More than 70 percent of 29,284 firearms submitted for tracing by the Mexican government during 2009 and 2010 originated in the United States, according to the report.
“Congress has been virtually moribund while powerful Mexican drug trafficking organizations continue to gain unfettered access to military-style firearms coming from the United States,” said Sen. Diane Feinstein of California.
In a letter this month to Feinstein, the ATF acknowledged that the United States keeps no record of criminal firearms seized in Mexico and that “the Mexican government does not submit every recovered firearm to ATF for tracing.”
As a result, the ATF-provided figures may not be representative of all firearms recovered by Mexican officials.
“This report confirms what many of us already know to be true ... it is still too easy for Mexican drug lords to get their hands on deadly military-grade weapons within our borders,” said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. “We need to redouble our efforts to keep violent firearms out of the hands of these traffickers.”
Violence associated with drug cartels has been a growing problem in Mexico, resulting in thousands of deaths and arrests for corruption throughout law enforcement.
(아주경제 앤드류 이 기자)
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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