Mexico is seeking to combat crime through a different approach compared to previous administrations. On Jan. 10, President Claudia Sheinbaum officially launched a campaign that seeks to crack down the number of weapons flooding the country's streets.
Although the scheme has existed in Mexico City since 2019, when Sheinbaum served as Head of Government, it will now be expanded nationwide and will be carried out by the defense, interior and public safety ministries along with the support from Mexican religious authorities.
Sheinbaum's new plan will be called "Yes To Disarmament, Yes to Peace" and will offer cash to individuals who anonymously leave weapons at designated drop-off locations such as churches. Authorities collect the guns and then destroyed them. As per the rewards go, gun owners will get money depending on the type of firearm donated: 8,700 pesos ($430) for a revolver, 25,000 pesos ($1,200) for an AK-47 rifle and 26,450 pesos ($1,300) for a machine gun.
"Why must we teach our children anything about violence?" Sheinbaum said at a launch event, which featured the symbolic destruction of a weapon by soldiers.
The disarmament plan is the latest strategy in the government's efforts to combat crime, as the country recorded more than 31,000 homicides in 2023. The majority of them —74 percent— were caused by firearms, according to data from Observatorio Ciudadano.
When the program was introduced by Sheinbaum's administration in Mexico City, more than 7,000 firearms were donated, mostly by women. "Each gun received is one less crime and one injury less," said Rosa Icela Rodríguez, secretary of the interior.
An estimated 200,000 to half-a-million U.S. firearms are smuggled into Mexico each year, according to a recent report by "60 Minutes." Another estimate by Small Arms Survey says there are about 16 million firearms in Mexico on top of the 13,000 firearms that the Mexican Army seizes each year.
Attorney Jonathan Lowy told "60 Minutes" in December that the real problem in Mexico is gun smuggling. "If you think fentanyl overdoses are a problem, if you think migration across the border is a problem, if you think the spread of organized crime is a problem in the United States, then you should care about stopping the crime gun pipeline to Mexico," Lowy said. "And you need to stop it at its source. Because all those problems are driven by the supply of U.S. guns to the cartels."
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