Mexico seized more than 68,000 US guns in the past five years

GlobalPost

Mexican authorities have seized more than 68,000 guns in the past five years that have been traced back to the United States.

According to the Washington Post, the weapon recovery underscores Mexico's complaints that the US is responsible for arming the drug cartels it struggles to keep under control. Six years of violence between warring cartels have killed more than 47,000 people in Mexico.

The data — released by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and covering 2007 through 2011 — said many of the guns in question were found at the scenes of drug-related shootings and others were seized in raids on illegal arms cachés, reported Al Jazeera. The ATF has received information about 99,691 guns and determined that the US was the source for 68,161 of the weapons, 68 percent of the total. That figure is down from past years, when it was estimated to be at 90 percent due to a lack of information being shared between Mexico and the US.

According to Fox News, Mexican president Felipe Calderón said at a North American summit in Washington on April 2 that the US government had not done enough to stop assault weapons from entering Mexico through the US. He said President Barack Obama was making an effort to reduce gun traffic, but that Obama faces "internal problems... from a political point of view."

More from GlobalPost: Felipe Calderón pleads to US: 'No more weapons'

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