Reason for Mexico Terror Threat Against U.S. Gunmakers Suggests Government in Pocket of Cartels

“Mexico threatens to escalate US gunmakers lawsuit with terror charges,” The Guardian reported Friday. “Claudia Scheinbaum warns of reciprocal action if Washington designates country’s cartels as terrorist groups.”

“If they declare these criminal groups as terrorists, then we’ll have to expand our US lawsuit… The lawyers are looking at it, but they could be accomplices,” Mexico’s president told the press, adding a time-worn disinformation go-to:

“She said the US justice department itself has recognized that ‘74% of the weapons’ used by criminal groups in Mexico come from north of the border.”

That’s the bit of calculated propaganda that primed ATF to implement Operation Fast and Furious “gunwalking,” creating calls for a renewed “assault weapon” ban (Note: Some of the links that follow go to the Internet Archive and may load slowly). The numbers may vary, but the lie remains constant.

It started out with voices like Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and then-Brady Campaign president Paul Helmke, claiming “American gun sellers supply the cartels with 95 to 100 percent of their guns.” The BBC put it at “90%.” Then it was 80%.

Here’s what they were all intentionally misstating:

“According to ATF’s Tracing Center, 90 percent of the firearms about which ATF receives information are traceable to the United States.”

“About which ATF receives information…” That’s not “all,” that’s what’s been selectively submitted for tracing. A Fox News analysis at the time concluded

“There’s just one problem with the 90 percent “statistic” and it’s a big one: It’s just not true. In fact, it’s not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.”

Here we are in 2025 and those lies are still being thrown out and “reported” unchallenged by media hacks who either don’t know, which makes them incompetent and unqualified informants, or do know, which makes them complicit in the deliberate deception and manipulation of their readers and viewers.

And the lies hardly stop there. Remember, the goal here is to attach like parasites and cripple the civilian market.  How inconvenient that as far back as 2009, the decidedly anti-gun Los Angeles Times actually made a truthful admission:

“Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals. Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semiautomatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.”

If you want to find the sources for real military ordnance finding its way into the hands of the cartels, look no further than Mexico’s southern border or from corrupt government officials taking advantage of U.S. State Department-authorized exports to Mexican police and the military.

And still unresolved from Fast and Furious, by deliberately allowing guns to cross the border without State Department approval  (and that’s an unproven assumption),  ATF agents acting as  “principals” “induced” or “willfully caused” Arms Export Control Act violations, even if they did not  physically “walk” the guns themselves. Per International Traffic in Arms (ITAR) regulations:

“Any person who willfully violates these provisions ‘shall upon conviction be fined for each violation not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.’”

So, back to Claudia Sheinbaum, now threatening to treat U.S. gunmakers like international terrorists while at the same time shielding insanely vicious cartel animals who torture, decapitate, and hang her citizens from bridges for sport, the question is “Why?”

Does anyone seriously think government officials are untouchable, and that they would be in their positions of power if the cartels decided their priority would be to eliminate them?

Naturally, the same media that wants us to believe U.S. gun stores and the Second Amendment are to blame for carnage in a country that imposes every infringement the Democrats want to enact here, doesn’t want that looked into. A companion piece to the article appears in the sidebar titled “Trump’s claim that Mexican cartels and government are allied is not reality” attempts to dissuade us of such notions:

“Of course Mexico has a problem with corruption,” said Carlos Pérez Ricart, a political scientist in Mexico City. “But the Mexican government is not an ally of organised crime. And those who say it is are lying, or simply do not know or understand Mexico.”

Of course. It’s not like they have a formal treaty. But here’s an undeniable reality: Top officials, in all branches of government, the police, and the military, are in the pockets of the cartels. And you don’t know who until they’re caught, like former public security secretary, Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico’s top cop, found guilty of drug trafficking.

Sheinbaum knows she or her family can be taken out at any time if she doesn’t try to turn down the heat, or maybe the cartels will just shoot up another tourist area or commit some other atrocity that could bring her government down. Or maybe DOGE can find U.S. connections and take a look at her financial interests and see where they lead. Why assume someone who wants to disarm us is clean?

For that matter, why should we believe Pérez Ricart, who fires back at accusations of a government/cartel symbiosis with “The US keeps selling guns that end up in Mexico”?

Also see:

• U.S. Guns-to-Mexico Reports Suggests ‘Deja Vu All Over Again’
• State Response to FOIA Lawsuit Questions ATF Arms Export Criminality

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.