The US president has announced that he will push the Senate to ratify the Inter-American convention on small arms trafficking. President Obama announced his intention after discussing the flow of US guns across its southern border with President Calderón of Mexico.

Mr Obama accepted shared US responsibility for gun violence in Mexico, which has killed more than 6000 people over the last year, but has not yet made clear moves towards reinstating the Assault Weapon Ban. Assault weapons and firearms over .30 calibre cannot be purchased in Mexico, but traffickers regularly purchase such weapons by the truckload from gun stores in Texas and Arizona to smuggle to the drug cartels. 90% of guns recovered from cartels were found to originate from US sellers. It is estimated that around 2000 weapons per day are flowing from the US to Mexico.

Presidents Obama and Calderón are now attending the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago alongside 32 other heads of American states. IANSA members are calling for all governments in the Americas to prioritise armed violence reduction in the region as a matter of urgency.            

Countries in Central and Southern America top the league for gun homicides, with Colombia suffering from a mortality rate of 50 deaths for every 100,000 people, according to United Nations figures. The statistics for gun deaths in Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil, Venezuela, Guatemala, Jamaica and Ecuador are only marginally less bleak.

Luis Emil Sanabria from Redepaz in Colombia commented: “13,634 people have lost their lives to armed violence during the last five years in Colombia. This clearly shows that Colombia needs the solidarity of all American states and people to find peaceful solutions to the conflict. All governments on the continent must take concrete steps towards implementation of the Inter-American Firearm Convention.”

In North America, the danger to the US of weak gun laws has been illustrated in recent weeks by a spate of domestic mass shootings. On 3 April, a gunman attacked a roomful of immigrants taking a citizenship exam in Binghampton, New York, killing 13 people before committing suicide.  On 29 March, 8 people were killed by a gunman at a nursing home in Carthage, North Carolina. And on 10 March, 10 people were murdered by a gunman wielding two assault rifles and a handgun. 

These shootings came days before the second anniversary of the worst mass shooting by a single gunman in US history, when 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia on 16 April, 2007; and the 10th anniversary of the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado,on 20 April 1999 in which 13 people were murdered.