President Obama recently visited Mexico to discuss, among other things, the escalating violence in the country, which stems from the growing drug trade.

In his visit, Obama acknowledged that the US shares a piece of the responsibility for the violence in Mexico because of the guns that get smuggled into Mexico from the US.  To his credit, President Obama said he would rather concentrate his efforts on anti-smuggling laws rather than on more restrictive laws on sales of guns in the US.  Although he did admit that the Clintonian Assault Weapons Ban “made sense”, but that “none of us is under the illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy, and so what we’ve focused on is how we can improve our enforcement of existing laws.”  I’m reading that as a positive for now, but stay tuned I’m sure there will be more developments on that front.

Back to my original point, regarding how the US shares the responsibility for the escilating violence in Mexico.  Is it our fault that the Mexican economy is in such bad shape that their people have to resort to illegal means to bring money into the country?  Is it our fault that the best way for Mexicans to make an “honest” dollar is by crossing the border in to the US and working illegally?  Either that or they could team up with a drug cartel and add to the already out of hand violence.

I’m failing to see how the US has caused any of this.  True, many of the guns used by the drug cartels were purchased in the US and smuggled across the border.  To that same logic though, couldn’t one reason that Mexico is to blame for the US drug problem?

Each country has their own unique social and economic issues, which should be addressed.  It doesn’t help either situation though when blame is incorrectly placed on the wrong party.  It especially doesn’t help when it’s our President blaming us for other countries problems.

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