7/23/2006

Gun Ownership in Mexico (or the lack of legal gun ownership)

From a Sunday, January 15, 2006 piece in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas)

"Mexico has one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the hemisphere, permitting ownership of a few types of guns, mostly small caliber. The nation of103 million has fewer than 2,500 registered gun owners, according to a recent report in the Los Angeles Times, and the wait for a license can often be more than a year."


I guess that this might help partially explain why the murder rate in Mexico is so much higher than the U.S.'s.

2 Comments:

Blogger toyfj40 said...

How can MX have a higher "murder rate" than the US?
When a Federale or DrugLord (which owns the Federales)
kills someone, it is not a "crime"
as it is never procecuted...
So, those incidents cannot be included
in a "crime rate"... can they?

====
just being a smart-a** --grin

7/24/2006 1:31 AM  
Blogger John Lott said...

Dear toyfj40:

Those would indeed be included in the murder rate. Drug gang problems are indeed important, though if you are bringing that up by way of explanation for the difference, the US murder rate is also greatly affected by that also. I have no way of knowing which effect might be bigger, though it would be nice to figure out.

7/24/2006 1:37 AM  

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