How US Gun Laws Affect the Rest of America

These patrols are going on every night this month and they just got shot at tonight. Is there an American influence on gun culture in Brazil? 100 percent We are ready. What percentage of weapons that come to Mexico do you think go through the actual border checkpoints and see how? easy, that's right, I would say almost everyone, this is not just about access to firearms, it is about building political districts, we can still see traces of the bullet, do you feel like you are in a war zone, to times, yes, right now? We're in the mountains of Sinaloa Mexico I'm in southern Brazil We're in San Pedro More than 44,000 people died from guns in the US last year That's the size of a small town razed because it is very easy to buy guns here but that number is nowhere near the level of violence that we as a country are responsible for because America's guns are not staying in America for almost a year, we are following the gun pipeline that flows from the United States to Latin America. meeting with cartel members in Mexico, police in Honduras, and gun activists in Brazil to investigate how American guns and our gun culture are spreading throughout the region and fueling violence far beyond our borders.

Some parts of this report contained scenes of violence that are difficult to observe. Right now we are in the mountains of Sinaloa, Mexico, this is cartel territory. We are driving to meet a group of armed people associated with the cartel. The Sinaloa cartel is one of the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, shipping cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl throughout the country. world, but we're not here to talk about drugs, tell me about the rifle you have in front of you right now, what is it? How do you know that an entire arsenal of Ak-47 pistols and AR-15s are available north of the border along with other weapons of war like Barrett 50 caliber sniper rifles.

These bullets are in your chest from my bed. Tutorial. Look, you can't get them in Mexico. It's difficult, right? If you buy the Barrett rifle in the United States. How much does one of those cost you? Good boy, wow, if you had to guess how many Barrett 50 calibers there are in Sinaloa right now. Why the 50-caliber Bear, the Barrett 50-caliber, has become the weapon of choice for Mexican cartels during the recent capture of El Chapo's side Video Guzmán cartel gunman used 50-calibers and a fierce shootout with the army. The Mexican government suspects these guns came from the U.S., just some of the estimated 200,000 guns trafficked each year to Mexico and then to other countries. parts of Latin America here in Mexico at least 350,000 people have been murdered or missing since 2006.

Official statistics link at least 70 percent of the guns used in crimes here to distributors or manufacturers in the U.S. Can you tell me about the process of simply bringing weapons from the US to Sinaloa, how does it work? What do you think about the gun

laws

in the United States that make it so easy to have all these stores and anyone can walk in and buy basically whatever they want? Barrett 50 caliber, we are ready, this rifle was seized from cartel traffickers on the way to Mexico. It's being shot by an ATF agent who enforces US gun

laws

, you can feel the concussion that hit me in the chest, it was crazy, 50 calibers like this.

It can pierce armored steel plates and hit targets over a mile away. I can't imagine that, without hearing, a cartel gunman would have used these weapons to shoot down a military helicopter. Fred Milanowski runs the ATF office in southeast Texas, a hub for cartel gun smuggling. It's legal to buy the .50 caliber in the United States, they now cost upwards of eight to ten thousand dollars, so you know they don't. They are sold to many people, but under current law, it is not illegal. In the United States, guns bought and trafficked across the border quickly appear at crime scenes in Mexico.

I mean, we've seen in less than a week that it's a pretty direct channel, so if I find someone willing to sell me their .50 caliber rifle in a parking lot somewhere. I can make that transaction in cash and you at the ATF have no idea that gun has changed hands. That's right, there are no background checks to do when it comes to a person. -selling of people so that those unlicensed dealers can buy 10 15 20 rifles and law enforcement has no visibility on that, it's a problem of course there is no tracking and there is no requirement for them to identify the individual let alone keep records if I bring a bag full of cash to a gun store and buy, you know, 40 AK-47s, is that store required to report that to the ATF?

If you're in one of the four border states, fine, so if I want to buy 40 rifles, I just get to drive a little further north, to Oklahoma, and then that reporting obligation goes away, that's true, that's true , we know that narcotics go north and are converted into cash, and these cartels have the right to challenge to recover this large volume of cash back south so they can We are spending some of that on rifles to smuggle those rifles to across the border. Cartels depend on corruption. What it really looks like is rarely seen by the public, but Vice News obtained this exclusive video from 2016 that shows exactly how it's done at a border checkpoint between Texas and Mexico a man in a green shirt has parked this white van these are agents of Mexican customs but as you can see they noticed something that makes them retreat quite quickly a red truck appears the guy in green puts on a bulletproof vest and the drivers start unloading weapons into the red truck, including what looks like a 50 caliber and other rifles high power, Wolfman finally jumped into the red truck and left for Mexico, abandoning the white truck that turned out to be stolen.

