How US Gun Laws Affect the Rest of America

these patrols are happening every single night this month and they were just shot at earlier tonight is there a U.S influence in Brazil's gun culture 100 percent We Ready what percentage of guns coming to Mexico do you think come through the actual border crossing checkpoints they see how easy it is right I would say almost all of them this is not just about access to Firearms this is about building political constituencies we can still see remains of the bullet do you feel like you're in a war zone sometimes yes right now we're in the mountains of Sinaloa Mexico I'm in southern Brazil we're in San Pedro more than 44 000 people died because of guns in the U.S last year that's the size of a small city wiped out because it's so easy to buy weapons here but that number doesn't come close to capturing the level of violence that we as a country are responsible for because America's guns aren't just staying in America for nearly a year we followed the iron pipeline of weapons flowing from the U.S into Latin America meeting cartel members in Mexico police officers in Honduras and pro-gun activists in Brazil to investigate how American Guns and our gun culture are spreading throughout the region and fueling violence far beyond our borders some of this report contained scenes of violence that are tough to watch [Music] right now we're in the mountains of Sinaloa Mexico this is cartel territory we're driving up to meet a group of armed people associated with the cartel the Sinaloa cartel is one of Mexico's most powerful drug trafficking organizations shipping cocaine meth and Fentanyl around the globe but we're not here to talk about drugs tell me about the rifle that you have in front of you right now what is it how do you know that an entire arsenal of ak-47's AR-15s and pistols is readily available north of the Border along with other weapons of war like Barrett 50 caliber sniper rifles are these bullets on your chest there from my bed tutorial see you can't get these in Mexico it's hard right [Music] if you're buying the the Barrett rifle from the United States how much does one of those cost you good boy wow if you had to guess how many barretts 50 calibers are out there in Sinaloa right now um why the bear at 50 caliber the Barrett 50 caliber has become a weapon of choice for Mexican cartels during the recent capture of El Chapo's Side Video Guzman cartel gunman used 50 calibers and a fierce firefight with the military the Mexican Government suspects these guns came from the U.S just some of the 200 000 weapons estimated to be trafficked every year into Mexico and then on to other parts of Latin America here in Mexico at least 350 000 people have been murdered or disappeared since 2006. official stats Link at least 70 percent of the guns used in crimes here back to dealers or manufacturers in the U.S can you tell me about the process of just getting the guns from the U.S to Sinaloa how does it works [Music] what do you think about the gun laws in the United States that makes it so easy to have all these stores and anyone can just walk in and buy basically whatever they want this is the Barrett 50 caliber we ready this rifle was seized from Cartel traffickers on the way to Mexico it's being fired by an agent from the ATF which enforces U.S gun laws you can feel the the concussion hit me in the chest it was wild 50 calibers like this one can punch through armored steel plates and hit targets from over a mile away I can't imagine that without having the ears on cartel gunman have even used these weapons to take down a military helicopter [Music] Fred milanowski leads the atf's office in Southeast Texas a hub for cartel gun smuggling the 50 cal is legal to buy in the United States now they they go upwards of eight to ten thousand dollars so you know they're not being sold to a lot of people but as the law currently stands they are not illegal to own in the United States how quickly are guns that are being bought and trafficked across the border turning up at crime scenes in Mexico I mean we've seen as quick as less than one week that's a pretty direct pipeline so if I find somebody who wants to sell me their 50 caliber rifle in a parking lot somewhere I can do that transaction in cash and you at the ATF have no idea that that gun has changed hands that is correct there are no background checks to get done when it's a person-to-person sale so those unlicensed dealers can buy 10 15 20 rifles and law enforcement has zero visibility on that is that a problem of course right there's no tracking and there's no requirement for them to even identify the individual much less keep any records if I bring a bag full of cash into a gun store and buy you know 40 AK-47s does that store obligated to report that to the ATF it is if it's in one of the four border states okay so if I want to buy 40 rifles I just got to drive a little bit farther north to Oklahoma