Crackdown on smuggled guns hindered by US laws

For years, Mexican drug traffickers have used gun stores and gun shows in the U.S. as their weapons supermarkets. The world's most murderous drug mafias operate on a border with a country that has the most permissive gun laws in the developed world. Mexican President Felipe Calderon met with President Obama in April and asked the U.S. to do more to curb the flow of weapons smuggled into Mexico. The crackdown has begun, but it's hindered by the liberal U.S. gun laws. Last November, law enforcement in Reynosa, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from Hidalgo, Texas, made this astonishing find: "500,000 rounds of ammunition, 300 assault rifles–mainly [AK-47s] and [AR-15s]–two grenade launchers, and 287 grenades," says Victor Trevino, the Mexican consul in Brownsville, Texas. "That's just in a single seizure."