Armed for Corruption

In Arizona, it is common to see men and women walking around with holstered pistols on their hips, in real Wild West fashion. Here, Sig Sauer, Glock and Colt pistols are as well-known as Diet Coke and Big Mac. Just as common are gun shows, gun dealers and all manner of clubs for the gun enthusiast. Wherever you are, a gun shop is never far away, and in the border town of Douglas, the same was true.

The Douglas gun shop is a musty, dirty outfit with an expensive security camera and a man behind the counter wearing yellow-tinted target-shooting glasses and the obligatory holstered pistol. The customers are generally armed, some of them decorated in the traditional cowboy hat, plaid shirts and jeans. 

Along the back wall is an impressive display of fire power: assault rifles of the type that Mexican police generally seize from criminals after shootouts or in raids on safe houses across the border; racks of AK-47s; World War II-era rifles; and hunting rifles.

On a sultry day in March, a man in a cowboy hat leaned casually over the glass counter of the gun shop, inquiring about a small pistol with stopping power, a gift for his wife for protection from illegal immigrants he said frequently attempted to steal food and water from their property. The pistol he was looking for should be small enough to fit in her hand, yet with enough punch to drop an assailant in one shot, he said.

One of the shop’s two owners, who spoke to ISN on condition of anonymity, spun a tale of police corruption that is indicative of the limitations of gun control laws and gun smuggling in the region.

The shop owner recounted an incident in which a Mexican state police agent from Sonora had ordered 500 clips and 5,000 rounds of ammunition, paid in advance, and returned to pick up the goods a few days later. However, when he attempted to cross the border with his cache, he was turned back.

The US government’s bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was not pleased but in the end was forced to back off. According to the external pageFederal Firearms Reference Guidecall_made , while it is against the law to sell arms to illegal aliens, it is not illegal to sell them to people lawfully admitted into the country, nor is it illegal to sell them to foreign law-enforcement officials.

“I had every right to sell those bullets to that Mexican cop,” the shop owner said, patting the law book, which is always close by. Since then, ATF agents have kindly asked the Douglas gun shop not to sell ammunition to Mexican law-enforcement officials.

But on the other side of legal, the shop owner said he rejected around $5,000 in bribes every week.

“Someone comes into this store, fresh out of Mexico, and asks to see a $2,000 pistol, and they offer to pay $7,000 for it if I’ll forget about the paperwork.”

The shop’s co-owner then chimed in: “If some tatted up gang banger comes in here, raising all the hair on the back of my neck and asks to buy a Glock, I’ll go through the motions, otherwise this guy’s gonna come after me for discrimination,” which he suggested could be rather dangerous.

He added, if everything checked out with the Brady Center, the US organization leading the fight to prevent illegal weapons traffic, he had no right to refuse to sell the gun.

However, he said, “I wish there were some code words, or some secret way to communicate to the Brady Center that I don’t want to sell this gun to this particular customer.”

But there is not. The Brady Center has its limits. The attendant on the other line enters the name of the prospective buyer and a Social Security Number into the system and reads back to the gun merchant the system’s output. There is little more discretion involved. In fact, the Brady Center database can only tell gun shop clerks if the person in question has or has not committed a felony or has a criminal record.

When asked what he would do if Mexican organized crime networks came looking for him because he had refused to sell them weapons, the shop owner said: “I’ve taken a few bullets, but I’ve dished out a helluva lot more, and I aim to keep it that way.”  

Supply and demand

Agent Basilio was among those at the thinly-staffed ATF who investigated the case against the Douglas gun shop. He has been on the Arizona gun-smuggling beat longer than most of his colleagues in the main Tucson office. He admitted to ISN at a Tucson gun show that they rarely made it down to Douglas, and never even went as far as Naco, a forgotten border town that is believed to be a hotbed of law-enforcement corruption on both sides of the border.

At the gun show, the registered dealers have to follow the rules and obtain approval from the Brady Center for sales. But there were a few “private” dealers there as well. One man had three rifles, one of them an AK-47, slung over his shoulder and a cardboard sign listing their prices. When I approached the man, I was informed that I could purchase his rifles with “no questions asked.”

Also at the gun show was “Duke” Schechter, head of membership for the Arizona Citizens Defense League. Dressed in what appeared to be the desert version of a Canadian Mounty – ranger hat, bushy moustache, shined boots and holstered pistol – he was manning the group’s booth, which was hoping to recruit new members.

“That damn Screecher of the House ain’t gonna take away our rights!” he said, referring to Nancy Pilosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives.

Duke also said with confidence that “none of the guns in Arizona are going to Mexico.” The ATF was likely to disagree.

Agent Basilio, of course, disagreed strongly. Guns are pretty easy to get your hands on. In the US, if you want to buy more than one pistol within a five-day period, you have to fill out multiple sales forms, which is then delivered to the ATF. This same form is not required for what the ATF calls “long guns,” such as AK-47s and the AR-15 models – those that keep popping up in bloody situations in Mexico. As such, if someone wished to buy 15 “long guns,” and they checked out with the Brady Center, the ATF would never know about it. And there is no background check for ammunition.

In 2007, ISN Security Watch reported that over 2,100 drug-trafficking-related deaths between January and October that year were from weapons purchased in the US. As the frontline of the US war on drugs moves north to the US-Mexican border, the black market for guns comes into focus. Mexican authorities estimate that between 2000 and 2006, some 2,000 guns per day entered Mexico (or 1.4 guns per minute). The Mexican authorities during that same period reportedly seized just over 8,000 of the estimated four million guns that entered the country. The Mexican Attorney General’s office says that the guns originated from the US. In 2004, the US removed a ban on assault weapons, and Mexican criminals have taken advantage of that, especially with their preferred weapons, AK-47s, M-16 assault rifles and AR-15s.

Texas, Arizona and California are widely considered to be the three main source states for guns trafficked into Mexico.

While men like the gun store owner in Douglas are serious about keeping strictly to the books, a combination of high demand in Mexico and a constitutional right to own a firearm in the US keeps open a large hole in border security - one the ATF, with limited funding and man power, is not in any position to close.

And in states like Arizona, where a holstered pistol is just as common as a cell phone, a thriving gun culture keeps any would-be gun control legislation at bay.

“Gun control means hitting your target,” is a common bumper sticker in these parts. And the target destination, in this case, is often in Mexico.