A new report from CBS News explains how Mexican drug cartels are getting Americans to smuggle guns over the border because guns are too hard to find south of the Rio Grande but plentiful in the US. Called Project Thor, the five-year review of gun trafficking found networks of gun purchasing and shipping operations around the US sending guns to Mexican cartels.
It’s not a new problem, and it wasn’t a new problem when the GW Bush administration started Operation Wide Receiver, the prelude to Operation Fast and Furious, in 2006. The US government has been tracking the massive illegal shipments of arms across the southern border for at least 50 years, and its been highly unsuccessful in stopping the flow.
In Mexico, gun sales are highly regulated, but illegal guns are plentiful for the gangs. Mexico has been trying for years to stem the flow of weapons and hold those feeding the availability of weapons responsible. The federal government of Mexico sued some of the largest gun manufacturers and distributors in the US, saying the loose practices with which they sell, distribute and market their guns is directly correlated to the rise of guns used to protect the fentanyl trade in Mexico.