Hundreds of migrants, mostly from Central America and Venezuela, set out in a US-bound caravan to escape poverty and violence, on the outskirts of Tapachula, State of Chiapas, Mexico, on July 23, 2024. Tapachula, near…
Hundreds of migrants, mostly from Central America and Venezuela, set out in a US-bound caravan to escape poverty and violence, on the outskirts of Tapachula, State of Chiapas, Mexico, on July 23, 2024. Tapachula, near the country’s southern border with Guatemala, sees hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants passing through each year after they cross the Guatemalan-Mexican border heading towards the United States to escape poverty and violence.
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But the weapons don’t just end up in Mexico. Guatemala received a large number of weapons, including pistols, that originated the U.S. following changes to export laws under the Trump administration.
Newsweek reached out to ATF for further comment on the issue but has yet to receive a response.
Could assault weapon ban help?
While Lindsay-Poland said there was no one quick fix for such a complex issue as international gun trafficking, an assault weapons ban — a policy often touted by Democrats, including Harris — could help stem the flow of firearms out of the country.
“It won’t be immediate because there’s already a lot of assault weapons from the U.S. in Mexico, but it is the most common tool used by criminal organizations that are making life in Mexico just impossible to stay,” he said.
The move has been backed by the deep-pocketed gun-control nonprofit Everytown, which highlighted that the Department of Justice had charged over 1,300 defendants with firearms dealing in the past five years.
Focusing just on the southwest border was not going to fix the issue, despite both parties focusing on that as a key talking point of the election, Lindsay-Poland told Newsweek.
“They’re using what is a structural problem in order to say that it’s partisan and it’s not like the Republicans have stemmed the reasons why people migrate either?” Lindsay-Poland said.
“So I think it’s an effective strategy for Harris to say, look, you are feeding the reasons why people are migrating and if you’re not willing to look at that then you are, you’re a big part of the problem.”
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Publish date : 2024-08-07 08:57:00
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