At Mexico’s lone gun store, even the boss discourages sales

[Judi Lynn]

At Mexico’s lone gun store, even the boss discourages sales

Originally published August 16, 2016 at 9:06 pm

NICK WAGNER

The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — There’s just one place in all of Mexico where you can legally buy a gun. It’s tucked away in an anonymous building on an army base in the capital, staffed by soldiers.

Those who enter must surrender any cellphones, tablets or cameras, remove caps and pass through a metal detector. Weapons are kept in locked glass cases, unlike many of the 50,000-plus U.S. gun shops where used-gun racks on showroom floors allow easy access and clerks are happy to let you heft an unloaded firearm.

Mexico’s constitution guarantees citizens’ right to own a handgun and hunting rifles for self-defense and sport. Legally getting your hands on one, however, requires clearing a series of bureaucratic hurdles far stricter than in the United States and, for many, travelling great distances to reach the country’s lone gun store.

In fact, most of Mexico’s 120 million inhabitants probably don’t even know about the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales — it is prohibited from advertising any of its goods, or the mere fact that it exists.

More:
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/at-mexicos-lone-gun-store-even-the-boss-discourages-sales/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_business

[Ford_Prefect]

1. Imagine...

[friendly_iconoclast]

2. ...thinking that restricting legal sales like that actually makes a difference...

[Ford_Prefect]

3. I realize this is a fun fact filled discussion. It seems to have worked in Australia.

Why not try a version of it here? Who knows but it might improve things on the street?

[hack89]

7. Australia has just as many guns now as they did before the ban

more importantly, gun sales are convenient and common. The government does not make getting a legal gun an impossible task.

[friendly_iconoclast]

10. Australia also has nowhere near the murder and violent crime rates of Mexico...

...an inconvenient fact that certain posters are avoiding.

[hack89]

11. Which seems to highlight the ineffectiveness of gun bans.

or at least points out that violence in a given society is a complex problem with many causes.

[friendly_iconoclast]

8. It failed rather spectacularly in Mexico, and Australia's gun culture is nothing like the US's

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Interestingly, Mexico is one of the *very* few countries with such a clause in its Constitution ...

many different countries have written constitutions modeled on the U.S. Constitution, but most have left out anything like the 2nd Amendment. I guess they didn't think it worth having.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Thanks for sharing this. It's not worth having in any constitution.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Wikipedia is most enlightening ...

Inclusion of this right in a written constitution is unusual. In 1875, 17 percent of constitutions included a right to bear arms, yet, since the early twentieth century, "the proportion has been less than 10 percent and falling".[2] In their historical survey and comparative analysis of constitutions dating back to 1789,[2] Tom Ginsburg and colleagues "identified only 15 constitutions (in nine countries) that had ever included an explicit right to bear arms. Almost all of these constitutions have been in Latin America, and most were from the 19th century".[3]

Generally, where modern constitutions refer to arms at all, the purpose is "to allow the government to regulate their use or to compel military service, not to provide a right to bear them".[2] Aside from that of the United States of America, other constitutions which historically guaranteed a right to bear arms are those of Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Liberia, Mexico, and Nicaragua.[4] Nearly all of these were modelled on that of the United States.[3] At present, out of the world’s nearly 200 constitutions, three still include a right to bear arms: Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States; of these three, only the last does not include explicit restrictive conditions.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_keep_and_bear_arms

emphasis mine

[friendly_iconoclast]

9. The Second Amendment *can* be repealed. What are you two doing to bring that about?

As the great writer Mark Twain once said, "Fine words butter no parsnips."

[eppur_se_muova]

12. One would think electing democrats would be a step in that direction ...

... but that has yet to prove itself out.

I don't think many in Congress -- sadly, D's included -- really have the courage for a repeal, though a few do.

A *rewriting* of the 2A, in clearer, less ambiguous language, might have a chance of passing sooner.

[friendly_iconoclast]

13. "Rewriting" the Second Amendment won't happen- it would require going through the entire process...

Last edited Fri Aug 19, 2016, 03:41 PM - Edit history (1)

...of repealing the extant one, and passing a new one

[NaturalHigh]

14. And there is almost no gun violence in Mexico.

Oh, wait...