Opinion Archive

What to Make of Mexican Gun Laws

September 3, 2008

One of the things about Americans that foreigners find most curious is their attitude towards private gun ownership. No other major country has such liberal laws with respect to firearms. Americans not only have the constitutional right to bear arms, recently upheld by the Supreme Court against the (presumably lily-livered) government of the District of Columbia, but they are also darned proud of it. As the blood-curdling refrain goes, "you'll pry my gun from my cold dead hands".

Things could not be more different elsewhere. Londoners pride themselves on their "bobbies" being traditionally unarmed. In Japan, talking about guns is frowned upon in polite conversation. Europeans, in general, consider their low rates of gun ownership as a mark of an advanced civilization. Even in countries that have an important hunting heritage, such as France and Spain, people would never think of buying a pistol to supplement their rifles and shotguns.

In Mexico, owning a gun is also seen as a little uncouth. Firearms are for criminals and drug dealers. You can legally own a .38 caliber gun, and you can own some other types of guns if you belong to a "hunting club" and have registered with the Defense Ministry. But very few people exercise these rights. There is a stigma of illegality to guns in Mexico that also has to do with the amount of legal "grey area" that surrounds their ownership and transport. Further, self-defense laws, which are so incredibly lenient on those who kill others while saving themselves in the US, are not so clear in Mexico. It seems that if an intruder is killed inside your house, the police shouldn't arrest you, but outside you're exposed to all sorts of "preventive" measures.

So, why is there such a difference in attitudes between Mexicans and Americans towards guns? Some people talk about the influence of "cowboy culture" in the US, but Mexico shares much of that heritage. In fact, when the Anglo settlers arrived in the West, they adopted the pre-existing local vaquero culture whole hog. This is why so many words, such as "rodeo", "lasso", "burro", "corral", etc., are imported from the Spanish.

It probably has much more to do with the stark individualism of the American character, the trust they have in their community and their distrust of government. Most of all, Americans give their middle class, law-abiding majority the full benefit of the doubt. Laws are made with them in mind and their right to defend their life and property reigns much more powerfully than anywhere else in the world.

Lock and load

If the US were living through a crime wave similar to the one that is victimizing Mexico, citizens would be organizing and implementing vigilante justice. There is vigilante justice in Mexico, but it usually takes the form of public lynchings in poor communities. Batman, the ultimate tricked-out vigilante, is very much an American phenomenon. When multimillionaire Mexicans, like Alejandro Martí, become indignant about crime they don't arm themselves or create private armies; they organize demonstrations with candles. It is a testament to the way that the professional classes in Mexico dislike being a party to any kind of violence. Unfortunately, it seems that this innocence could well be the death of us.

Welcome to Dodge City

Your correspondent is normally an ardent believer in gun control. But Mexico is currently living the worst of both worlds: criminals have all the firepower they could ask for while law-abiding citizens are left helpless. There is no doubt that self-defense laws should be strengthened and that people with no criminal record should be given the immediate benefit of the doubt when they hurt someone who is trying to rob them.

But we need to go even further. Living beside the most armed nation on Earth also means adapting to this reality. Most guns in Mexico come from the US. Given that we have no hope of strengthening gun restrictions in our neighboring country, and that we have shown ourselves to be patently unable to police our land, it is becoming more and more obvious that our gun laws are just serving to protect the criminals.

As much as it pains this author to say it, the Mexican State can no longer legitimately restrict the right of its citizens to protect themselves with firearms. In the face of its astonishing failure to protect its citizens, it must now get out of the way. As a global solution, it is incomplete and inadequate. But as an individualistic stopgap measure, primal and unfortunate, it has now become necessary.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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