Here’s a news story that tells us that Mexican politicians want to loosen up that country’s gun laws.
A Senator from Mexico’s conservative National Action Party (PAN) is backing a bill that would reform the Constitution to allow firearm possession inside private businesses and vehicles. The proposal also seeks to allow bus drivers, cabbies, truckers and other transportation operators to carry firearms to protect themselves, their merchandise and their passengers.
Crazy talk, huh? Who would want to give honest citizens an even chance?
And then there’s this gem:
Mexico doesn’t have much of a gun culture but the country could be on the verge of a heated debate on the right to bear arms.
I guess the author has never seen a Vicente Fernandez movie. Or traveled much in rural Mexico.
What is the deal with the current constitutional ban on firearms, anyway?
[Jorge Luis Preciado, the Senator leading the gun rights reform,] says Mexico’s current firearm possession laws were drafted in 1971 and implemented a year later as small marxist-leaning guerrilla groups rose up in arms in the southern part of the country and as the government orchestrated the killing and disappearance of protesters and dissidents.
Preciado claims gun regulations were more of a tactical move by the administration of then-President Luis Echeverría, often credited with orchestrating the infamous student massacre of 1968, to make sure no group could challenge the army and the State. In short, according to Preciado, it was never about protecting people from shootings.
Insert appropriate gun rights quotes here.
Like all right-headed government plans, this one is doomed to failure.