# Why are Mexicans chopping each other up? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 14, 2012, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935 "2012-05-14T23:13:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/61 "2012-05-16T00:03:55Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > OK, ending the national debt might be optimistic but it would be more than sufficient to fund treatment and education services way beyond what are currently available at no cost. The flood of easy access to these services could turn out to have a beneficial societal effect overall despite any downside of legal availability. > > And don’t forget all the costs we would eliminate by not prosecuting drug cases and filling up prisons with nonviolent drug offenders. The military and law enforcement costs in the ‘war on drugs’ at home and abroad are not trivial. These savings alone might be more than the potential tax revenue from legalization. > > Despite all these costs there are more drugs available in the USA now than ever before. They are pretty much easily available to anyone who wants them. I don’t think there would be a sudden spike in meth addicts - but I concede that the possibility exists for some downsides. Prisons and courts are currently overflowing with drug offenders, blood is currently overflowing highways in Mexico and the money that we willingly spend on drugs is going to some very violent people who make so much of it they actually pose a threat to modern police and military. > > If its a given we’re going to buy drugs despite their prohibition (and it is) and that we are spending so much money on drugs people are literally dying for a chance to sell them to us (and they are), then that money might as well go directly to programs that treat and prevent drug addiction in the first place. That simple logic really can’t be oversimplified. Our hands would no longer be bloody from the cartel violence in Mexico. We would be forced to find solutions to our national drug problem at home instead of declaring war on it. It is ugly to look at and there are no simple solutions for the big picture, but in the context of removing ourselves from culpability in the Mexican drug violence that really isn’t their problem and it is just that simple. Hey, you’re preaching to the choir. I was objecting primarily to your math, which was off by a couple orders of magnitude. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/62 "2012-05-16T00:18:51Z")
> [@Harborwolf](#): > > I’ll repeat. These people are reducing humans into smaller bits for public display. It may be a bit of an assumption on my part, but there is clearly a bit of a differing mindset at work here. I honestly doubt that they will just shrug and say, “Well we had a heck of a run. See you in the funny pages,” taking the remaining money and leaving the guns, thugs, and territory behind and forgiving all previous slights committed by rival cartels. It’s not a question of whether or not they might choose to pursue some other of life of crime. The leaders themselves probably would branch or expand into other markets, maybe catering to other vices that are prohibited (gambling, prostitution, etc.) but taking away the cash cow of their operations would eliminate such a vast portion of their profits they would be reduced to regular old run of the mill organized criminals. I don’t think we would see the same level of violence if they were left to fight over shipping routes to Europe or local casinos and whorehouses. It is US drug money, specifically, that empowers them. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/63 "2012-05-16T00:25:02Z")
> [@Harborwolf](#): > > I just don’t see how this is supposed to solve things in Mexico. Drugs are legal and all the cartels just retire? They give up on having control over territory? Stop killing those viewed as enemies and start playing nice because the US has looser regulations on drugs? No, they do what American bootleggers did when Prohibition ended – get out of that business and look for some other racket. Which, as in the case of Prohibition’s end, would be a net improvement. They might even be legitimate businesscritters in one or two generations – or less, like Joe Kennedy. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/64 "2012-05-16T00:30:32Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > Actually over the years Mexico has attempted several times to decriminalize drugs in various degrees. Those initiatives have traditionally been squashed by US diplomatic efforts. Right now some South American countries not as indentured to the US as Mexico are currently discussing the idea. Especially Bolivia, where _cocaleros_ are an actual significant voting constituency as well as a traditional economic sector, and much favored by President Morales. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/65 "2012-05-16T01:05:46Z")
