International impacts of U.S. gun policy

One of the most stimulating things about international affairs, for me, is the struggle to grasp and understand the complex interactions of people, politics, and policies on events around the world, or in neighboring countries. The Western Hemisphere is place I find especially interesting because events in North, Central, and South America very often have impacts on, or (more likely) are influenced by the people, politics, and policies in the U.S., and my city of residence, Washington, D.C.

The issue of guns and gun control is one of those complex and messy issues I love to grapple with. The politics of guns is, as we see every few months in this country, highly personal and deadly serious. Yet, despite ubiquitous attempts to do so, solutions to gun-related crime (including, but not limited to spectacular mass shootings) do not fit on bumper stickers. The issue becomes more complex when we examine U.S. federal and state gun policies in an international context.

The Atlantic had a great writeup on the impacts of liberal U.S. gun policies on violence in Latin America. The article notes that 70 percent of guns seized by Mexican authorities from drug cartels in 2011 were U.S.-made. Importantly, these massive caches of high-calibre weaponry are generally purchased legally but used to disastrous (illegal) ends. The escalated conflict against violent cartels that began in 2006 has left over 60,000 dead in Mexico (the number may well be higher, as the Mexican government stopped releasing official figures, and exact tallies are unreliable).

While it is unreasonable to place the blame for all of these deaths on U.S. policy, the ease with which cartels access military grade weapons (not withstanding Operation Fast and Furious' allowance of some arms to cross the southern border) should at least give pause to those who defend current policies solely on the basis of 2nd amendment rights.

The problem doesn't stop in Mexico. The northern triangle countries of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) are awash in guns--again, many of which purchased in or provided by the U.S. (over the course of Cold War-era civil wars). Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world. El Salvador is not far behind. Easy access to guns is undeniably part of the problem.

While violence is the manifestation of decades (or centuries) of complex and tortured political histories in many Latin American countries (the frequent U.S. contribution to which is the subject of ample literature), Americans have a moral, if not legal responsibility to assess the impacts of their policies on their neighbors.

As if the question hasn't been asked before, where does one's right to carry stop, and another's right to live in security begin? The international dimensions of this question are not irrelevant.

I'm sure many gun advocates would take issue my separating rights to carry vs. right to live in security. My intention is not to question one's right to bear per se, (this is a topic for another conversation, which really shouldn't be separate from the international discussion but...) but to question the unfettered, increasingly unrestricted enjoyment of that right.

The right to buy (or sell) without restriction is not necessarily the same as the right to bear.

Thankfully, the debate following the shootings in Newtown may be pushing Americans to reconsider the ease with which military grade weapons are bought and sold. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Virginia Senator Mark Warner (both enjoy high marks from the NRA) recently signalled their willingness to countenance more restrictive gun legislation. We'll see what happens.