Here is an international news story we found that may be of interest to Rio Grande Guardian International News Service readers:
BBC NEWS: Mexico claims that half a million guns flow south from the US every year. Can a lawsuit against American gun manufacturers stem the tide?
Just before sunrise on a warm Friday morning in June 2020, gunmen were waiting for Omar Garcia Harfuch, the city’s then 38-year-old security head, in Mexico City’s upscale Lomas de Chapultepec neighbourhood.
What happened next would be captured on CCTV and the mobile phone cameras of terrified onlookers: the rat-a-tat-tat of bullets as dozens of heavily armed gunmen, some dressed as road workers, blocked his path with a truck and opened fire.
“At that moment I knew we had been ambushed,” Mr Harfuch later told Spain’s El País newspaper. “Then I felt the first shot come through the windscreen”.
By the time the ensuing firefight was over, he had been shot three times. Three others – two bodyguards and an innocent woman selling snacks nearby – lay dead.
The location and the prominent target of the ambush were notable anomalies in Mexico’s bloody drug war.
But the weapons recovered afterward were not: Barrett 50-calibre sniper rifles, pistols and military assault weapons.
All are produced and sold by US-based gun manufacturers.
The attack against Mr Harfuch, along with hundreds of other incidents, now form a key part of a lawsuit brought by the Mexican government against US-based gunmakers and wholesalers, including Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Colt, Glock and Ruger.
Editor’s Note: Click here to read the full story on the BBC News website.
Editor’s Note: The main image accompanying the above news story shows weapons that originated in the United States that were captured by the Mexican Army in Tamaulipas. (File photo credit: Blanca Zumaya/Notimex)
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