Seized weapons are on display before they are destroyed at a ceremony in Mexico City, Sept. 2, 2016. Some 8,000 weapons, mostly illegally transported from the United States, were destroyed on the day. (Xinhua)
The data details every firearm recovered by the Mexican military between 2010 and May of 2020 -- almost 125,000 weapons, including machine guns, grenade launchers, and tens of thousands of pistols and rifles.
NEW YORK, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- On Sept. 30, a federal judge dismissed a groundbreaking legal challenge to the U.S. gun industry filed by the government of Mexico, which laid out an argument that major U.S. gunmakers have knowingly facilitated more than a decade of deadly cartel violence across the southern border, reported The Trace on Thursday.
"They have done this, Mexico argued, by marketing weapons in a way that attracts criminals and turning a blind eye to those weapons' diversion into trafficking routes," said the American non-profit journalism outlet devoted to gun-related news in the United States.
To date, data underlying Mexico's dramatic pronouncements -- that as much as 90 percent of all guns recovered on Mexican soil originated in the U.S.; that as many as 597,000 weapons slip over the border each year, most from American gun manufacturers -- has only been shared in aggregate form by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to the report.
Data obtained from Mexico's Secretariat of National Defense provides a detailed look at the specific manufacturers who produce weapons commonly used in cartel violence, the report noted.
"The data details every firearm recovered by the Mexican military between 2010 and May of 2020 -- almost 125,000 weapons, including machine guns, grenade launchers, and tens of thousands of pistols and rifles," it said.
"Taken together, the numbers tell a damning story of iconic American gunmakers' involvement in a decade of Mexican bloodshed," it added. ■
