美国国家公共电台 NPR--Much of firearms traffic from the U.S. to Mexico happens illegally

Much of firearms traffic from the U.S. to Mexico happens illegally

Transcript¹

NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with Ioan Grillo about the illegal flow of guns from the U.S. to Mexico. Majority all arms used in Mexico, where gun control laws are very strict, are bought in the U.S.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The recent mass shooting in Texas took place near the U.S. border, and that border with Mexico was part of the conversation that followed. On MORNING EDITION, state lawmaker Travis Clardy said Texans need their Second Amendment² right to keep and bear arms partly because of where they live.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TRAVIS CLARDY: We have a porous³ southern border, have had since the entirety of the war on drugs. The men, material, drugs and guns can flow into this country in any number of ways.

INSKEEP: Representative Clardy is expressing a widespread view. In Uvalde, resident Pat Jackowski also named the border among his reasons for owning guns.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PAT JACKOWSKI: We're having a huge problem with the border - people coming from everywhere, all over the world. And even the law enforcement will tell you, don't leave home without a gun; protect yourself.

INSKEEP: Other residents made similar remarks to other media, and their concern predates the shooting in Uvalde. Governor Greg Abbott said earlier this spring that he wanted to curb⁴ the flow of drugs, illegal immigrants and weapons into Texas. So we followed up. Is there a problem with guns crossing the border? Ioan Grillo is a journalist based in Mexico City.

IOAN GRILLO: That's a bit of a false statement about the drugs and guns coming from Mexico. It's really a two-way street. And you have a huge amount of drugs coming from Mexico to the United States but then a huge amount of guns going from the United States to Mexico. And the numbers on both sides are mind-boggling. You know, you do have these large amounts of heroin⁵ and now fentanyl and crystal meth and cocaine⁶ crossing the border from Mexico to the United States and, tragically⁷, record deaths in the United States connected to this. But you have this huge amount of firearms going from the United States to Mexico, estimates are more than 200,000 firearms every year trafficked from the U.S. to Mexico - over 10 years, more than 2 million guns. And those guns used by extremely violent groups, cartels, who have carried out a humanitarian⁸ catastrophe⁹.

INSKEEP: Is it legal to export so many weapons from the United States to Mexico?

GRILLO: Most of this huge traffic of firearms from the United States to Mexico is happening illegally. They're driven, and it's quite easy to drive into Mexico. One of the people I profiled, he was driving from Chihuahua to Dallas. He was buying about 12 to 15 AR-15s, and he was stashing¹⁰ them in fridges, in stoves and taking them into Mexico - that way, paying duty on those. Another person I profiled was actually using a cover. It was a U.S. citizen who was laying cable on both sides of the border and was using cover of this cable-laying network and a government ID to drive down into Mexico with gun parts.

INSKEEP: Is this done by the same cartels that are shipping¹¹ drugs north?

GRILLO: Absolutely. The same criminal networks that are moving huge amounts of drugs into the United States are also taking these guns south. The trial of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in New York, they detailed¹² this large amount of gun trafficking that El Chapo's network was involved in and how they were moving thousands of rifles. What was interesting was, in that trial, they convicted El Chapo of drug trafficking; they didn't convict him for gun trafficking. But in the trial, they talked about this. And this gets into various things, one of them being that it's much easier to convict somebody for trafficking drugs than it is to convict somebody for trafficking guns. There is no federal firearms trafficking law, which is something quite surprising I discovered when researching this subject.

INSKEEP: I think you're telling me that the gun trade in America doesn't just add to violence in Latin America; it also harms the United States because it helps to fuel and power this drug trade. Is that what you're telling me?

GRILLO: Absolutely. I think it's true that the legal gun trade in the United States also fuels the drug trade, but it also - more than that, it fuels the violence in Mexico. It fuels the violence in Central America. And you see these same guns going down into Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, where it's very - been very high levels of violence in recent years. You've had huge amounts of people fleeing this and applying for asylum¹³ in the United States. So from the U.S. point of view as well, you're creating a more unstable¹⁴ neighborhood. You're creating large numbers of refugees fleeing to the United States in this same cycle. So you get this issue of guns at the core of U.S. politics, then this issue of refugees, asylum-seekers at the border and these actually both being very connected issues.

