Illegally possessed firearms seized by authorities are displayed during a news conference Oct. 9, 2018, in Los Angeles. (Jae C. Hong/AP)Listen5 minShareComment on this storyCommentAdd to your saved storiesSave
Republicans’ incendiary anti-Mexico rhetoric has become largely normalized within the party as it gears up for next year’s elections. In Arizona in particular, it’s white-hot.
“We know they have terrorists coming across the border. The cartels own Arizona,” Republican senatorial hopeful Kari Lake declared at her campaign kickoff in October. This kind of language not only is reckless but also conceals an inconvenient truth: Arizona has become a major locus of the illicit gun trade arming Mexican cartels with weapons from the United States. Data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reveal that, between 2014 and 2018, almost 1 in 5 weapons found in crime scenes in Mexico and traced back to the United States originated in that state.
WpGet the full experience.Choose your planArrowRightLast year, Mexico’s government retaliated, filing a lawsuit against five Arizona gun stores. “Their reckless and unlawful business practices — including straw sales, and bulk and repeat sales of military-style weapons — supply dangerous criminals in Mexico and the U.S.,” the lawsuit reads.
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I recently traveled to Arizona to meet the owner of one of the gun stores targeted by Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration.
Plump, with spiky hair and small, lively eyes, Veerachart Danger Murphy has an effusive personality. He assured me that “Danger” was part of his name from birth. He called Ammo AZ, his business in north Phoenix, the “Apple Store of gun stores” because everything is on display for customers to interact with. The floor, designed for showcasing weapons, resembles Apple’s display tables, allowing customers to spend hours handling hundreds of firearms of different calibers. The yellow walls are adorned with rows of shotguns and semiautomatic rifles, including custom branded weapons. According to Murphy, Marvel-themed AR-style rifles have become “very popular.”
Murphy has a peculiar sense of humor. After the Mexican government’s lawsuit, he doctored up a fake mug shot of himself, with text overlaid: “Wanted Internationally — Arms dealer at large.” When we met, he was sporting a yellow T-shirt he had designed that read, “Ammo AZ vs Mexico.” He continued to wear it during our on-camera interview.
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Despite the accusations and the tragic consequences of Arizona’s gun trade, Murphy said he sees no fault in his business practices. He dismissed the lawsuit as a political stunt, attributing it to former foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard’s electoral ambitions. “It’s a silly lawsuit!” he told me.
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But the Mexican government’s lawsuit is no laughing matter. It suggests that armories including Ammo AZ are part of a gun-trafficking system that fuels violence in Mexico. The lawsuit alleges that the Arizona gun dealers in question “choose to sell guns using reckless and unlawful practices, despite the foreseeability — indeed, virtual certainty — that they are thereby helping cause deadly cartel violence across the border.”
The lawsuit contends that “cartels especially seek out” stores such as Murphy’s. “Starting in Nogales and traveling northwest on Interstate 19 and Interstate 10 to Phoenix,” it says, a potential smuggler “will travel about 180 miles and pass more than 1,100 gun dealers along the way before reaching Defendant Ammo AZ.” Mexico insists that each business named in the lawsuit “knows the ‘red flags’ that indicate that guns purchased at its stores are destined for the drug cartels in Mexico.” Instead of clamping down on straw, bulk and repeat purchases, the stores “double down on the exact practices that it knows supply the cartels with military-style arsenals.”
Murphy rejected the accusations. He told me potential buyers travel hundreds of miles to his store because of its unparalleled catalogue. “A lot of times, it’s because we’re the only ones that have it in this business,” he explained. “We actually have what they’re looking for.”
Throughout our conversation, Murphy contended that businesses such as his are guarantors of American civil liberties and the last line of defense in a potential conflict, internal or otherwise. He asserted that the gun trade’s dire effects in Mexico were not his responsibility or America’s. According to Murphy, Ammo- AZ conducts its business by the book, running background checks to prevent straw purchases and undergoing frequent ATF audits. He argued that it’s not the store’s fault if some weapons fall into the wrong hands, stating, “The solution? Mexico should do more at its border.”
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In Arizona, I also interviewed Belén Olmedo, a lawyer in Phoenix who has represented defendants accused of making straw purchases on behalf of cartels. Most of the time, Olmedo said, her clients have no idea for whom they are buying the weapons, doing it for a few hundred dollars or to avoid threats or extortion. Olmedo said she agreed with the Mexican government’s argument. Armories, she said, are fully aware of the dangers of the illicit gun trade yet take no action. “They have an ethical and moral responsibility,” Olmedo asserted. “They sell the guns. They clearly see the [straw and bulk purchase] patterns. Why don’t they do anything?”
Olmedo’s question demands an answer.
So how to square the circle? In the coming months, the electorate will have plenty of opportunities to grapple with the opioid epidemic and the threat posed by Mexican criminal organizations. However, any debate will be woefully incomplete without an honest discussion of America’s gun-industrial complex and its role in arming the same cartels that send drugs across the border and have plunged parts of Mexico into lawless despair.
