There Can Be Only One: Mexico Has One Gun Store but a Proliferation of Guns

By: Dominick Cortez

Mexico is one of the few remaining nations in the world that has a constitutionally protected right to bear arms enshrined in its constitution.[1] Mexico’s original constitution was written in 1857 and included a strong right to bear arms.[2] Following the events of the Mexican Revolution and its end in 1917, a new constitution resulted[3] which was then subsequently followed by further reforms in 1971.[4] Each of these reforms resulted in a progressively weaker and weaker wording to the right to bear arms. The current wording:

The inhabitants of the United Mexican States are entitled to have arms of any kind in their possession for their protection and legitimate defense, except such as are expressly forbidden by law, or which the nation may reserve for the exclusive use of the army, navy, or national guard; but they may not carry arms within inhabited places without complying with police regulations.[5]

The plain language of this constitutional provision makes it clear that the right to bear arms is subject to restraint by the law.[6] This includes designating certain weapons only for military or police use.[7] Mexico followed these limitations with a comprehensive set of laws that regulate the purchase and possession of firearms: the Federal Law of Firearms and Explosives of 1972 (last amended in 2015), the Regulation of the Federal Firearms Law and Explosives, and Articles 160 to 163 of the Penal Code.

A curious result of this regulation is that gun sales are limited to one military-run gun store on a military base located at the outskirts of Mexico City called the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales.[9] About thirty-eight guns are sold a day from this lone gun shop.[10] To get in, an applicant must have six documents prepared: “a birth certificate, a letter confirming employment, proof of a clean criminal record from the attorney general’s office in the applicant’s home state, a utility bill with current address, a copy of a government-issued ID and a federal social security number.”[11]  Once through the door, the store has almost every brand of weapon for sale, but there are limits on the type and caliber that a person can buy: a person can own one handgun and nine rifles, but the rifles are limited to a twelve-gauge shotgun or below .30 caliber rifle.[12]

If there is only one legal gun store within the whole country,[13] why is there a proliferation of guns? Many people blame this proliferation on the ease of access to firearms within the United States and the ability to smuggle these weapons across the border.[14] In fact, the numbers show a staggering contrast between legally purchased firearms and illegally smuggled firearms from the United States:

Mexico’s lone gun store sold 52,147 firearms in 2009-14, a figure dwarfed by the black market trade that’s largely fueled by illegal American imports. Mexican law bars guns from entering without an “extraordinary import authorization,” but enforcement is spotty: 73,684 of the 104,850 guns confiscated in Mexico during the same period were traced to the U.S.[15]

Mexico has had over 164,000 killings involving firearms between 2007 and 2014.[16] Clearly, Mexico has a gun problem even with the strict laws in place.

An article discussing gun violence in Mexico titled, Mexicans Have the Right to Own Guns, but Few Do contains two interesting quotes about the gun debate in Mexico.[17] This article quotes the manager of the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales, the one legal gun store in all of Mexico, as saying:

It’s preferred not to have a gun, even at home, because there could be accidents or worse, accidents within families due to the mishandling of weapons. It’s like having a match close to a fire . . . It’s an obligation of the state to provide security to the people who live in the country, not for you to take justice into your own hands.[18]

The article goes on to quote an average citizen named Luciano Segurajauregui Alvarez discussing the carry permit permitting process:

If I put my papers in . . . they’re going to take about three to four, even six months, and then send me a letter telling me that it’s the obligation of the state to provide security for all people in Mexico, so your permit is denied . . . You can’t assign a soldier to preserve the security of each and every one of the people.[19]

He even went so far as to call the process idiotic.[20]

The difference could not be starker. On one hand, the Colonel in charge of the store claims the government has the duty to protect every citizen and can protect every citizen.[21] On the other, a citizen is claiming that the government will not allow the citizens to protect themselves because the government will protect the citizens, but he goes on to say the reality of the situation is that a government cannot protect every one of its citizens at all times.[22]

An example that shocks the conscious but demonstrates the failure of the Mexican government in protecting innocents is the relatively recent killing of a dual citizen Mexican-American family in Mexico.[23] The killings have been attributed to organized crime, the drug cartels, that control the northern region of Mexico where the family was killed.[24] The Mexican government was not able to prevent these deaths and it showcases the Mexican government’s inability to gain a foothold against the cartels.[25] The current president of Mexico claimed that they would combat this violence and violence in general with social programs, denying President Trump’s offer to help wage war on the cartels and wipe them from the face of the earth.[26]

Realistically, a balance needs to be attained with government protection on one side and citizens’ ability to defend themselves on the other. With the current climate of Mexico and its struggles with corralling the drug cartels, maybe the citizens need to be able to protect themselves. Considering that the corruption even stems to the upper echelons of the Mexican government,[27] maybe Mexico should accept help from other governments that are just as aggrieved by the cartels as the Mexican government itself. Mexico is in the process of finding this balance and it will be interesting to see what portion of the scale gets tipped in the future or if balance is found.

#Mexico #Guns #Cortez #International #Law #BlogPost

[1] Brennan Weiss & James Pasley, Only 3 Countries in the World Protect the Right to Bear arms in Their Constitutions: the US, Mexico, and Guatemala, Bus. Insider (Aug. 6, 2019), https://www.businessinsider.com/2nd-amendment-countries-constitutional-right-bear-arms-2017-10.

[2] See Constitución Política de la República Mexicana de 1857, art. 10.

[3] Francisco Macías, The History of the Mexican Constitution, Law Librarians of Congress (Feb. 24, 2011), https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2011/02/the-history-of-the-mexican-constitution/.

[4] Firearms-Control Legislation and Policy: Mexico, Law Library of Congress (2015), https://www.loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/mexico.php.

[5] Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos [CPEUM], art. 10.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Mexico, Law Library of Congress, supra note 4; see also Philip Alpers, Amélie Rossetti, & Leonardo Goi, Mexico — Gun Facts, Figures and the Law, Sydney School of Public Health (July 2, 2019), https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/mexico; see also Ley Federal de Armas de Fuego y Explosivos (Federal Law of Firearms and Explosives) [LFAFE], Diario Oficial de la Federación [DOF] (Mex.).

[9] Kate Linthicum, There is Only One Gun Store in All of Mexico. So Why is Gun Violence Soaring?, L.A. Times (May 24, 2018), https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mexico-guns-20180524-story.html.

[10] Id.

[11] Mexicans Have the Right to Own Guns, but Few Do, CBS News (Aug. 17, 2016), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexicans-have-the-right-to-own-guns-but-few-do/.

[12] Id.

[13] Linthicum, supra note 8.

[14] Id.

[15] CBS News, supra note 10 (citing generally the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms).

[16] Id.

[17] CBS News, supra note 10.

[18] Id.

[19] Id.

[20] Id.

[21] See id.

[22] See id.

[23] See Mary Beth Sheridan & Brittany Shammas, Nine Members of Mormon Family, Dual U.S.-Mexican Citizens, Killed in Attack in Northern Mexico; Trump Offers Support, Wash. Post (Nov. 5, 2019), https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/at-least-seven-members-of-mormon-family-brutally-killed-in-northern-mexico/2019/11/05/d303e448-ffbb-11e9-9518-1e76abc088b6_story.html.

[24] Id.

[25] Id.

[26] Id.

[27] US Accuses Mexican Ex-Governor of Corruption, Cartel Bribes, AP News (Feb. 28, 2020), https://apnews.com/331c744fba9f1c1df98a29ed4fb7b6a2.