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Mexico has a firearm homicide rate of ~6.3 murders / 100k people / yr. The United States has a lower rate, 4.62 murders / 100k people /yr [0].

If American guns are the problem, why aren't the gun homicide rates higher in the United States than Mexico?

But at the very least, it sounds like Mexico could benefit from stronger border security, too many guns are flowing across its porous border with the US. How many Mexican lives would a wall save from gun violence?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...

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Has literally anybody said that American guns are "the whole problem"? This seems like a strawman that's simplistic to the point of parody. It's not that people think that guns magically cause murders, it's that people think American guns cause Mexican murders. That doesn't mean American guns cause American murders at the same rate, because (ready for a shock here) America is not Mexico.

FYI, I downvoted the parent because of the tone of the first sentence.

> If American guns are the problem, why aren't the gun homicide rates higher in the United States than Mexico?

One of the answers is money. USA has more of it - for policing, for prisons, for making sure corruption and taking bribes from crime is less of an attractive choice. More poverty and profits of drug trafficking push the homicide numbers up in Mexico.

Of course American guns are not the whole problem but they are the problem alright. Here in Canada from 50 to 75% of illegal guns come from south of border.

>One of the answers is money.

It would be convenient if it were true, but I don't think money is a great explanation. I come from a rural area in the Midwest, the people are very poor (even poorer than the urban poor) but have a lot of guns. Despite being poor and armed, the gun homicide rates are very low (the suicide rates are unfortunately not that low).

Can you help me understand why poor farmers in the midwest don't commit as many murders as similarly poor and armed Mexicans?

I understand you are helping to differentiate between political and social stability and the easy metric "money", however, poor means something very different in Mexico and central America than it does in the Midwest. I agree with you- there's more going on than just money. But your example isn't convincing to me, because there is a huge difference in the financial capability and stability of the very poor in america, and the very poor of our southern neighbors. Also, just because someone in america is very poor doesn't mean they don't benefit from the wealth of our country in other ways- stronger prisons, often better schools and police, though that does vary a bit by community.

The answer to your question was in the comment:

> for policing, for prisons, for making sure corruption and taking bribes from crime is less of an attractive choice

Does this rural Midwest area have an active police presence? How well policed do you think a rural area in Mexico is?

Most rural Midwest areas have very little law enforcement presence. There may be only a few sheriff's deputies on duty at a time to cover a large county. It can take a long time for help to arrive, so residents learn to take more responsibility for themselves.

>Does this rural Midwest area have an active police presence?

Not anything like you'd see in a more developed area. We had a county sheriff - I recall going months without seeing a law enforcement officer, I think we had a police to citizen ratio about 1/4th that of the nearest major city. Over the holidays, even getting emergency services can be really dicey. One time my neighbors were screaming and yelling at each other, we called the police and the dispatch told us that unless we heard it get physical, they wouldn't be able to send an officer out until the next day or the day after.

>How well policed do you think a rural area in Mexico is?

Probably equally as well, but the police in rural mexico are much more likely to be an extension of the cartels than police in the rural Midwest. If those cases, increasing patrols would actually increase cartel power. Until Mexico figures out their corruption issues, it's not clear how things can get better.

The rural areas of much of the US effectively have no police presence. In these regions, the primary law enforcement is the county sheriff (and a few deputies) and they may have responsibility for an area the size of a small European country. You generally don't see them unless you call them. Honestly, murder rates in many of these parts of the US are negligible and people tend to sort out their own issues -- the sheriff often acts as an arbitrator when neighbors can't. Sheriffs are typically elected, local, and have an enormous amount of autonomy within their jurisdiction.

I've seen more "police" in rural Mexico than I have in many parts of the rural US.

Where do the rest of the illegal guns in Canada come from?

From Canada. Despite tighter regulation, guns are still not completely prohibited and many illegal guns start their life as a legal purchase.

Mexico would also benefit if we solved our drug problem. We’ve created a huge economic opportunity for the black market in Mexico. If we really focused on drug rehab instead of just throwing people in jail I bet a lot of the violence in Mexico would go away.

