It’s not quite a newsflash that Mexico has a problem with gun-yielding drug smugglers. However, ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson” had a distinctive take on the problem. ABC didn’t bash because there’s a law enforcement deficiency; but criticized a gun industry protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“[T]hanks to the U.S., millions of dollars worth of high-powered assault weapons and other guns outlawed in Mexico have been traced back to U.S. gun stores and gun shows,” said ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross on April 22.
While one solution to gun “smuggling” might be for the Mexican border authorities to do a better job of policing their northern border, the U.S. was blamed in the ABC report.
“U.S. law enforcement officials say getting the guns across the border is easy,” Ross said. “Most of the U.S. attention here is focused on who and what is coming in, not going out. But an even bigger obstacle officials say, is the laxity of U.S. gun laws.”
However, what officials are referring to as “laxity of U.S. gun laws” is a system of laws that has been tested against the Second Amendment by the courts repeatedly dating back to 1792, according to the National Rifle Association’s Web site. Ross didn’t include a single gun industry supporter in his report.
“There are some 12,000 gun dealers along the border, from Texas to California,” Ross said. “And, as our undercover cameras saw, the high-powered assault weapons and the ‘mata policia’ [cop killers] favored by the cartels are prominently displayed.”
Ross did not go undercover to expose any of the flaws that are contributing to problems on the Mexican side of the border, specifically the government’s poor ability to maintain law enforcement.
However, Ross did go back to one of the media’s favorite culprits for the world’s ills: George W. Bush. This time it was his lack of a willingness to pour more government money into a Mexican problem.
“At his meeting with the Mexican president today, President Bush pledged the U.S. would do more to crack down on the gun smuggling,” Ross added. “But his words have not been matched by action. Of the $100 million the White wants to use to deal with border violence, less than 1 percent, only $948,000, would go to the ATF [U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms], to hire new agents to stop the smuggling of U.S. weapons.”
