The US must tackle its weak gun laws in order to prevent illegal firearm trafficking across the border with Mexico, said IANSA members in both countries this week. The Brady Campaign spoke out after the US Secretary of State said the US must take part of the blame for drug-related violence in Mexico. Hilary Clinton pledged that 360 immigration, customs and anti-drug agents and “gun law enforcement officers” will be sent to the US-Mexican border to counter gun smuggling.

But Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke said: “This problem cannot 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 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.”

According to the US State Department, Mexican authorities seized nearly 40,000 illegal firearms in 2008. Around 90% of the seized firearms originated from US gun sellers. It is estimated that there are more than 6,600 gun stores on the US side of the  2,000-mile Mexican border. Assault weapons and .50-caliber rifles are the most commonly legally purchased and subsequently smuggled. Gun traffickers routinely buy multiple handguns in one transaction.

The Brady Campaign is calling for the US government to strengthen the regulation of guns dealers and close the "private sale loophole" which allows unlicensed persons to sell guns without conducting background checks. US campaigners are also calling for President Obama to reinstate the 1994 assault weapon ban, which expired in 2004.

Assault weapons and firearms over .30 calibre cannot be purchased in Mexico. The Mexican Federal Firearms Law says that anyone seeking to purchase a firearm must prove a genuine reason for possession, such as sport shooting. Gun owners must renew their licence every two years and there are background criminal and mental health checks.

Last year, there were 6,000 gun homicides in Mexico. Ciudad Juarez, located just across the border from El Paso (Texas), has the highest rate; on average at least one person was shot dead every single day in 2007.