Why can't Mexico perform the basic state function of protecting its citizens from organized violence?

Drug rehab may sound like a panacea, but as it's practiced and administered in America, rehab centers seem to respond to their perverse incentive to treat addicts enough to get them out the door and relapsed back into treatment.

I think we're doing a lot to treat addiction, but Mexico can't count on us to solve the hard problem of addiction. Mexico would be much better served by doing the comparatively easy task of reducing corruption and violence rates to something that reflects its status as a middle-income country with European institutions. Simply making it harder for cartels to thrive and for Mexican politicians/police to profit off of drugs would reduce the amount of drug pushing here in America.

> Why can't Mexico perform the basic state function of protecting its citizens from organized violence?

The drug cartel has better funding. This is why you see El Chapo housed in the US and not Mexico anymore.

Do the drug cartels have better funding? Mexico's Federal Budget was $314 billion dollars last year, estimates put America's illegal drug expenditures in the region of $100 billion [0], I imagine a lot of that money stays within the country. But I don't see how it's possible for Mexican cartels have even 25% of the budget of the government.

Why do you think the Mexican drug cartels have better funding than a government with a budget of $300 billion/yr?

IIRC, El Chapo is in America because Mexican prisons couldn't contain him. All his prison breaks involved corrupt guards, in fact, during his trial it was claimed that El Chapo paid a $100 million dollar bribe to the sitting President of Mexico. I think it's more plausible that Mexicans would rather join in the festival of corruption, saying that the Government is outclassed by the resources of the cartels seems false.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade_in_the_Unit...

Most of the Mexico's federal budget isn't for protecting citizens from violent criminals, if I remember correctly the federal budget for "security" (police, army, navy, etc.) is less than $20 billion dollars.

Why can't Mexico perform the basic state function of protecting its citizens from organized violence?

Because the cartels have made so much money from drugs that they threaten Mexican sovereignty in a lot of regions. The cartels literally operate their own private armies capable of waging war against any government forces that try to police their regions.

This is all due to the fact that the US economy is so big, its appetite for drugs so insatiable, and its arms industry so powerful that the Mexican government can't keep up.

The truth behind you question is that a significant amount of cartel power came from CIA policies in the 80s and 90s.

Illegally funding the contra through cocaine sales is a proven thing in the 80s with confessions of continuing alliances in the the 90s.

The second truth is that it doesn't help that the Spanish governed like they did or further that James K. Polk conspired with Santa Anna and started a war to "acquire" the West, or that the U.S. never paid its half of the deal.

> Why can't Mexico perform the basic state function of protecting its citizens from organized violence?

The basic state function is to protect citizens from unorganized violence.

Fending off organized violence (other than from the state itself) is a goal, but it is frequently not achieved and often not attempted because it's so unrealistic. If Germany really wanted Luxembourg, it would take it, and Luxembourg wouldn't be able to stop it.

I think part of the problem comes from the fact that stopping corruption takes effort, and when people have large differences in power relative to each other then basic state functions deteriorate. The United States seems to have power imbalances which lead to corruption.

For example, see the Jerry Epstein case in Florida: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html

Other examples might include the water problem in Flint, the deterioration of Detroit, or even the violence problem in South Chicago.

Rehabs expanded under the ACA due to the insurance coverage mandate. Quality however has always been suspect. Most rehabs are not evidence based and there are a whole bunch of very shady rehabs in Florida and other places.

RE Mexican govt. protection: If you're the cartel and the police are giving you trouble in a certain area, you have some options: Bribe whoever needs bribing to make it stop. Brazenly shoot up the police station until they all quit. Murder everybody on the force and their families. Or offer to hire them all at 2-3 times the salary and murder the ones who refuse. This is what people are talking about when they say wealth inequality is a destabilizing influence.

RE drug rehab: "Solving" drug addiction would be a sufficient, but unnecessary, way of stopping violence in Latin America. You don't have to tackle that whole big problem; all you have to do is legalize across the board. That makes drug production the province of legitimate businessmen right here in the US, not a vocation that only the poorest/most desperate/most violent/least risk-averse will take on.

