GUNNING FOR TROUBLE

Texas Dealers Must Stop Fueling Mexican Violence

Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, registered a macabre
milestone last week: its 3,000th homicide in 2010. Reports of the
city's deadliest year on record coincided with publication of a
Washington Post investigation pointing to a big source of Mexico's
deadly violence - Texas gun sales.

Some of the Texas gun sellers see no link between their lax scrutiny
of suspicious arms purchasers and the escalating level of gun
violence south of the border. But when Americans supply weapons used
in Mexico's cartel wars and when dollars from American illicit-drug
purchases fuel the violence, the blood stains all our hands.

Americans can no longer deny this cause and effect. As The Post
report makes clear, Texas dealers are the primary sources of firearms
used in Mexico's ongoing slaughter. The No. 1 seller whose weapons
were traced to Mexican crimes is Carter's Country in Houston. In the
past two years, Mexican authorities have seized more than 115 guns
sold by Carter's.

The Texas gun stores in the report aren't alleged to be breaking
laws. A few even notified U.S. authorities about suspicious
purchasers. But they were the exception.

Law enforcers on both sides of the border complain that U.S. law
overly protects sellers by limiting traces on gun purchasers and
blocking the identities of U.S. dealers when their guns are seized at
Mexican crime scenes.

This isn't so much about handguns and hunting rifles. Mexico's gangs
are going after semi-automatic AR-15s and AK-47s, sniper rifles and
.50-caliber weapons that fire armor-piercing ammunition. A suspect in
one investigation bought 14 AK-47s from a single dealer all on the same day.

The National Rifle Association contends this is a Mexican law
enforcement problem, and American gun laws don't need tweaking. Bill
Carter, owner of Carter's Country, even pokes fun at Mexico's
problem. "Why all the talk about guns going south when so many drugs
are coming north that our cows along the interstate are getting high
off the fumes!" he wrote in an April newspaper advertisement.

Which side are they cheering for? Outgunned Mexican law enforcers
face an even more arduous task restoring order when U.S. suppliers
blindly arm the enemy with high-powered weaponry.

Some gun dealers have pledged greater efforts to halt or report
suspicious purchases, which is laudable. Dealers such as Carter must
take this as the deadly serious problem it is. Nonchalance invites
legislators to stiffen gun laws in ways that these dealers and the
NRA would certainly despise.

The blame falls everywhere - to corrupt Mexicans, American drug
users, money launderers and gun-selling profiteers. The ones who get
the message are those who place a higher value on human life than
getting high or making an easy buck.