REPORT FINDS U.S. SLOW TO STOP GUN TRAFFICKERS

For years, Mexico's drug cartels killed with reckless abandon using
high-powered guns purchased in Texas, but only now, with thousands
dead and the threat of violence spilling onto American soil, is the
U.S. enlisting a comprehensive strategy to stop weapons traffickers,
contends a new federal report.

About 87 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico over the past five
years that were traced back to their original owners were purchased
in the United States, it finds.

"The availability of firearms illegally flowing from the United
States into Mexico has armed and emboldened a dangerous criminal
element in Mexico, and it has made the brutal work of the drug
cartels even more deadly," said U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, chairman of
the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere,
which commissioned the report.

The weaponry in many instances came from guns shops and gun shows in
southwest border states such as Texas, Arizona, California and New
Mexico, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office.

Last year, the Chronicle reported that in one recent investigation by
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, at least 328
guns -- mostly military-style weapons purchased for a total more than
$352,000 -- were traced from Mexican crime scenes back to Houston gun
stores. The guns were bought by U.S. citizens who had clean criminal
records and lived in the Houston area, but were essentially hired by
drug traffickers to buy the weapons.

Among them were guns used to massacre four police officers and three
secretaries in Acapulco, as well as to kidnap and kill a cattle buyer
in central Mexico.

The report, released Thursday, notes that among the problems in
curbing the flow of weapons have been U.S. laws restricting the
compiling of information on weapons purchasers in the United States.
Other factors are problems with U.S. law enforcement agencies
cooperating with each other, and rampant corruption in Mexico.

Knocking on Doors

Violence has jumped significantly across the border as Mexican
President Felipe Calderon has sought to combat the cartels, throwing
them into disarray as they battle each other as well as government
soldiers and police. Last year, more than 6,200 people were killed in
the violence.

The Obama administration recently unveiled its counternarcotics plan
for the U.S.-Mexico border, which for the first time lays out a
comprehensive strategy for combating illicit arms trafficking, notes
the GAO report. But efforts should have been made years earlier as
the U.S. prepared to provide money to Mexico to help in the country's
cartel war, it says.

Also, the ATF has sent 100 agents to its Houston division to assist
in tracing the ownership of weapons recovered at Mexican crime scenes.

The agency has been reviewing gun dealers' sales records as well as
literally knocking on doors to ask people to explain how weapons they
bought here ended up in Mexican gangsters' hands.

In coordination with the ATF, the National Shooting Sports Foundation
is to launch a campaign next week to remind gun sellers and gun
buyers that it is a felony to buy guns for someone not legally
permitted to do so.

Alexa Fritts, a spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, said
the U.S. should enforce existing gun laws, instead of creating new ones.

"We are talking about a Mexican problem that needs a Mexican
solution," she said.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence,
said he welcomes more discussion about weapons trafficking.

"Anyone who wanted to outfit their private army could do so very
easily in this county," he said.