> rehab centers seem to respond to their perverse incentive to treat addicts enough to get them out the door and relapsed back into treatment

Interesting. Unrelatedly: how's OkCupid going for everyone?

okcupid never pretended to be good at its job, merely ok.

I've heard (but I don't have a link right now) that legalization of marijuana has already drastically reduced the amount of marijuana being brought into the country, so I expect further legalization to increase this effect. Marijuana is one of, if not the most lucrative drugs for traffickers.

I don't think rehab will have nearly as big of an effect as legalization/regulation. We should be looking for safer alternatives to more dangerous, often abused drugs. For examine, "magic mushrooms" are generally safer than other psychedelics, and LSD can be relatively safely used under supervision (and has potential for medical uses as well), so we should be considering those for legalization as well once marijuana is legalized.

It's far easier to control a problem if you control distribution than if you don't. Attacking it from a rehab angle doesn't solve the biggest problem with drugs: trafficking. Legalization solves that aspect, and taxes on drugs could fund rehab, so it's a win win situation.

Therefore, I want drug legalization as the primary focus for curbing drug-related violence specifically, and violent crime generally, since I believe it will have the largest positive effect for zero cost (in fact, it should be a net win).

> The United States has a lower [homicide] rate

No it has not, the wikipedia article mentions "death rate". "homicide" != "death". About 2/3 of America's death rate is suicide. Canadians statistics show that gun control has no effect on suicide.

Mexico has a violent crime problem driven by drug trafficking. That’s why.

You're clearly looking to veer this into a traditional debate along traditional lines. I don't think you'll find anyone in sociology who believes that any civic problems are monocausal. People who make these kinds of arguments are usually trying to ensure that, on a list of correlation coefficients, your favored cause is not considered highly correlative or "the sole problem," in your words. Inevitably, your next argument will be whataboutism for various other correlations you'd prefer we all look at.

Actually, you'll find that the correlation coefficient between gun availability and homicides/suicides involving a firearm are quite high across countries (0.7 - 0.9) [1,2].

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1485564/pdf/cma...

[2] https://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Abstract/2000/12000/Firearm...

The article that sparked this discussion was about murders. In that context suicide is a red herring.

No, then you didn't even click the article links. From the first study, for example, the correlation with homicide rates is 0.746.

This conveniently ignores that in many ways, the U.S. is actively supplying guns to South America. And child comments ignore CIA effects on the drug trade.

Choose your program, "Fast and the Furious", "Iran Contra", activity in Chile and Panama, the early 90s.

> If American guns are the problem, why aren't the gun homicide rates higher in the United States than Mexico?

Guns don't kill people, a corrupt political and judicial system held at bay by a massive influx of cash and illegal smuggling from gigantic narco trafficing empires at war with each other over the right to make the most money off the US Drug War kills people.

Once the US has the same problems, then gun homicides will be higher here. (however, we are #1 in gun homicides among developed western nations, so we're on our way!)

Both countries could benefit from an EU-style NAFTA that allows for truly free movement of people and goods (no passports, no tariffs, no customs inspections, etc) between borders. Today that proposal would probably be problematic, but the U.S. Mexico and Canada should be pursuing "ever closer union" to borrow the EU's phrase.

Mexico is a crime ridden third world country. What do you think it's citizens are going to do if you open up the border?

How many millions of people do you think the US can suddenly take on? And you don't think they'll bring crime with them?

1) Come work. 2) 1 seems pretty doable. 3 is probably pushing it. Still less than 1% increase, but would be a stretch. 3) yes? We aren’t exactly crime free today. More labor, bigger economy, police and courts and jails would scale up >1%, just as if a bunch of people moved here.

We currently run at just shy of 1% in prison. If we admit a million, 10k criminals wouldn’t even be noticed.

10k criminals won’t commit 10k crimes. It will likely be hundreds of thousands of crimes. Not insignificant. Most criminals aren’t one-time offenders.

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