Author: Staff

There is currently a heated debate surrounding gun violence and regulation in the U.S. in the wake of mass shootings last month in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., several months earlier, but little has been said about the rampant violence in Mexico perpetrated by criminal organizations armed with American guns. The basic scenario involves a U.S. citizen who buys firearms, typically assault rifles, and then sells them off to someone else who then runs the weapons down to Mexico for criminal use.“Easy and ready access to weapons in the U.S. has been exploited by organized crime in Mexico and used in some of the most gruesome violence you can imagine,” said Eric Olson, director of the Latin American Program at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. “We’re not taking a position on the Second Amendment — that’s just what we’ve observed from the data.”via American Arms Reach Deep Into Mexico’s...

President Barack Obama proposed a new assault weapons ban and mandatory background checks for all gun buyers on Wednesday as he tried to channel national outrage over the Newtown school massacre into the biggest U.S. gun-control push in decades.Rolling out a wide-ranging plan for executive and legislative action to curb gun violence, Obama set up a fierce clash with the powerful U.S. gun lobby and its supporters in Congress, who will resist what they see as an encroachment on constitutionally protected gun rights. Obama presented his agenda at a White House event in front of an audience that included relatives of some of the 20 first-graders who were killed along with six adults by a gunman on December 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.“We can’t put this off any longer,” Obama said, vowing to use “whatever weight this office holds” to make his proposals reality. “Congress must act soon.”via Obama gun control actions –...