I agree with the administration that law enforcement needs additional resources to help fight gun violence in Mexico and here at home, but this problem can not be solved just by spending more money. We need to address the fact that weak, nearly nonexistent American gun laws make it too easy for Mexican gun traffickers and other dangerous people to get American guns.
It makes little sense to spend millions to try to intercept cars with their trunks loaded with guns before they get to Mexico, while doing nothing to prevent the guns from being loaded into those cars and trunks in the first place. It makes little sense to allow traffickers to buy truckloads of assault weapons in Texas and Arizona, and then spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try to find these guns before they cross the border.
We should enact stronger laws like extending Brady background checks to all sales at gun shows, limiting large volume sales of guns that fuel trafficking, giving federal law enforcement greater legal authority to crack down on corrupt gun dealers, banning military-style weapons that have become the tools of the trade for the drug cartels, and repealing the Tiahrt Amendments that make enforcement of current gun laws more difficult.
It is good to credit the courage of the Mexican government for taking on the drug gangs. Now we need our elected officials to show some courage themselves by standing up to the gun lobby and passing the gun laws the American people and our friends to the South so desperately need.
Curtis Taylor
Eugene, Ore.
[email protected]