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

Good Reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016165586

[flamin lib]

1. Sounds like a good idea to me. nt

[Eleanors38]

2. Frankly, why does Mexico even maintain one shop? Guns are all over. nt

[Judi Lynn]

3. Not so much before George W Bush created the Mérida Initiative,

to apply US American power to Mexico for militarizing its drug war, making the agreement with Felipe Calderon, after which time violence started exploding throughout the country, mass graves, headless corpses, chaos everywhere.

A quick scan of this Wikipedia should through more light on the subject. The whole thing was a very bad idea, like Prohibition in the United States.

Mérida Initiative:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9rida_Initiative

[Eleanors38]

4. No doubt the Initiative made it worse...

But one cannot expect a different outcome when the world's most powerful cartels decide they need more guns, and use essentially the same expertise used to smuggle drugs to smuggle arms, esp. since C.America was/is flooded with them due to various prior "initiatives" to keep those governments in the corporate loop. There is some evidence to support the contention that some guns are being black marketed to everyday citizens who feel completely dominated by international WOD activities.

Mexico's single gun store is a hugely ironic joke.

[Judi Lynn]

5. They certainly have more than they need to scare the bejesus out of everyone.

Good point about Central America, too.