(MintPress) – The Mexican Congress passed a resolution in January asking the U.S. Senate to create a registry of all firearms purchased in border states. The Mexican government believes that the initiative will make it easier to track firearms used in attacks along the border.
In the six years of former President Felipe Calderon’s administration, more than 60,000 were killed in drug-related violence. The latest proposal would track gun purchases made in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — all of which have large gun-owning constituencies.
Residents in border states, especially Texas and Arizona, are overwhelmingly conservative and likely would oppose any effort to record arms purchases and share this information with a foreign government.
The debate about gun control continues to rage nationally following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in December. The event sparked an onslaught of criticism against the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other lobby groups advocating for pro-gun advocates and the firearms industry.
The U.S. government has a poor record when it comes to tracking illegal firearms. The botched “Fast and Furious” operation organized by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in 2011 is cited by pro-gun advocates as reason to believe that the U.S. government is incapable of working with Mexican authorities in illegal firearm interdiction efforts.
During the Fast and Furious operation, ATF agents sold 2,000 illegal firearms to members of Mexican drug cartels in hopes of tracking the weapons and later performing sting operations.
The ATF lost track of the firearms, discovering that many of the weapons were used in murders, robberies and kidnappings. Authorities found some of the weapons at 200 crime scenes in Mexico and 11 in the United States.
Attorney General Eric Holder called the operation “flawed in its concept, and flawed in its execution” during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Both the U.S. and Mexico have taken a militaristic approach to fighting the drug cartels and the robust trafficking of narcotics from Mexico into the southern United States. Mexico has borne the brunt of the decades-long war on drugs, a failed strategy that has cost taxpayers billions of dollars and has not decreased production, or consumption of illicit drugs.