The entire operation occurred in broad daylight and takes less than two minutes and that is how the weapons enter Mexico and this is not a knock on any government official in Mexico for their defense those border agents right there in Mexico are unarmed and these are cartel traffickers, look at these guys, they don't They seem to be afraid of anything, they sure don't know it, from 2018 to 2022. Tim Sloan was the ETF's top official in Mexico, where he helped track down at least 97,000 illegal guns back to the U.S. So what percentage of guns coming to Mexico do you think will come? through real border checkpoints like the ones we are seeing in this video.

Oh, I would say almost all of them. I mean, see, see how easy it is? Why would you do it any other way? US Traffic Guns End Groups Like Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel Responsible for Some of Mexico's Most High-profile Attacks in 2020 Dozens of Cartel Gunmen Tried to Assassinate Mexico City Police Chief In one of the capital's wealthiest neighborhoods, a mass shooting left two bodyguards and a bystander dead and the police chief seriously injured happened right on this corner, this is Beverly Hills, right, this is the Beverly Hills of Mexico and you have 50 gunmen attacking the police chief, yes, near the US ambassador's house, it's really quite remarkable how many bullets they make.

Do you think they were fired in this exchange? Well, there are 37 seats of weapons, 550 calibers, 550 caliber rifles as a matter of course and a firefight, or even a lot of firepower for an attack in Mexico, that is the firepower of the height of the war and Iraq or Afghanistan Sloan and his team were able to trace all the weapons recovered at the crime scene to the U.S. How did you know those weapons came from the United States? We were able to access the weapons within hours of the event and were able to recover the serial numbers and identify the buyers.

Many of those guns went back to people who were already under ATF investigation in a Houston Phoenix outside of Dallas, so potentially 62 people going to the penitentiary for sending those guns to Mexico was a great example of what we can do here in Mexico if we had the support. The Ambassador now has things that he considers important, unfortunately firearms are no longer among those priorities. It sounds like you're saying that in terms of When investigating gun smuggling, gun trafficking there simply aren't the resources it takes to make a difference. Well, there are no resources in the ATF as a whole.

We are in the smallest agencies in the country. We have 2,500 special agents around the world. I think the FBI knows that in New York City there is a lot of gun crime in the United States and very few ATF agents to handle it all, and unfortunately Mexico was not a top priority. Vice News obtained exclusive data showing that hundreds of .50-caliber weapons were recovered in Mexico over the past six years; these illegally trafficked rifles came from stores and distributors across the United States. These weapons are not for sale to the Mexican public nor are assault rifles.

In fact, the country's gun laws are among the strictest in the Western Hemisphere, with only one gun store in all of Mexico there is only one for the entire country it seems like the DMV could even be more bureaucratic civilians police the National Guard everyone is required to get their guns from this shot buying a gun here requires a background check and mental health a waiting period of a couple of weeks and registration so the military can track who owns how far abroad the mexican government estimates that up to 90 percent of the guns recovered at crime scenes here come from American stores and dealers who have sued five gun stores in Arizona and filed a separate lawsuit targeting companies like Barrett, alleging they are doing the wrong thing. fat on purchases made by cartel traffickers.

Alejandro Solorio is the lead attorney in these unprecedented cases. Part of his claim here is that US gun laws have had a direct impact on violence in Mexico, how do you know they are related to the legal alien? There are Americans who are going to say that it is Mexico's responsibility to control their border and prevent these weapons from being illegally smuggled into their country. In the lawsuit, you chose eight companies, some of them are big, but there is one small one. Barrett's rifle solution. Barrett did not respond to multiple requests for Comet in response to Mexico's lawsuit, with the company's lawyers calling the claim that it fuels violence in Mexico nothing more than a speculative conclusion and estimated accusations.

Mexico's case against the gun manufacturers has already been dismissed, but they are currently appealing. Mexico's other pending case also faces an uphill battle, as U.S. laws are designed to protect gun sellers, the only thing we, the United States, can do. as a country could do, that would have a dramatic impact and significantly reduce the flow of guns into Mexico if we had universal background checks, we would obviously have a better chance of keeping our hands off the banned people, what is stopping that from happening? ? I'm seeing the same news that I'm seeing well, it's been, you know, discussed and debated, you know, for over a decade, it seems like a no-brainer, but politics gets in the way.

I'll leave the politics in your hands. Congress passed gun control legislation in 2022 that for the first time specifically bans gun trafficking, but it's still easy for people to buy guns like the Barrett 50 caliber without background checks, and Republicans want to make sure it stays that way. Far-right leaders like Marjorie Taylor Greene have turned the 50 cal into a symbol of freedom. This is a campaign ad using a Barrett rifle to rally its supporters in 2022. I'm going to rip apart the Democratic Socialist agenda statement in response to Taylor Green, her spokesperson called out The idea that the United States is responsible for the gun violence in Mexico cites an absolutely ridiculous premise if in the future the United States changes its gun laws and makes them more difficult.