and then that reporting obligation goes away that is true that is true we know that narcotics are going north being converted into cash and these cartels have a challenge right to get this bulk cash back down south so they're spending some of it on rifles to smuggle those rifles across the border cartels rely on corruption what that actually looks like is rarely seen by the public but Vice news obtained this exclusive footage from 2016 that shows exactly how it's done at a border checkpoint between Texas and Mexico a man in a green shirt has parked this white truck these are Mexican customs agents but as you can see they noticed something that makes them back off pretty quickly [Music] a red truck appears the guy in green puts on body armor and the drivers start unloading guns into the red truck including what looks like a 50 caliber and other high-powered rifles [Music] finally Wolfman jumped into the red truck and take off into Mexico abandoning the white truck which turned out to be stolen the whole operation happened in broad daylight and it takes less than two minutes and that is how weapons enter Mexico and this is not a hit on any government official in Mexico to their defense those border agents right there in Mexico are unarmed and these These are cartel traffickers look at these guys they don't seem afraid of anything right they sure don't know from 2018 to 2022 Tim Sloan was the top ETF official in Mexico where he helped Trace at least 97 000 illegal guns back to the U.S so what percentage of guns coming to Mexico do you think come through the actual border crossing checkpoints like we're seeing in this video oh I would say almost all of them I mean do you see you see how easy it is right why would you do it any other way [Music] traffic weapons from the US end up with groups like The Jalisco New Generation cartel responsible for some of the most high profile attacks in Mexico in 2020 dozens of the cartel's gunmen tried to assassinate Mexico City's police chief in one of the capital's wealthiest neighborhoods a massive gunfight left two bodyguards and a bystander dead and the police chief badly wounded it happened right on this street corner this is Beverly Hills right this is the Beverly Hills of Mexico and you have 50 armed men attacking the police chief yeah near the home of the United States ambassador really quite remarkable how many rounds do you think were fired in this exchange holy well there's 37 gun seats 550 calibers is 550 caliber rifles like a normal thing and a shootout or is that even a lot of Firepower for an attack in Mexico that's that's the Firepower of the height of the war and Iraq or Afghanistan Sloan and his team were able to track all the weapons recovered at the crime scene back to the U.S how did you know that those weapons came from the United States we were able to get access to the weapons within hours of the event and we were able to recover the serial numbers and identify the buyers many of those weapons came back to people that were already under investigation by ATF at a phoenix out of Houston out of Dallas so potentially 62 people will go to the penitentiary for sending those weapons to Mexico it was a great example of what we can do here in Mexico if we had the support the Ambassador now has things that he finds important unfortunately Firearms is no longer at the top of those priorities it sounds like you're saying that in terms of investigating gun smuggling gun running there's just not the resources that there needs to be to make a difference well there's not the resources in ATF as a whole right we're on the smallest agencies in the country we have 2 500 special agents in the entire world I think the FBI has that in New York City there's a lot of gun crime in America and very few ATF agents to handle it all and Mexico sadly was not a top priority Vice news obtained exclusive data that shows hundreds of 50 caliber guns were recovered in Mexico over the last six years these illegally trafficked rifles came from stores and dealers across the U.S these weapons are not for sale to the Mexican public neither are assault rifles in fact the country's gun laws are among the most strict in the Western Hemisphere with just one gun store in all of Mexico there's only one for the whole country is [Music] it kind of looks like the DMV it might even be more bureaucratic civilians cops the National Guard they're all required to get their guns from this shot buying a weapon here requires a background and mental health check a waiting period of a couple weeks and registration so the military can track who owns what foreign distance the Mexican Government estimates that up to 90 percent of the guns recovered at crime scenes here come from U.S stores and dealers they've sued five gun stores in Arizona and filed a separate lawsuit targeting companies like Barrett alleging they're turning a blind eye toward purchases by Cartel traffickers Alejandro