Mexico’s one gun store

Mexico’s constitution guarantees the right of citizens to own firearms.  But it also allows the government to regulate them.  So there is only one gun store in the whole country, and should you go there, it is still almost impossible to buy a gun.

Mexico, of course, is plagued with gun violence on a colossal scale, since the criminal class is extremely well-armed.

From Nick Wagner, At Mexico’s lone gun store, even the boss discourages sales | Associated Press.  The Seattle Times:

There’s just one place in all of Mexico where you can legally buy a gun. It’s tucked away in an anonymous building on an army base in the capital, staffed by soldiers.

Those who enter must surrender any cellphones, tablets or cameras, remove caps and pass through a metal detector. Weapons are kept in locked glass cases, unlike many of the 50,000-plus U.S. gun shops where used-gun racks on showroom floors allow easy access and clerks are happy to let you heft an unloaded firearm.

Mexico’s constitution guarantees citizens’ right to own a handgun and hunting rifles for self-defense and sport. Legally getting your hands on one, however, requires clearing a series of bureaucratic hurdles far stricter than in the United States and, for many, travelling great distances to reach the country’s lone gun store.

In fact, most of Mexico’s 120 million inhabitants probably don’t even know about the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales — it is prohibited from advertising any of its goods, or the mere fact that it exists.

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