Hi Adam

Without the money the cartels will move to other criminal activity, like kidnapping. It's happened before. I hate omnibus laws, but we really need a coordinated effort (both countries) where the law changes roughly at the same time to remove all avenues of continuing violence and give a peaceful exit opportunity to the "rank and file" of these organizations who want out, while putting the screws on all resources to the gangs themselves, along with a cultural push on both sides of the border that lets everyone find a more positive outcome, along with some law parity across the border with regards to the salient aspects of this problem (i.e. either guns are legal for law-abiding citizens on both US+Mexico or in none, either consumption is punished on both sides or in none, either the law is applied on both sides or none).

I hate to bring up Europe but I read in "The Border: Exploring the U.S.-Mexican Divide" by Danelo that if a bad guy jumps the border between France and Germany, for example, the French cops keep giving chase while asking for backup from Germany, as far into Germany as it takes them to catch the bad guy. That cop still makes the arrest "transaction" and gets to take his bad guy back during that same transaction after some paperwork done on the spot. Once the Mexican police force is cleaned of corruption (and not before) it's something we should probably try as well. You know, coordinating between neighbors instead of blaming each other. :-)

Hi, I remember a stratfor article disputed those numbers. Apparently the "90%" figure comes from "90% of the weapons that are sent to the US to check because they are of obvious US manufacture", which is actually more like 25% of all the found weapons, so the figure is suspect. It is still a large number of weapons, but the point is that in reality the cat is out of the bag. You can't outgun them anymore. Every war is a war of resources. You need to go against their resources, their cashflow, their people, their production. But without US help curbing consumption, it's going to be very hard to win when there is still a multimillion dollar reward waiting less than 800 miles away. Either that or decriminalize, which I don't agree with but I've seen too many close calls not to think about prohibition-era Chicago and what happened there.

Way to paint an entire country as amoral. So of 80 million people, you can't find one that is moral?

Could it be possible that you just haven't ventured outside the tourist traps and the hispanic ghetto in your own city? There's an entire country to the south of you with lots of middle-class people, some of whom build your electronics, and some of whom even run global companies and employ Americans. Try not to let your experiences in Cabo and your sneering at the dudes at the Home Depot parking lot taint your thoughts on an entire country. Visit a Mexico City or Guadalajara middle-class suburb, mingle for a while. You'll be surprised at the friends you may make.

Please take the opportunity to look into the father of the victim, Javier Sicilia; he is a religious poet and a thoroughly moral man. He is famous for making beautiful poems about God and his relationship to man. This is why he has been able to call on so much support across the country.