Solorio is the lead attorney in these unprecedented cases part of your allegation here is that the U.S laws around guns have had a direct impact on violence in Mexico how do you know they're related legal foreign there are Americans out there who are going to say it is the responsibility of Mexico to control your border and prevent these guns from being smuggled illegally into your country is in the lawsuit you chose eight companies some of them are big companies but there's one small one in there Barrett's rifles solution [Music] [Music] [Music] Barrett did not respond to multiple requests for comet in response to Mexico's lawsuit attorneys for the company called the claim that it fuels violence in Mexico nothing more than speculative conclusory and estimated allegations Mexico's case against gun makers has already been dismissed but they're currently appealing Mexico's other pending case also faces an uphill battle since U.S laws are designed to protect gun sellers [Music] the only thing that we the United States as a country could do that would make a dramatic impact and significantly cut back the flow of weapons to Mexico if we had Universal background checks obviously we would have a better chance of keeping hands out of prohibited people what's stopping that from happening well so you're seeing the same news that I'm seeing right it's been you know it's been discussed and debated um you know for more than a decade seems like a no-brainer but politics get in the way I'll leave the politics up to you guys Congress did pass gun control legislation in 2022 that for the first time specifically Outlaws gun trafficking but it's still easy for people to buy guns like the Barrett 50 caliber with no background check and Republicans want to make sure it stays that way far-right leaders like Marjorie Taylor Greene have turned the 50 cal into a symbol of Freedom this is a campaign ad using a Barrett rifle to Rally her supporters in 2022 I'm going to blow away the Democrat socialist agenda statement in response came from Taylor green her spokesperson called the idea that the U.S is responsible for gun violence in Mexico quote an absolutely ridiculous premise if in the future the U.S changes its gun laws and makes it harder are you worried that you won't be able to get the guns you want anymore [Music] what do you think people in the United States should know about you and your group foreign [Music] weapons like pistols and assault rifles used by Mexican cartels eventually make their way further south into Central America in Honduras where thousands are murdered each year gangs are often better armed than the police [Music] [Music] we're just outside San Pedro Sula where police have found a body thrown on the side of the road this is a pretty common occurrence here and even though we don't know what's happened yet because the forensics team hasn't arrived almost all of these types of murders are gang related [Music] when a body is covered like this it usually means that the person who's been mutilated no one can touch the body until the forensics team comes foreign than almost any other country in the world the violence stems from Decades of poverty and Corruption which has allowed criminal gangs to thrive today they rely on a steady flow of weapons from the U.S to not only compete with but often even outgun the police everybody in December of 2022 the government began a months-long Crackdown all over the country increasing police presence in gang-controlled areas and granting them broad authority to search people in homes and confiscate illegal guns [Music] with the National Police right now they're red zones places where gangs control neighborhoods that are all under curfew from 6 pm to 6 a.m these patrols are happening every single night this month and they were just shot at earlier tonight something that they say has been happening daily foreign complex making sure that no one's hiding anyone or anything meanwhile their family sitting outside watching kids running around everyone's just watching what's going on foreign s living in gang-controlled communities like this one everyday life has come to an abrupt halt constant police operations and a strictly enforced state of emergency affect everyone who lives here criminal or not but police say this is necessary to disband gangs and remove high-powered weapons from the streets since December the Honduran National Police say they've arrested over 800 gang members and confiscated more than 700 firearms [Music] completely porque delicuentes is valentas is people like McDonald's who study honduras's violence epidemic see the issue is a gun problem The Observatory of violence where iestas Works recently found that around 80 percent of all murders committed here between 2005 and 2021 involved a firearmes e is [Music] it's widely known that the United States is the biggest armed supplier but the exact number of guns that come here from the U.S