2aguy
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- Jul 19, 2014
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An interesting look at the murder rates in the U.S. and Mexican states and counties that line the border.......the counties in the United States...with lots of gun ownership....have less murder than the Mexican states that have strict gun control....
An interesting look at the border and gun issue...
Borderland Homicides Show Mexico's Gun Control Has Failed
On the other hand, Chihuahua and Texas are very big places. Perhaps if we take a more detailed look at the counties right on the border, we'll get a better feel for how things look at the border.
Thanks to Omar Garcia Ponce and Hannah Postel at the Center for Global Development, the work's already been done for me. Here is a map of the border at the county/municipality level:
Source: Center for Global Development
The general scenario remains the same. In fact, the borderland on the US side of the border have fewer homicides than the US overall. The authors note:
The map [above] illustrates the striking disparity between homicide rates on each side of the border. In 2012 (the most recent year available for all locations), Mexican border municipalities experienced 34.5 murders for every 100,000 people. By contrast, the homicide rate in US border counties was only 1.4, far below the US national average (4.7), and a tiny fraction of that experienced by their Southern neighbors. While almost half of the Mexican municipalities along the border experienced more than 40 murders per 100,000 people in 2012 (176 in Tamaulipas’ Ciudad Mier), the highest homicide rate in the US border counties was 12.9 (Yuma, AZ). The next most violent county experienced only 5.4 murders per 100,000 people. Notably, some of the safest locations in the United States are contiguous to many of the most dangerous places in Mexico. Most striking is the contrast between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, two large cities that constitute a binational metropolitan area. Once called “the murder capital of the world,” Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez is only 300 feet from El Paso, “America’s safest city.” In 2012, Ciudad Juárez had 58 homicides per 100,000 people, while El Paso experienced fewer than one (0.6).
So why is there such an immense difference here?
Restrictive Gun Laws in Mexico
The pre-packaged retort to this phenomena often repeated in the media is that the US causes the high homicide rates in Mexico by exporting guns to Mexico. We're told that criminals go into the US, buy guns legally in Texas (for example) and then sell the guns illegally to cartels in Mexico.
Dave Kopel has shown that this claim isn't true. But, even if it were true, it wouldn't explain much by itself since we're left asking ourselves why criminals don' just do the same thing to the same homicidal effect in the United States. If it's so fruitful for violent criminals to buy guns in the US and sell them to organized crime rings, why aren't those criminals doing the same thing in the US?
Well, the answer is the criminals probably are are well armed in the US, and have a lot of guns just like criminals in Mexico do. The difference in actual crimes carried out, however, likely lies in the fact that law abiding Mexicans have been disarmed, while law abiding Americans have not.
Gun laws are very restrictive in Mexico, as The Atlantic notes:
Mexico can hardly be described as a heavily armed society. With around 2.5 million registered gun owners and at least 13 million more illegal arms in circulation, the country has a ratio of just 15 guns for every 100 people, well below the global average.
Unlike in the U.S., civilian possession in Mexico is considered a privilege, not a right and is tightly regulated under federal law since the 1970s.
Extensive background checks are required of all purchasers, and there are heavy penalties and even imprisonment for non-compliance.
Astonishingly, there is just one legal gun shop in the country, compared to more than 54,000 federally licensed firearm dealers and thousands of pawnshops and gun shows scattered across the U.S.
An interesting look at the border and gun issue...
Borderland Homicides Show Mexico's Gun Control Has Failed
On the other hand, Chihuahua and Texas are very big places. Perhaps if we take a more detailed look at the counties right on the border, we'll get a better feel for how things look at the border.
Thanks to Omar Garcia Ponce and Hannah Postel at the Center for Global Development, the work's already been done for me. Here is a map of the border at the county/municipality level:
Source: Center for Global Development
The general scenario remains the same. In fact, the borderland on the US side of the border have fewer homicides than the US overall. The authors note:
The map [above] illustrates the striking disparity between homicide rates on each side of the border. In 2012 (the most recent year available for all locations), Mexican border municipalities experienced 34.5 murders for every 100,000 people. By contrast, the homicide rate in US border counties was only 1.4, far below the US national average (4.7), and a tiny fraction of that experienced by their Southern neighbors. While almost half of the Mexican municipalities along the border experienced more than 40 murders per 100,000 people in 2012 (176 in Tamaulipas’ Ciudad Mier), the highest homicide rate in the US border counties was 12.9 (Yuma, AZ). The next most violent county experienced only 5.4 murders per 100,000 people. Notably, some of the safest locations in the United States are contiguous to many of the most dangerous places in Mexico. Most striking is the contrast between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, two large cities that constitute a binational metropolitan area. Once called “the murder capital of the world,” Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez is only 300 feet from El Paso, “America’s safest city.” In 2012, Ciudad Juárez had 58 homicides per 100,000 people, while El Paso experienced fewer than one (0.6).
So why is there such an immense difference here?
Restrictive Gun Laws in Mexico
The pre-packaged retort to this phenomena often repeated in the media is that the US causes the high homicide rates in Mexico by exporting guns to Mexico. We're told that criminals go into the US, buy guns legally in Texas (for example) and then sell the guns illegally to cartels in Mexico.
Dave Kopel has shown that this claim isn't true. But, even if it were true, it wouldn't explain much by itself since we're left asking ourselves why criminals don' just do the same thing to the same homicidal effect in the United States. If it's so fruitful for violent criminals to buy guns in the US and sell them to organized crime rings, why aren't those criminals doing the same thing in the US?
Well, the answer is the criminals probably are are well armed in the US, and have a lot of guns just like criminals in Mexico do. The difference in actual crimes carried out, however, likely lies in the fact that law abiding Mexicans have been disarmed, while law abiding Americans have not.
Gun laws are very restrictive in Mexico, as The Atlantic notes:
Mexico can hardly be described as a heavily armed society. With around 2.5 million registered gun owners and at least 13 million more illegal arms in circulation, the country has a ratio of just 15 guns for every 100 people, well below the global average.
Unlike in the U.S., civilian possession in Mexico is considered a privilege, not a right and is tightly regulated under federal law since the 1970s.
Extensive background checks are required of all purchasers, and there are heavy penalties and even imprisonment for non-compliance.
Astonishingly, there is just one legal gun shop in the country, compared to more than 54,000 federally licensed firearm dealers and thousands of pawnshops and gun shows scattered across the U.S.
