WEAPONS FLOW: CUT OFF CARTEL IMPORTS

It's not surprising nearly half the guns used in Mexico criminal
activity enter that country via Texas. And it's good to hear that not
a significant number are sold in El Paso. However, El Paso is
considered a major corridor for gun-running.

Efforts to blockade the corridor must be heightened, and perhaps
there has been some success of late in doing that.

More and more vehicles are being stopped and checked heading into
Mexico. That, however, is further congesting bridge wait times; it
takes more Customs and Border Protection personnel to check vehicles
and persons in both directions, rather than just the traffic heading north.

One bit of good news came during Congressman Silvestre Reyes' annual
border summit this summer at UTEP. Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz
noted that when criminals are caught in Juarez, they tend to have
fewer weapons in their possession, and the weapons have fewer cartridges.

The Juarez mayor went on to say a new problem is criminal gangs
targeting law-enforcement officers in order to steal their weapons
and ammunition.

Mexican law prohibits its citizens from owning firearms. Thus weapons
are in the hands of either the army, police or the large criminal
element that threatens to bring the government to its knees.
President Felipe Calderon is having a tough time fighting the
powerful drug cartels. There have been more than 28,000 murders since
he launched his offensive in 2006.

Last year, more than 2,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes in
Mexico, and 40 percent of those weapons were sold in Texas, according
to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives.
That's not surprising because Texas borders two of the drug cartel's
warring cities, Juarez right here and Nuevo Laredo across from Laredo.

Another 36 percent of the guns confiscated were traced back to New
Mexico, Arizona and California. They are the other states that share
a border with Mexico.

With this data in hand, U.S. border agencies now can begin to
determine where the weapons are being sold -- likely in big cities
where large caches can be split into smaller shipments designated for
the cartels.

Stopping weapons is just as important as somehow stopping the U.S.
dependency on these illegal drugs. No weapons, no power.

Ramp up the hunt for weapons flowing south to Mexico.