seem to be aimed at increasing that number.
23:
At the end of the Cold War as much as 2.5 million tons of ammunition and as many as 7 million small arms and light weapons were left behind in at least 184 depots in Ukraine. Seems like a situation that could benefit an opportunist.
24:
In 2006 the UN reported that a quarter of the $4 billion annual global gun trade was illegal. They may want to speak to some of those countries in their security council about that.
25:
At one point over 300,000 Afghan warriors in the 1980s carried weapons provided by the CIA. Are you picking on that fine Democrat, Charlie Wilson?
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