is hard to quantify because there's limited cooperation between Honduran police and the ATF in 2021 the most recent year for which data is available 62 percent of the guns that ATF traced here LED back to the U.S Estates correspondence in the country's hospitals which are chronically under-resourced and overwhelmed doctors don't have time to worry over the roots of the gun epidemic hola [Music] okay so actually while we're looking here this was a patient that received a gunshot right here we can still see remains of the bullet this is a nine millimeter that's what we think if he was shot with say like an AR-15 he will probably will bleed till then before arriving to them to the emergency so the type of bullet the type of gun is the difference between arriving at the hospital being treated leaving alive and driving dead on on the scene yes yes how frequently would you say that happens like once or twice every two nights every three nights do you feel like you're in a war zone sometimes yes yes okay totally foreign a small city outside of San Pedro Sula that's controlled by rival gangs a group of women is trying to fight the normalization of all the gun violence by providing various forms of support to survivors [Music] virtually every member of the women's organization which is called momokla has been directly targeted by one of the gangs or indirectly affected by the constant turf wars including Melania Reyes who runs it is [Music] drayas's frustration stems from a near-death experience she had about a decade ago when she was caught in a gunfight between rival gangs is [Music] foreign one of the other survivors was reyes's friend Elga alvamurio who was pregnant at the time is [Music] perdida is [Music] [Music] moving on is especially difficult here the threat of violence is ongoing right around the corner from where they almost died Locos [Music] see if I can stop foreign s aren't the only things crossing our Southern border our gun culture is also going with them during Brazil's elections in October we witnessed the growing influence of a pro-gun movement that is inspired by America's NRA and one day you could be just as powerful on January 8th thousands of supporters of former president zair bolsonaro storm Brazil's Congress Supreme Court and presidential Palace and seems strikingly similar to the invasion of the U.S Capitol they left a trail of Destruction [Music] [Music] for months leading up to this moment we followed one group of Die Hard bolsonaro supporters pro-gun activists they've emerged as a powerful political force and they're determined to bring America's love of guns to Brazil thank you foreign [Music] Hunts on Instagram have attracted tens of thousands of followers who know him as samurai casador or Samurai Hunter [Music] wow that was an experience is it nice what are you feeling I don't know if I would call it nice were you happy um I'm happy for you thank you guns are more than just a hobby for cassador he wants gun rights to be enshrined in Brazilian law just like they are in the U.S when we met Cazador he was among a slate of pro-gun candidates running in the October elections foreign [Music] [Music] there is no right to bear arms and Brazil's Constitution but former president jair bolsonaro made gun access Central to his 2018 campaign after taking office in 2019 he signed over 40 executive orders rolling back Brazil's strict Firearms regulations [Music] [Applause] under his watch the number of registered gun owners grew six-fold [Music] I'm in southern Brazil one of Latin America's biggest gun conventions there's a lot of people here of these from all over the world including the American companies and it's just a singing Samurai casadore is also here as a featured speaker [Music] projects how does the event this year compared to last year's event is Brazilians still only have around 4 million Firearms compared to the US's 393 million but the recent spike in gun owners here means the potential Market is huge and it's being driven by people like George Washington This Is It he's a licensed collector and in the last few years he spent more than thirty thousand dollars building an arsenal we found a mine a us-made semi-automatic rifle how many guns do you have I hope when did you start buying all these new guns you've purchased 26 guns since October of last year see do you need 26 guns no mice a piece [Music] [Music] if this argument sounds familiar that's because it's straight from the NRA Playbook featured again and again in NRA ads that's right we're the good guys with guns they talk about the only truly free people who have ever walked this Earth have been armed people I'm the National Rifle Association of America and I'm Freedom's safest place the NRA has a history in Brazil before 2005 the gun movement here was all but dead Luis enacio Lula de Silva was President then and he backed a referendum asking voters to ban gun sales to civilians altogether [Laughter] you