Made-in-America Guns Are Fueling Death and Destruction in Mexico

THE IMAGES FROM MEXICO looked like a modern global battlefield. Security forces engaged in torrents of gunfire on the beach. Commercial flights into Puerto Vallarta promptly canceled as military helicopters took up airspace to run strafing fire on narco positions below. Highways filled with stalled traffic as buses burned along major routes, the smoke sending visible plumes across the city.

The torrent of violence followed a Mexican military operation Sunday that killed Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the hemisphere. Retaliation moved quickly. Cartel organizations launched an onslaught of armed convoys and road blocks that torched buildings and gas stations in at least 20 states around the country, grinding an entire nation to a halt. In the violence, at least 70 people have died, 25 of which were Mexican military forces.

In an after-action press conference, Mexican authorities were quick to frame the operation as a strategic success — a symbol of cross-border intelligence cooperation and another blow against organized crime.

But when reporters asked about the weapons recovered during the raid targeting El Mencho, Mexican Defense Minister Ricardo Trevilla Trejo offered a more unvarnished assessment. “Eighty percent are of North American origin,” he said plainly, roughly the same proportion of the nearly 23,000 firearms Trejo said the Mexican administration has confiscated since October 1.