So Do It

In a bold, brazen, and belligerent (alliteration day!) news conference on January 7, 2025, President-elect Donald Trump boasts

We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. It covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America- what abeautiful name. And it's apppropriate. It's appropriate. And Mexico has to stop millions of people from pouring into our country. They could stop them.

Trump: We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America pic.twitter.com/s22IgcHCW8

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 7, 2025

Mexico, Panama, Canada, Denmark- there may be a nearly endless supply of countries Donald Trump would consider invading in order to satisfy President Musk's insatiable desire for world domination. By contrast, stopping "millions of people from pouring into our country" is a worthy goal. And as luck would have it, we have an opportunity to curtail illegal immigration because we have a reasonably good idea who is enhancing the power of the cartels extensively involved in the business.  

The Washington Post reported on November 1 about the

human smuggling business that has exploded in recent years, enabling a record number of migrants to reach the U.S. southern border. At least 80 percent of unlawful border-crossers hire smugglers, according to a 2023 report by the Department of Homeland Security. Even as Donald Trump and Kamala Harris spar over migration, each presidential candidate pledging tougher controls on the border, smugglers are creating an ever-more-efficient pipeline to get people there.

They guide people through treacherous jungles on the trek from Colombia to Panama. They whisk migrants over remote Guatemalan border crossings and up traffic-clogged Mexican highways. With revenue estimated at $4 billion to $12 billion per year, the smuggling of migrants has joined drugs and extortion as a top income stream for groups like Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels, increasing their economic clout throughout the hemisphere.

Cartels are nothing without their guns and, fortunately, the United States knows where so many of them are coming from. CBS News reported in December

During one of the deadliest chapters in its history, Mexico's government devised a new strategy to curb gun violence; it filed two lawsuits .The first, in 2021, included U.S. gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson and one of their wholesalers. The second, filed a year later, against five U.S. gun stores, claimed they engaged in "reckless and unlawful business practices" that supply dangerous criminals.

An estimated 200,000 to half million U.S. firearms are smuggled into Mexico every year. Mexico asked American attorney Jonathan Lowy to help cut off the gun pipeline, known as the "iron river."

"If you think fentanyl overdoses are a problem, if you think migration across the border is a problem, if you think the spread of organized crime is a problem in the United States, then you should care about stopping the crime gun pipeline to Mexico," Lowy said. "And you need to stop it at its source. Because all those problems are driven by the supply of U.S. guns to the cartels."

Perhaps cartels could be acquiring firearms from the USA as easily- except they cannot, because

Like the U.S., Mexico's constitution grants its citizens the right to bear arms. But unlike the U.S., that right comes with a long list of restrictions.

There's also a big difference in the number of gun dealers. In the U.S., there are more than 75,000 active gun dealers, twice as many as U.S. post offices. While in Mexico, there's just one gun store. It's located in the middle of a heavily guarded military base in Mexico City.

Before customers can even enter, they must show proof they've passed psychological tests, drug screens and extensive background checks. The store sells about 1,000 guns a month, mostly shotguns, small caliber rifles and handguns.

Second Amendment fitishists may argue that gun laws cannot stop these gun sales. However, we find that, yes, the law is an ass because

It's difficult to know which gun dealers could be these so-called "bad actors" because U.S. law prohibits the ATF from publicly releasing specific gun trace information. But 60 Minutes reviewed internal ATF and Mexican law enforcement documents. According to those documents, 566 guns recovered in Mexico over a four-and-a-half-year period were traced back to the Arizona dealers named in Mexico's lawsuit. Nearly 200 of the guns came from one dealer: Ammo AZ, located near Phoenix and owned by Veerachart "Danger" Murphy.

Murphy declined to be interviewed by 60 Minutes, but after Ammo AZ was named in Mexico's suit, he posted a response online.

"If we were actually doing something illegal, ATF, FBI would have already shut us down. And I would be in jail," he said in his online post.

So aside from requiring Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to release specific gun trace information, legislation could correct the situation in which

Under U.S. law, gunmakers have typically been shielded from liability when one of their guns is used during a crime. But Mexico is arguing the manufacturer is "aiding and abetting" gun trafficking to the cartels. Smith & Wesson called that allegation "not true." Smith & Wesson did not respond to a request for comment from 60 Minutes.

It won't be done, of course. It didn't happen when Democrats, most of whom generally support gun safety legislation, controlled the presidency and one or both houses of Contress. And it's even more of a pipe dream that Republicans would move to restrict the supply of firearms to the menally unstable, drug addicts, criminals, or cartels.  Nonetheless, it would be encouraging if Democrats were to blunt the big GOP advantage on the immigration issue by pointing out that Republicans are encouraging the very illegal immigration they seem so exorcised by. 

We "could stop millions of people from pouring into our country," says the President-elect. In twelve or so days, it will be time for the Democratic Party to redefine the issue and challenge the Republican Congress and President to do something about it.

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