CARTEL GUNMEN BUY AMERICAN

As the body count in the Mexican drug wars mounts beyond 30,000,
federal authorities have tracked more than 60,000 guns in the past
four years back across the border to American dealers. Congress,
enthralled with the gun lobby, has done nothing about a legal
loophole increasingly at the heart of the carnage -- the dealers'
freedom to make multiple sales of AK-47s and other battlefield
assault rifles without having to report to federal authorities, as
the law requires for handgun sales.

No wonder one dealer felt free to sell 14 AK-47s to one trafficker in
a single day.

The gun lobby previously convinced an obeisant Congress that "long
guns" like military rifles and shotguns were not favored by criminals
and deserved a pass at dealers supposedly catering to sportsmen. But
the drug war toll is proving otherwise, with use of high-power long
guns more than doubling in the past five years as cartel gunmen turn
to the rat-a-tat annihilators easily obtainable across the border.

A big reason for that preference is the failure to require reports on
multiple rifle sales, according to a new inspector general's report
at the Justice Department. In Texas, the traffic is white hot. Eight
of the top 12 dealers in Mexican crime guns are nestled profitably
near the border, according to The Washington Post, which spent a year
penetrating some of the data secrecy that Congress has enacted to
protect the gun industry.

With a more Republican Congress in the wings and Democratic lawmakers
openly fearful of the gun lobby's political clout, there is no
expectation of courageous legislating to close the loophole. But
executive order is another possibility. It has enough traction lately
among Justice Department officials to prompt a "grass-roots alert" by
the National Rifle Association to its four million members, according
to The Post.

It is hard to believe that most ordinary N.R.A. members would not
agree something must be done about the cross-border sale of war
weapons that underpins the drug scourge. If it takes an executive
order to cut the carnage, President Obama should not hesitate.