The purchase of weapons in Mexico reached a record high in recent years, characterized by the spiral of violence unleashed by drug cartels in the country.
An official study shows that the acquisition of weapons legally or illegally among the civilian population has steadily increased in recent years to 352,000 in 2018. which means an annual increase of 33%.
The document “Acquisition of Weapons in Mexico 2012-18: Findings of the National Survey of Victimization by Crimes in Mexico”, indicates that the majority of Mexicans who buy weapons for self-defense, “Young men who distrust the police and lives in rural areas or areas with strong criminal activity. “
This is a trend that runs counter to the phenomenon in the United States, where the elderly, especially the elderly, purchase the most weapons.
Another difference with the neighboring country is that in Mexico people with higher education and income are the ones who buy weapons, which breaks with the hypotheses formulated at the beginning of the study.
A clandestine grave in the El Salto Municipality, Jalisco, Mexico. Photo EFE
The report, prepared by Carlos Pérez Ricart, member of the Center for Economic Research and Education (CIDE), based on data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), identifies for the first time the number of weapons in possession of unrelated people involved in crime or drug trafficking.
Pérez Ricart estimates that between 2012 and 2018 at least 1,890,000 households had firearms for their protection 5.5% of all Mexican households.
“If we assume that the average number of people living in a house in our country is 3.6 inhabitants, then we conclude that there were at least 6.8 million people that they could access firearms from the comfort of their home, ”he explained.
Could be more
The specialist states that the number of Mexicans with at least one weapon in the house could be higher than the survey, “because one of the major problems of the surveys is that a large percentage of people do not admit to having guns, even if they do. “
In his comprehensive study, the researcher assures that living in an environment of insecurity exposes people to being victims of crime, which in turn increases the likelihood that an attacked person “feels the need to acquire.” a weapon to defend yourselfespecially because he lost faith in the police. “
“We saw that people who have been victims are usually people who buy weapons. We call this the contagion effect, which works like an epidemic: if you are already a victim, you are more likely to buy weapons,” said the researcher.
The document cites the case of Marcos, 62, who lives in Ecatepec, a huge poor suburb north of the capital. He bought two small arms in 2017 after a robbery at home while on vacation. “We live in a neighborhood where the police are notable for their absence and luckily the robbery took place when we weren’t home, but if we had been to what my family would have defended,” the man said, who also said “I learned shoot at my daughters. “
The problem is the weapons he acquired them on the illegal circuitTherefore, they are not registered with the Ministry of Defense.
Several regions of Mexico, especially the north, in the border provinces with the United States, are dominated by drug cartelsMassacres are very common, products of the struggle between these regional control organizations.
The spiral of violence that has arisen since 2006 shows nearly 350,000 dead and 77,000 missing in the country, and the number continues to rise dramatically.
In this context, the reaction of the civilian population takes place, who decide to arm themselves to defend themselves.
Source: ANSA and Clarín
PB