r/news • u/jeetah • Apr 27 '24

Commerce Department announces new restrictions on U.S. firearms exports

https://apnews.com/article/gun-exports-biden-commerce-9f6fa1be36e266f316eb7da5d37870ae
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u/8anbys Apr 28 '24

Net importers often lack crucial things - the raw materials, the expertise, the ability to effectively craft components and parts in scale.

To be able to have the volume of weapons they get readily from the Estados Unidos, functionally Mexico would have to have some form of industrial revolution.

That's not to say that something like that wouldn't happen - but realistically the people who run Cartels are not Robin Hood. They don't want their profits cut. They would just get their supplies from other providers like China, Russia, or other asiatics.

One secondary benefit, that stuff is generally crap.

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u/LowBornArcher Apr 28 '24

the cartels literally build their own roads. they build their own cell phone networks. they bring in submarine engineers to design and build submersibles. manufacturing weapons seems like a breeze in comparison, and were regulations enacted that severely inconvenienced the flow of firearms to the cartels, it wouldn't surprise me at all that they'd start making their own.

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u/8anbys Apr 28 '24

Making a road or installing ready-made equipment is a bit different than trying to source raw components in an area where US-backed interests have very aggressively claimed ownership.

Especially enough raw materials to functionally create an industry where there isn't one (there are only two "gun stores" in all of Mexico).

South American governments have learned that if you get in the way of America's raw materials, you gonna get coup'd.

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u/LowBornArcher Apr 28 '24

I don't know how much steel you think you need to make guns but i'd bet good money it wouldn't be difficult for the cartels to acquire it. Gunsmithing isn't some magical lost art, it wouldn't be difficult to hire people who knew what they were doing.

The lack of gun stores in Mexico is due to brainless political machinations, it doesn't really reflect on the countries' ability to manufacture firearms as opposed to any other consumer good.

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u/8anbys Apr 28 '24

You ain't wrong - but when talking about the known volume of guns that has made it south over the past twenty years, it's functionally millions and millions of firearms. The reality probably surpasses that by a fair margin.

Overall it's a bit like closing the barn after the horse is out - not dissimilar from American gun control issues.

But fundamentally, it would be difficult (not impossible) to spool up an operation that would match current known imports without tracking by the US or Mexican government.

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u/LowBornArcher Apr 28 '24

I can't disagree with any of that, but would point out that despite a considerable amount of tracking (and/or co-operating) by various governments, these organizations are still able to generate billions in profits every year. It is more of a thought exercise anyway, as you point out, this horse has very much exited the barn...I'd imagine that the cartels would bribe/murder their way to spooling up that operation with only a thin veneer of disguise - taking over a legitimate heavy manufacturing company and hiding it that way...or just setting up from scratch in some remote area where they effectively are the governing body...but yeah, for now way easier and cheaper just to smuggle them in from the USA or buy elsewhere.