US gun makers have lent a helping hand to the cartels. They supply the warring parties and the Mexican police as well. Nice business for them. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/66 "2012-05-16T01:10:44Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Pfizer and Merck aren’t going to make crystal meth, because the liability risk would be too high. . True, but they do make [noncrystal] methamphetamines, they go into ADD drugs, drugs for people with sleep disorders and other things that need a stimulant. Crystal meth is the moonshine distilled in a lead bearing car radiator of the drug world. Pharm companies make the lab grade versions for their production lines. [just like you can get official USDA certified lab grade cocaine from a pharm company with the right permits and documentation.] ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/67 "2012-05-16T01:12:44Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > There are a lot of highways, a lot of cars, and a lot of guns and drugs. How do you reconcile the amount of drugs confiscated in the US by law enforcement every day yet everyone still having easy access to them anytime they want? It just seems incredibly unfair that an army’s worth of guns are floating around Mexico with impunity, but if I try to sneak my little sidearm with me into Mexico I’m almost certain to get busted. How do they do it? ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/68 "2012-05-16T01:15:50Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > It just seems incredibly unfair that an army’s worth of guns are floating around Mexico with impunity, but if I try to sneak my little sidearm with me into Mexico I’m almost certain to get busted. How do they do it? I’ve read about tunnels and boats. Likely, there’s some corruption and garden variety overland smuggling too. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/69 "2012-05-16T01:31:39Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > US gun makers have lent a helping hand to the cartels. They supply the warring parties and the Mexican police as well. > > Nice business for them. Have they? You have a cite on that, of course. I suppose it’s never a good thing when the US government not only knows but refuses to allow the gun dealers to reject the purchase, only to lose track of said guns which are in turn used to kill Americans as well as Mexicans. But that never happened, this is not the story you’re looking for, Fast and Furious only refers to the movies. If guns from American manufacturers are in fact being used to supply the cartels you can rest assured that they are not the parties responsible for it. One cannot sell more guns when one is shut down for weapons trafficking. Unless you’re the Attorney General, in which case it’s cool. No, I’m not going to let that go. Holder should have been fired in disgrace or, at the minimum, been forced to resign. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/70 "2012-05-16T01:49:13Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > It just seems incredibly unfair that an army’s worth of guns are floating around Mexico with impunity, but if I try to sneak my little sidearm with me into Mexico I’m almost certain to get busted. How do they do it? Maybe, but organized crime and unlimited funding does give them a bit of an advantage over you in a smuggling contest. They could have helpers scouting every highway in an entire state for hundreds of miles with radios and night vision goggles, alerting the network about where roadblocks are setting up and sustain this for as long as they need to. They could bribe officials with staggering amounts of money to simply look the other way. They can afford to keep trying new shipments until one truckload finally gets through. Even if 90% of them get captured it is of no consequence to them. They own military vehicles, helicopters, etc. and have advanced communication and surveillance equipment. As noted earlier, with US drug money bankrolling operations they can remain very competitive against any military or law enforcement efforts to stop them. And you remember that little fiasco called ‘operation fast and furious’ right? If federal agents could allow guns to walk to Mexico in an apparently earnest but blundering attempt to fight smugglers, individuals among them could also allow the same thing if corrupted by their own share of all that money. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/71 "2012-05-16T02:07:24Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > Seriously? What the fuck is wrong down there? Can’t they cut the army loose on the fucking cartels? I think there’s been about 100 beheaded bodies lying on the highway this year. > > Time to drop the hammer of justice! It was siccing the army onto the cartels that \*triggered \*the current upheavals. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/72 "2012-05-16T03:35:55Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > Have they? You have a cite on that, of course. Of course. I just thought it was totally obvious. [http://current.com/shows/vanguard/blog/93520005\_crossing-the-u-s-mexico-border-this-time-following-guns.htm](http://current.com/shows/vanguard/blog/93520005_crossing-the-u-s-mexico-border-this-time-following-guns.htm) > [@](#): > > One reason for the awful death toll in Mexico – more than 47,000 people killed in the last four years – is that there are just so many deadly weapons available to those who want them for the worst reasons. The market for illegal drugs is so lucrative that the competing cartels will do anything to protect and expand their share. > > * * * > > Money from the drug trade fuels a ready market in the U.S., where gun laws are kept in check by a powerful lobby, a popular culture that glorifies guns and a Supreme Court ruling that guarantees the right of Americans to own and carry deadly weapons. Sometimes I wonder that if the drug wars south of the border ever quieted down whether the US dealers and makers would try to stir it up again. [https://files.nyu.edu/od9/public/papers/Cross\_border\_spillover.pdf](https://files.nyu.edu/od9/public/papers/Cross_border_spillover.pdf) > [@](#): > > Does access to arms promote violent crime? We exploit a natural experiment induced by the 2004 expiration of the U.S. Federal Assault Weapons Ban to examine how the subsequent exogenous increase in the availability of lethal weaponry a¤ected violence in Mexico. > > The expiration relaxed the permissiveness of gun sales in border states such as > Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, but not California, which retained a pre-existing state-level ban. Using mortality statistics over 2002-2006, we show that homicides, gun-related homicides and crime gun seizures increased di¤erentially in Mexican municipios located closer to entry ports in these other border states, relative to entry ports in California. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/73 "2012-05-16T03:48:08Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > Of course. I just thought it was totally obvious. > [http://current.com/shows/vanguard/blog/93520005\_crossing-the-u-s-mexico-border-this-time-following-guns.htm](http://current.com/shows/vanguard/blog/93520005_crossing-the-u-s-mexico-border-this-time-following-guns.htm) [That](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Brown_(film)) was for real?! ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/74 "2012-05-16T06:25:49Z")
I read someone speculating that the extraordinary brutality of the Mexican cartel violence was in part inherited from the Aztec past, and the Aztec human sacrifices and sacred mutilations and torture. But whatever, we need to legalize drug use now. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/75 "2012-05-16T06:51:18Z")
Yeah, let’s discuss what your favourite poster on StormFront said rather than an actuarial analysis of legalising drugs. ---
**Author:** ![florez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@florez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/florez)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/76 "2012-05-16T07:09:03Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > I read someone speculating that the extraordinary brutality of the Mexican cartel violence was in part inherited from the Aztec past, and the Aztec human sacrifices and sacred mutilations and torture.. Right, like everybody else’s ancient ancestors were as sweet as cherry pie.:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/77 "2012-05-16T08:00:50Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > Yeah, let’s discuss what your favourite poster on StormFront said rather than an actuarial analysis of legalising drugs. Actually a Danish liberal newspaper, but have it your way. I don’t really care that much. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/78 "2012-05-16T10:21:56Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > Of course. I just thought it was totally obvious. > [http://current.com/shows/vanguard/blog/93520005\_crossing-the-u-s-mexico-border-this-time-following-guns.htm](http://current.com/shows/vanguard/blog/93520005_crossing-the-u-s-mexico-border-this-time-following-guns.htm) > > Sometimes I wonder that if the drug wars south of the border ever quieted down whether the US dealers and makers would try to stir it up again. > > [https://files.nyu.edu/od9/public/papers/Cross\_border\_spillover.pdf](https://files.nyu.edu/od9/public/papers/Cross_border_spillover.pdf) Gun laws are kept in check? Hardly. There are thousands of them. Tens of thousands of them. Also, the Assault Weapons Ban has nothing to do with the availability of firearms. It was a “cosmetic” ban, it banned firearms that had two or more features, none of which altered the essential function of the firearm, merely its appearance. Correlation does not equal causation in any case. Ah, drugs. The “victimless” crime. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/79 "2012-05-16T11:23:14Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > Ah, drugs. The “victimless” crime. Maybe it should be “victimless or crime”. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935/80 "2012-05-16T15:52:13Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I’m afraid it has to be the hammer of justice together with an admission that the war on drugs is really stupid. The same old way of dealing with the problem is just creating more Alcapones with better and bigger armories. THIS!!! I don’t see people risking their lives to smuggle cigarettes or beer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-mexicans-chopping-each-other-up/621935.md?page=5)