INSKEEP: So the guns may not defend me against refugees; the guns are causing the refugees.

GRILLO: Exactly, exactly. The kind of tragedy, really, is that, like, the guns flood down into these countries in Latin America, which have weaker institutions and are unable to cope with the kind of violence, whereas the United States is kind of a paradox¹⁵ in that it has large amounts of guns, large drug market, but it also has this very aggressive, sometimes too aggressive, law enforcement system which manages to create a counterbalance to that.

INSKEEP: Doesn't Mexico have quite strict gun laws?

GRILLO: Mexico has fairly strict gun laws. It actually has a right to bear arms in the Mexican constitution. But to do this - there's only one shop which sells them legally in the whole of Mexico, run by the army. You go, and then you have to present seven types of identification, including a letter from your employer and a clean criminal record. And the cartels, the gangsters¹⁶, they don't use that way of getting guns 'cause they can get them so much more easily buying them in the United States.

INSKEEP: Does this in any way point to the futility¹⁷ of gun control - Mexico has these strict restrictions¹⁸, and criminals just go right around them?

GRILLO: I think to say that gun control will never work is mistaken. If you look at, say, Europe, they've managed to have far less firearms on the street. I think something that kind of holds up the U.S. debate is this kind of idea of a binary¹⁹ on both sides. It's either, you know, for guns or against guns. And it's like - I think it's just simply trying to figure out a regulation that stops guns getting to the most violent criminals. Now, that's obviously not working right now when you have more than 200,000 firearms a year flowing into Mexico and going to some of the most violent criminals on the planet. That's obviously not working. And I feel there's not even really a basic attempt to make this work.

INSKEEP: We've been talking with Ioan Grillo, a journalist based in Mexico City who is author of the book "Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs And Cartels." Thanks so much.

GRILLO: Thank you, Steve.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 amendment   

n.改正，修正，改善，修正案

参考例句：

• The amendment was rejected by 207 voters to 143.这项修正案以207票对143票被否决。
• The Opposition has tabled an amendment to the bill.反对党已经就该议案提交了一项修正条款。

3 porous   

adj.可渗透的，多孔的

参考例句：

• He added sand to the soil to make it more porous.他往土里掺沙子以提高渗水性能。
• The shell has to be slightly porous to enable oxygen to pass in.外壳不得不有些细小的孔以便能使氧气通过。

4 curb   

n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制

参考例句：

• I could not curb my anger.我按捺不住我的愤怒。
• You must curb your daughter when you are in church.你在教堂时必须管住你的女儿。

5 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

6 cocaine   

n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂）

参考例句：

• That young man is a cocaine addict.那个年轻人吸食可卡因成瘾。
• Don't have cocaine abusively.不可滥服古柯碱。

7 tragically   

adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地

参考例句：

• Their daughter was tragically killed in a road accident. 他们的女儿不幸死于车祸。
• Her father died tragically in a car crash. 她父亲在一场车祸中惨死。

8 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

9 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

10 stashing   

v.贮藏( stash的现在分词 )；隐藏；藏匿；藏起

参考例句：

11 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

12 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

13 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

14 unstable   

adj.不稳定的，易变的

参考例句：

• This bookcase is too unstable to hold so many books.这书橱很不结实，装不了这么多书。
• The patient's condition was unstable.那患者的病情不稳定。

15 paradox   

n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物)

参考例句：

• The story contains many levels of paradox.这个故事存在多重悖论。
• The paradox is that Japan does need serious education reform.矛盾的地方是日本确实需要教育改革。

16 gangsters   

匪徒，歹徒( gangster的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gangsters offered him a sum equivalent to a whole year's earnings. 歹徒提出要给他一笔相当于他一年收入的钱。
• One of the gangsters was caught by the police. 歹徒之一被警察逮捕。

17 futility   

n.无用

参考例句：

• She could see the utter futility of trying to protest. 她明白抗议是完全无用的。
• The sheer futility of it all exasperates her. 它毫无用处，这让她很生气。

18 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

19 binary   

adj.二，双；二进制的；n.双(体)；联星

参考例句：

• Computers operate using binary numbers.计算机运行运用二进位制。
• Let us try converting the number itself to binary.我们试一试，把这个数本身变成二进制数。