Are you worried that you won't be able to get the weapons you want anymore? I think people in the United States should know about you and your group. Foreign weapons, such as pistols and assault rifles used by Mexican cartels, eventually make their way further south to Central America in Honduras, where thousands are murdered each year. Gangs are often better armed than police. We are right on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula where the police found a body lying on the side of the road, this is a fairly common thing here and although we still don't know what happened because the forensic team has not arrived, almost all of these types of Murders are gang related When a body is covered in this way, it usually means that the person who has been mutilated cannot touch the body until the forensic team arrives.

It's aforeign country more than almost any other country in the world. The violence stems from decades of poverty and corruption that has allowed criminal gangs to thrive today depend on a constant flow of guns from the US to not only compete with the police, but often even outgun them. . In December 2022, the government began a months-long crackdown across the country by increasing police forces. presence in gang-controlled areas and giving them broad authority to search people's homes and confiscate illegal weapons with the National Police at this time are red zones, places where gangs control neighborhoods that are under curfew from 6 pm to 6 am, these patrols are happening every night this month and they were shot tonight something they say has been happening daily in the foreign compound making sure no one is hiding anyone or anything while their family sits outside watching the kids run around, everyone just watches what happens abroad.

Living in gang-controlled communities like this, everyday life has come to an abrupt halt, constant police operations and a strictly enforced state of emergency

affect

everyone who lives here, criminal or not, but police say this is necessary to disband gangs and remove high-powered weapons. off the streets since December The Honduran National Police say they ar

rest

ed more than 800 gang members and confiscated more than 700 firearms completely because criminals are brave, people like McDonald's who study the violence epidemic in Honduras see that the problem is a problem of weapons. The Violence Observatory where Iestas works recently found that around 80 percent of all murders committed here between 2005 and 2021 involved firearms.

It is well known that the United States is the largest supplier of weapons, but the exact number of weapons coming here from the US is difficult to quantify because there is limited cooperation between Hondurans. police and ATF in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, 62 percent of the guns ATF tracked here can be traced back to U.S. Estates mail at the country's chronically under-resourced hospitals. and overwhelmed doctors don't have time to worry about the roots of the gun epidemic Hello, okay, actually, as we look here, this was a patient who was shot. Here we can still see remains of the bullet.

This is a nine millimeter, that's what we think if they shot him. Let's say like an AR-15, you're probably going to bleed until then before you get to the ER, so the type of bullet, the type of gun, is the difference between getting to the hospital and getting treatment, getting out alive and still driving around dead. the scene, yes, yes. How often would you say that happens like once or twice every other night? Every three nights. Do you feel like you're in a war zone? Sometimes yes yes. Alright. Totally foreign. A small town on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula that is controlled by rival gangs.

A Women group is trying to fight the normalization of all gun violence by providing various forms of support to survivors. Virtually all members of the women's organization called Momokla have been directly attacked by one of the gangs or indirectly

affect

ed by the constant turf wars, including Melania. Reyes, who directs it, is Drayas' frustration, coming from a near-death experience she had about a decade ago when she got caught in a shootout between rival gangs. One of the other survivors was Reyes' friend, Elga Alvamurio, who was pregnant at the time. She is lost. It is moving forward, it is especially difficult here the threat of violence continues around the corner from where they almost died.

Crazy people, let's see if I can stop the foreigners. They are not the only ones who cross our southern border. Our gun culture also accompanies them during the war. of Brazil In the October elections we witnessed the growing influence of a pro-gun movement inspired by the NRA in the United States and one day it could be just as powerful. On January 8, thousands of supporters of former President Zair Bolsonaro storm Brazil's Congressional Supreme Court and Presidential Palace and it appears strikingly similar to the invasion of the US Capitol, they left a trail of destruction in the months leading up to it. at this moment.

We follow a group of Die Hard Bolsonaro supporters, pro-gun activists, they have emerged as a powerful political force and are determined to bring America's love of guns to Brazil, thank you, foreign fighters on Instagram have attracted to tens of thousands of followers who know him as samurai casador or Samurai Hunter. Wow, it was an experience, is it nice? What do you feel? I don't know if I would call. It's good that you were happy. um, I'm happy for you, thank you. Guns are more than just a hobby for Cassador. He wants gun rights to be enshrined in Brazilian law just as they are in the U.S.

