Arms trafficking has long been a controversial subject because smuggling firearms is often for the purpose of criminal or wartime activities.
That means, of course, that firearms that are smuggled someplace, at least if it’s large quantities, usually aren’t being smuggled so that people can protect themselves from aggressors. They’re being smuggled to help enable the aggressors.
Now, there are also those people who simply want a firearm in order to protect themselves from people with evil intent, and when the government prevents these individuals from obtaining a firearm, that’s a very different situation than what we’re talking about.
Because I would argue that it’s more likely that if you’re smuggling 300 firearms, along with accessories and ammunition, into a country that makes it very difficult to have a firearm, you’re doing it to empower organized crime.
At least, that’s what a recent set of arrests at the U.S. border makes me think. Ryan Morgan writes,
Federal authorities arrested and charged a father and son pair with attempting to smuggle more than 300 firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition across the border into Mexico last week.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in an Oct. 28 statement that Emilio Ramirez Cortes and his son, Edgar Emilio Ramirez Diaz, had been arrested on arms trafficking charges. The DOJ identified Cortes as a Mexican citizen who had been residing in the United States legally.
According to a federal criminal complaint, the pair was stopped while attempting to drive two vehicles into Mexico through the Juarez-Lincoln Port of Entry in Laredo, Texas, on Oct. 23.
Now, it’s not just me that thinks that these were most likely firearms meant to enable organized crime. “U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei, who is leading the prosecution,” indicated that the seizure of these firearms, accessories, and ammunition, was part of the fight against Mexican drug cartels.
Which begs the question that anti-2A activists can’t seem to answer: Who is to blame: the firearms manufacturers or the gun runners trying to give guns to criminals?
It seems pretty clear to me that those actively empowering criminals are to blame.
Why?
Because firearms are morally neutral. It’s how they are used which is criminal or not.
