Sign on San Diego freeway warning that it is illegal to carry weapons or ammunition into Mexico
(2023) | F. Armstrong Photography / Shutterstock
In her work along the US–Mexico border, Ieva Jusionyte, an anthropologist and associate professor at Brown University, kept coming across similar stories: people fleeing from gun violence. The fruit of years spent in the field with journalists, federal agents, and members of organized criminal groups, her new book, Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence Across the Border, is an exploration of how violence in Mexico is inextricably linked to the American gun industry.
This history goes back to 1862, when France invaded Mexico and US arms manufacturers supplemented the low demand of domestic business by supplying the Mexican army with weapons that helped win the war.
This relationship persisted until after the Mexican Revolution, at which point Mexican leaders began to fear reliance on foreign arms. Under the consolidated power of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, the new government imposed strict limits on imports and clamped down on citizens’ rights to own guns. Regulation became more stringent over the course of the twentieth century and in 1971, the government passed a law limiting gun sales to a single military base in Mexico City.
Restricted access to guns in Mexico and the prohibition of drugs in the US led to a political economy at the border that Jusionyte defines as “a violence exchange.” The need for illegal drugs in the US spurred business south of the border. As competition over smuggling routes escalated, organized crime groups began taking advantage of lax US gun laws to smuggle guns into Mexico. The subsequent arms race between OCGs and the Mexican state over the last 50 years has led to a state of terror.
In 2019, the Mexican government reported that most Mexicans felt unsafe in their neighborhoods. That year there were nearly 36,000 homicides in Mexico, compared to 16,000 in the US.
From 2006 to 2021, an estimated 380,000 people have been internally displaced due to violence in Mexico. The extreme scale is matched only by the terrible details of violent attacks. The Zetas OCG is often at the center of these tragedies. In 2011, armed members from the group attacked a casino because the owner was behind on protection payments. Over fifty people were killed. The Zetas, like the other OCGs, get most of their weapons from the US.
While precise numbers in any illicit trade are hard to come by, Jusionyte estimates that at least 200,000 guns are now smuggled into Mexico from the US every year, many of them purchased legally from the nearly 10,000 gun stores that are in US states along the southern border. Today, 70 percent of guns that are recovered at crime scenes are of US origin. And homicide by firearm has increased dramatically, from 10 percent in the 1990s to 69 percent in 2018. US guns now play a major role in the Mexican economy, and in the country’s violent crime.
The US government has been aware of the problem of gun smuggling for some time. In 2009, a joint task force formed by the ATF, FBI, DEA, and ICE was created to trace guns from their sales in the US to crime scenes in Mexico. The principal tactic used by the task force was “gunwalking,” in which agents would track the sale of weapons on the US side of the border with the hope of better understanding the criminal networks at play. What this meant in practice was that from 2009 to 2010, the task force let over 2,000 guns cross the border. This “gunwalking” operation, named “Operation Fast and Furious,” came at great cost to Mexican citizens and was ultimately deemed ineffectual, before being shut down.
Exit Wounds gives us a clear picture of the complex network of people that are required to get guns from the US side to the Mexican side of the border. We follow Jusionyte along many smuggling pathways which typically involve a buyer from the OCG, a “straw purchaser” on the US side, and a driver who delivers the shipment of arms across the border.
Without sweeping legislation that would limit the manufacture and purchasing of guns, US authorities are left to go after small-time actors. Jusionyte tells the story of a man she calls Hugo, an army vet and gun enthusiast living in Arizona, who sold AK-47s and other assault-style weapons as a private citizen. As per Arizona law, Hugo was allowed to buy as many of these weapons as he liked. He was even allowed to sell them. But when he was questioned by authorities, he mentioned that he assumed that the guns were being trafficked to Mexico, leading to his eventual conviction on charges of dealing without a license and conspiracy to smuggle goods out of the country, even though he didn’t work for an OCG.
If the problem in the US is having to address the illegal arms trade at a piecemeal rate, Mexican security forces face a much larger problem.
Organized criminal groups are now armed with military style US weapons that often overpower the police and military. OCGs can intimidate police officers into joining their ranks or looking the other way. In 2011, much of the police force of Nuevo Leon had been co-opted by the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas. Those who refused to go along with the OCGs became targets, even high-ranking officers. Homero Guillermo Salcido Trevino, Director for Security and Intelligence Operations in Nuevo Leon, was kidnapped and executed by the Zetas in 2011. He was thrown into an armored vehicle with a grenade.
Jusionyte weaves these historical accounts of public figures with personal encounters she has with people affected by gun violence in Mexico. We hear the story of a young woman she calls Samara, who was a teenager living alone, after both of her parents had migrated to the United States, when she was forced to join the Zetas. At the age of 15, she became the leader of her own cell, before being arrested and spending two years in juvenile detention. After her release, she was forced into hiding for fear of retribution from the Zetas.
The stories we read in Exit Wounds capture the tragedy that guns have brought to Mexican society. In a visit Jusionyte pays to a prison, she watches two young girls, there to see an incarcerated family member, playing with a kite in the prison yard. The kite gets stuck in the razor wire, and no one helps as they attempt to free it. Jusionyte writes: “At last, she grabbed the kite’s tail and pulled it down. But with its fabric ripped by razor wire, the kite could no longer fly.”
Jusionyte goes back to her interview with a man incarcerated for murder. Borrowing her pen, he draws a picture of a torture device used by the Zetas. The heartbreaking vignette illustrates how the trauma of gun violence has become an intergenerational problem.
The Mexican government has thus far been unsuccessful in curbing gun violence. But in 2022, the government tried something new. They brought a civil lawsuit against Smith & Wesson, Barrett, and other US gun companies, arguing that they bore some of the responsibility for the violence caused in Mexico by their products. The case is now being heard by the Supreme Court, which is slated to give its decision in June 2025.
Meanwhile, the United States continues to manufacture firearms at an astounding rate. In 2021, manufacturers upped their numbers to approximately 8 million handguns and 4 million rifles produced. While a militarized border focuses on keeping drugs and people from going north, the guns going south are not a priority. Then their products are trafficked through the complex network of straw buyers and smugglers before they are used to commit violent crimes, making it difficult for the Mexican court to establish the culpability of the gun companies.
While limiting production and getting companies to accept accountability for the intended use of these products (violence) remains a difficult legal battle, Jusionyte points to other changes that can be made from a US policy perspective.
The use of smart technology, such as fingerprint sensors, can assure that only a licensed gun owner can fire a particular weapon. Additionally, US states could limit the number of assault weapons that an individual can purchase per month or altogether; particular deadly weapons such as .50 caliber rifles could be restricted to military use. Ammunition sales can be limited in the same manner that certain pharmaceuticals, such as pseudoephedrine, are regulated to slow the manufacture of methamphetamines.
Ultimately, Jusionyte argues for a regional approach that would support communities affected by gun violence in Mexico and drug addiction in the United States. Her book is an astounding work of courage that shows the reality of what US guns are doing to Mexican society. It forces us to see the border not as a barrier but as a doorway that allows the flow of weapons in one direction and stops people from fleeing them in the other.
