Report: Gun Industry Militarization Drives Mexico Gun Trafficking
Widespread Sale of Military-Style Weapons Drives Illicit Traffic to Mexico, Increases Armed Attacks on U.S. Law Enforcement Officers, and Facilitates Mass Shootings
WASHINGTON - June 14 - As the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform focuses on alleged failures of the U.S. Justice Department’s program to stop gun trafficking to Mexico, a new study by the Violence Policy Center (VPC) identifies the major force driving the criminal cross-border gun traffic: the gun industry’s cynical militarization of the U.S. civilian gun market.
“Today, militarized weapons--semiautomatic assault rifles, 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifles, and armor-piercing handguns--define the U.S. civilian gun market and are far and away the ‘weapons of choice’ of the traffickers supplying violent drug organizations in Mexico” the study, "The Militarization of the U.S. Civilian Firearms Market" (http://www.vpc.org/studies/militarization.pdf), finds. The study also finds that the gun industry has become so dependent on militarized product lines that 11 of the top 15 gun manufacturers now market assault weapons, adding that “...the gun industry designs, manufactures, imports, and sells firearms in the civilian market that are to all intents and purposes the same as military arms. It then bombards its target market with the message that civilian consumers--just like real soldiers--can easily and legally own the firepower of militarized weapons.”
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/06/14-1
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