strategize and fight back [Music] voters were flooded with television and radio ads about personal freedom just like in the U.S [Music] the campaign worked voters overwhelmingly rejected the ban the idea that civilians ought to have a right to an arm that is a purely imported argument Robert mugga has been studying Arms Control in Brazil for a decade is there a U.S influence in Brazil's gun culture 100 Brazilian gun culture to some extent has been invented and imported by U.S gun Advocates the NRA came to Brazil to support the pro arms campaign bringing a discourse that has never been seen before in Brazil why does the NRA care about Brazil and why would the NRA care about Brazil make no mistake the NRA understands the importance of international rules that could affect domestic interests at home this is not just about access to Firearms this is about building political constituencies I think what the bolsonaro family understand is that this is a voting block this is a constituency they can tap for future elections and they've been doing that very successfully [Music] [Music] under bolsonaro Brazil's pro-gun movement turned into a political Powerhouse in it's led by Pro armas a Lobby group founded in 2020 that's modeled after the NRA they organize this campaign rally back in July with bolsonaro's son Eduardo as a keynote speaker foreign this idea that more guns equals less crime became a rallying cry for the pro-gun movement homicide rates did fall by some 30 since 2017. a statistic bolsonaro said was proof that guns make people safer but the reasons why are disputed many criminologists attribute it to a temporary truce between gangs among other factors in other kinds of crimes like violent bank robberies are on the rise especially in the state of Sao Paulo wow this is just a closet full of of guns cheap Pedro Evo Correa Santos says all these guns were seized during Bank attacks what kind of gun is this is a U.S rifle they are 15. Argentina Belgium Belgium guns have long circulated illegally in Brazil trafficked in from other countries what changed under bolsonaro is that gangs could access high-powered weapons through license buyers on the legal Market but it's a shotgun probably it was legal gun in the past so it's probably sold to a hunter or a sports shooter yes do you worry that gun saw legally in Brazil will end up in the hands of criminals yes because you know more guns on the streets will be more guns on criminal hands is there a reason that you think that collectors need these kind of guns I don't know why these girls are criminal guns I don't know why someone want to buy a gun like this legal guns are already spilling into the illegal Market in dozens of cases police have accused licensed gun owners of arming Brazil's most notorious gangs Brazil is already the homicide capital of the world by introducing this new equipment into the markets both the legal and then into the illegal markets we've created a problem for Brazil that's going to last Generations does the pro-gun movement end with bolsonaro I think Pandora's Box has been opened and I don't see this going back with or without bolsonaro we're going to be seeing the pro arms movement continuing in its influence far after he's gone who lost the election by hair less than two percent of the vote okay everybody Samurai casadore also lost he joined thousands of other bolsonaro loyalists in protest calling for a military intervention on December 24th Souza the gun collector we interviewed at the convention was arrested for attempting to set off a bomb in Brasilia during his arrest police seized a thousand rounds and eight Firearms including the one he showed us [Applause] a week later Lula took office and immediately revoked some of bolsonaro's gun decrees is party and right-wing Allies won control of Congress expanding what's been dubbed the bullet caucus program lawmakers promised to pick up where bolsonaro left off and ensure his U.S inspired gun Legacy lives on from [Music] up and down Latin America we heard the same thing American weapons and gun culture are spreading like a virus endangering innocent people all across the region the question is how much blood needs to be shed before the United States owns up to its role in fueling the violence and finally starts taking the issue seriously [Music]

Channel: VICE News

Views: 319,901

Keywords: VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, VICE on SHOWTIME, vice news 2023, gun violence, gun control, gun laws, 2nd amendment, gun violence fredo santana, Mexican Cartels, Brazil, pro-gun brazil, Iron Pipeline, Hondoras, honduras, Iron Pipeline, iron pipeline guns, iron pipeline states, gun trafficking, drugs gun traffic stop, us gun trafficking laws, us gun trafficking documentary, us guns documentary, latin american gun trafficking, us guns problem

Id: _YrZSmr8pEU

Length: 42min 34sec (2554 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 29 2023