If the gun sellers themselves can’t yet muster the will to take moral and ethical responsibility to do more, can voters find ways to compel them to try harder?
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Republicans’ incendiary anti-Mexico rhetoric has become largely normalized within the party as it gears up for next year’s elections. In Arizona in particular, it’s white-hot.
“We know they have terrorists coming across the border. The cartels own Arizona,” Republican senatorial hopeful Kari Lake declared at her campaign kickoff in October. This kind of language not only is reckless but also conceals an inconvenient truth: Arizona has become a major locus of the illicit gun trade arming Mexican cartels with weapons from the United States. Data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reveal that, between 2014 and 2018, almost 1 in 5 weapons found in crime scenes in Mexico and traced back to the United States originated in that state.
Last year, Mexico’s government retaliated, filing a lawsuit against five Arizona gun stores. “Their reckless and unlawful business practices — including straw sales, and bulk and repeat sales of military-style weapons — supply dangerous criminals in Mexico and the U.S.,” the lawsuit reads.
I recently traveled to Arizona to meet the owner of one of the gun stores targeted by Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration.
Plump, with spiky hair and small, lively eyes, Veerachart Danger Murphy has an effusive personality. He assured me that “Danger” was part of his name from birth. He called Ammo AZ, his business in north Phoenix, the “Apple Store of gun stores” because everything is on display for customers to interact with. The floor, designed for showcasing weapons, resembles Apple’s display tables, allowing customers to spend hours handling hundreds of firearms of different calibers. The yellow walls are adorned with rows of shotguns and semiautomatic rifles, including custom branded weapons. According to Murphy, Marvel-themed AR-style rifles have become “very popular.”
Murphy has a peculiar sense of humor. After the Mexican government’s lawsuit, he doctored up a fake mug shot of himself, with text overlaid: “Wanted Internationally — Arms dealer at large.” When we met, he was sporting a yellow T-shirt he had designed that read, “Ammo AZ vs Mexico.” He continued to wear it during our on-camera interview.
Despite the accusations and the tragic consequences of Arizona’s gun trade, Murphy said he sees no fault in his business practices. He dismissed the lawsuit as a political stunt, attributing it to former foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard’s electoral ambitions. “It’s a silly lawsuit!” he told me.
But the Mexican government’s lawsuit is no laughing matter. It suggests that armories including Ammo AZ are part of a gun-trafficking system that fuels violence in Mexico. The lawsuit alleges that the Arizona gun dealers in question “choose to sell guns using reckless and unlawful practices, despite the foreseeability — indeed, virtual certainty — that they are thereby helping cause deadly cartel violence across the border.”
The lawsuit contends that “cartels especially seek out” stores such as Murphy’s. “Starting in Nogales and traveling northwest on Interstate 19 and Interstate 10 to Phoenix,” it says, a potential smuggler “will travel about 180 miles and pass more than 1,100 gun dealers along the way before reaching Defendant Ammo AZ.” Mexico insists that each business named in the lawsuit “knows the ‘red flags’ that indicate that guns purchased at its stores are destined for the drug cartels in Mexico.” Instead of clamping down on straw, bulk and repeat purchases, the stores “double down on the exact practices that it knows supply the cartels with military-style arsenals.”
Murphy rejected the accusations. He told me potential buyers travel hundreds of miles to his store because of its unparalleled catalogue. “A lot of times, it’s because we’re the only ones that have it in this business,” he explained. “We actually have what they’re looking for.”
Throughout our conversation, Murphy contended that businesses such as his are guarantors of American civil liberties and the last line of defense in a potential conflict, internal or otherwise. He asserted that the gun trade’s dire effects in Mexico were not his responsibility or America’s. According to Murphy, Ammo- AZ conducts its business by the book, running background checks to prevent straw purchases and undergoing frequent ATF audits. He argued that it’s not the store’s fault if some weapons fall into the wrong hands, stating, “The solution? Mexico should do more at its border.”
In Arizona, I also interviewed Belén Olmedo, a lawyer in Phoenix who has represented defendants accused of making straw purchases on behalf of cartels. Most of the time, Olmedo said, her clients have no idea for whom they are buying the weapons, doing it for a few hundred dollars or to avoid threats or extortion. Olmedo said she agreed with the Mexican government’s argument. Armories, she said, are fully aware of the dangers of the illicit gun trade yet take no action. “They have an ethical and moral responsibility,” Olmedo asserted. “They sell the guns. They clearly see the [straw and bulk purchase] patterns. Why don’t they do anything?”
Olmedo’s question demands an answer.
So how to square the circle? In the coming months, the electorate will have plenty of opportunities to grapple with the opioid epidemic and the threat posed by Mexican criminal organizations. However, any debate will be woefully incomplete without an honest discussion of America’s gun-industrial complex and its role in arming the same cartels that send drugs across the border and have plunged parts of Mexico into lawless despair.
If the gun sellers themselves can’t yet muster the will to take moral and ethical responsibility to do more, can voters find ways to compel them to try harder?
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