1 Why did Mexico become a violent country? Assessing the role of firearms trafficked from the U.S. David Pérez Esparza Department of Security and Crime Science University College London (UCL) Shane D. Johnson Department of Security and Crime Science University College London (UCL) Paul Gill Department of Security and Crime Science University College London (UCL)
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1
Why did Mexico become a violent country?
Assessing the role of firearms trafficked from the U.S.
David Pérez Esparza
Department of Security and Crime Science
University College London (UCL)
Shane D. Johnson
Department of Security and Crime Science
University College London (UCL)
Paul Gill
Department of Security and Crime Science
University College London (UCL)
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Abstract
Whilst most countries have experienced a crime drop in the last few decades, Mexico
experienced a dramatic increase in violent crime since the mid-2000s. In this paper, we
test whether the increase in violence observed in Mexico is consistent with theories of
crime opportunity. In particular, we explore whether the rise in violence between 1999
and 2011 can be explained by an increase in the availability of illegal weapons (a
situational explanation) that resulted from policy changes (and increases in firearms
production) in the bordering U.S.
Analyses are conducted to test whether changes to U.S. gun policy led to an increase in
the production of guns in the U.S., particularly in southern states bordering Mexico. And,
if this in turn, led to an increase in the illegal availability of weapons in Mexico, and
consequently to an increase in homicide. In addition to examining country-wide trends,
we test the theoretical expectation that there was a pattern of distance-decay from the
U.S.-Mexican border.
Our findings suggest that changes to gun policy in the U.S. did increase the supply of
firearms at the Mexican border, which increased opportunities for the trafficking into
Mexico. Moreover, that there was a clear association between firearm availability and
homicide rates. The analyses are thus consistent with the hypothesis that variation (across
space and time) in illegal firearm availability in Mexico provides a parsimonious
explanation for the observed variation in state-level homicide rates. These findings are
observed after accounting for factors associated with traditional explanations of violence.
Figure 5. Illegal gun availability in Mexico (per region) and gun production in Texas and Arizona
Note: The y-axis (left) represent the guns confiscated across the regions in Mexico (overall from 0 to 35,000 firearms). The y-axis (right) represent the guns manufactured in Texas and Arizona. As these
latter data are expressed in hundreds, they represent a range between 1 and 7 million.
Source: INAI (2014) for firearms confiscated in Mexico and ATF (2015) for firearms manufactured in Texas and Arizona
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