When we met Cazador, he was among a list of pro-gun candidates running in the October elections in Abroad there is no right to bear arms and Brazil's Constitution, but former President Jair Bolsonaro made access to weapons central to his 2018 campaign, after taking office in 2019, he signed more than 40 executive orders that repealed Brazil's strict firearms regulations. under his leadership, the number of registered gun owners increased six-fold. I'm in southern Brazil, one of the largest arms conventions in Latin America. There are a lot of people here from all over the world, including American companies, and it's just a married samurai singing.

He is also here as a featured speaker and projects how this year's event performs compared to last year. Brazilians still only own about 4 million firearms compared to 393 million in the US, but the recent rise in gun ownership here means the potential market is huge and is being driven by people like George Washington This Is It he is a licensed collector and in recent years he spent over thirty thousand dollars building an arsenal we found a mine a semi-automatic rifle made in the USA How many guns do you have I hope? When did you start buying all these new weapons?

You have purchased 26 weapons since October of last year. Look, you need 26 weapons without mice per piece? If this argument sounds familiar, it's because it comes straight from the NRA Playbook that appears over and over again in NRA ads. That's right, we are the good guys with guns they talk about the only truly free people who have ever walked this Earth have been armed people I am the National Rifle Association of the United States and I am the safest place in Freedom in which the NRA has a history Brazil before 2005, the gun movement here was practically dead.

Luis Enacio Lula de Silva was president then and backed a referendum asking voters to completely ban the sale of weapons to civilians. As in the US, the campaign worked voters overwhelmingly rejected the ban the idea that civilians should have the right to a gun which is a purely imported argument Robert Mugga has been studying Gun Control in Brazil for a decade Is there US influence on Brazil's weapons? culture 100 Brazilian gun culture has to some extent been invented and imported by American gun advocates. The NRA came to Brazil to support the pro-gun campaign and brought a speech that had never been seen before in Brazil.

Why does the NRA care about Brazil and why does the NRA care about Brazil? The NRA cares about Brazil, make no mistake, the NRA understands the importance of international standards that could affect domestic inte

rest

s in the country. This is not just about access to firearms, but about building political districts. I think what the Bolsonaro family understands is that it is a voting bloc. This is a constituency they can turn to for future elections and they have been doing so very successfully under Bolsonaro. Brazil's pro-gun movement became a political power led by Pro Armas, a pressure group founded in 2020 that is modeled after the NRA they organize.

This campaign rally in July with Bolsonaro's son Eduardo as the keynote speaker. This idea that more guns equal less crime became a rallying cry for the pro-gun movement. Guns make people safer, but the reasons why are controversial, many criminologists attribute it to a temporary truce between gangs, among other factors, in other types of crimes, such as violent bank robberies, are on the rise. , especially in the state of Sao Paulo. Wow, this is just a closet full. of cheap weapons Pedro Evo Correa Santos says that all these weapons were confiscated during the attacks on the Bank. What type of weapon is it?

This is an American rifle. There are 15. Argentina Belgium Belgian weapons have long circulated illegally in Brazil trafficked from other countries. What changed under Bolsonaro. is that gangs could access high-powered weapons through license buyers in the legal market, but it's a shotgun, it was probably a legal weapon in the past, so it was probably sold to a hunter or a sport shooter. Yes, are you worried that guns that are legally cut in Brazil will do so? end up in the hands of criminals yes, because you know that more guns on the streets there will be more guns in criminal hands is there a reason why you think collectors need these types of guns?

I don't know why these girls are criminal weapons. Don't know. I don't know why anyone would want to buy a gun like this. Legal guns are already spilling into the illegal market. In dozens of cases, police have accused licensed gun owners of arming Brazil's most notorious gangs. Brazil is already the homicide capital of the world. By introducing this new equipment into both legal and illegal markets, we have created a problem for Brazil that will last generations. Does the pro-gun movement end with Bolsonaro? I think Pandora's box has been opened and I don't see this happening. Back with or without Bolsonaro, we will see the pro-gun movement continue its influence long after he is gone, whoever lost the election by a hair, less than two percent of the vote, okay, everyone, Samurai Casadore lost too, He joined thousands of other Bolsonaro loyalists.

Protesting for military intervention on December 24, Souza, the weapons collector we interviewed at the convention, was arrested for attempting to detonate a bomb in Brasilia. During his arrest, police confiscated a thousand bullets and eight firearms, including the one he showed us a week later. Lula took office and immediately revoked some of Bolsonaro's gun decrees. His party's right-wing allies gained control of Congress by expanding what has been called the Bullet Caucus program. Lawmakers vowed to pick up where Bolsonaro left off and ensure that his American-inspired gun legacy lives on from the top. and across Latin America we hear the same thing: American guns and gun culture are spreading like a virus, endangering innocent people across the region.

The question is how much blood needs to be shed before the United States recognizes its role in fueling the violence and finally begins to take the problem seriously.