You Can’t Make This Stuff Up: Destroying Toy Guns to Fight Crime
Reading SIA’s Update for Jan. 8th, I had to do a double take at one headline, “Mexico City Destroys Toy Guns to Fight Crime.”
No way was that right. Um, yes, the headline was correct.
According to SIA’s story, Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said that officials believe that at least three of every 10 violent crimes in Mexico City is committed with a realistic toy gun.
A toy gun! What’s next?
Here is the rest of SIA’s story:
According to city officials, about 7,000 seized toy guns were destroyed at the ceremony, where Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said at least three of every 10 violent crimes in Mexico City are committed with toy weapons.
The guns were confiscated from shops in Mexico City and the surrounding state of Mexico. Mexico bans virtually all civilian gun ownership and requires that toy weapons be made of transparent or brightly colored plastic. Sunday is Three Kings Day, when Mexican children receive the largest number of holiday gifts.
Official statistics show that there were 82,117 robberies and 1,349 homicides in Mexico City in the first 11 months of 2012, said ABC News.
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In addition, more than 68 percent of the weapons recovered at Mexican crime scenes over a five-year period were traced to U.S. manufacturers or U.S. dealers who import firearms, according to statistics of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Between 2007 and 2011, Mexican law enforcement submitted 99,691requests to the ATF for tracing, and 68,161 of those firearms were determined to come from U.S. makers or were legally imported into the United States by federally licensed firearms dealers, said the El Paso Times.
The ATF said it was unable to determine the source of the rest of the firearms because of missing information about the guns themselves, where they came from and how they got into Mexico.
Read more:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mexico-city-destroys-toy-guns-fight-crime-18135436
