Sensitivity Training?

From today’s The [Mexico City] News:

BOGOTÁ – Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Patricia Espinosa says Mexico’s government is seeking to “sensitize” the U.S. Congress about the danger that arms trafficking implies for both countries.
Espinosa, who visited Bogotá to attend the inauguration of Colombia’s incoming President Juan Manuel Santos, said “Mexico works through different means to inform U.S. senators about the effects of arms trafficking.”
Arms trafficking not only affects Mexico, but also the U.S. population,” where there are “very dramatic” rates of violence that are higher than Mexico’s, in cities such as Washington and New Orleans, Espinosa said.
The Mexican government estimates that more than 80 percent of the weapons it seizes are made by or smuggled in from its northern neighbor.
“We hope U.S. citizens will start to think about armed violence, which is on every street of the United States,” Espinosa said…

I can’t COMPLETELY blame the Calderón administration for the explosion of violence, especially in the frontier region.  The U.S. Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2004.  There are those who always are quick to note that the spill over weaponry that’s wreaking havoc in OUR border states isn’t all from the U.S. (to which one has to ask why we aren’t seeing more violence in areas away from the U.S. border) and point to the fact that not all the weapons are manufactured in the United States. True enough, but in two minutes I found Bulgarian, Chinese, Russian, Korean, etc. AK-47s available BY MAIL ORDER in the United States:

While “fully automatic” weapons supposedly are not available, one doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist (or even a particularly experienced gunsmith) to use one of the kits — also sold over the internet, and armor-piercing ammunition… no problem:

True, the weapons themselves have to be shipped to a licensed gun dealer, but that seems to be a formality.  Most of the gun sites (I almost wrote “gunsights”) have extremely helpful ordering pages that will help you though the process.

I know Mexicans are “nice”, and have a history of not interfering in other country’s internal political decisions, but the open tolerance of smuggling, the corrupt political system that prevents meaningful control  and the spill-over violence into our border municipios are having a serious impact on national security… The Mexican government doesn’t need to raise U.S. “sensitivity”… it needs to help the neighbors to the north grow a pair.