President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Tuesday that gun control is urgently needed in the United States, and suggested that U.S. President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump should both pledge to impose greater regulations on the sale of firearms.
His remarks on U.S. gun control policies at his morning press conference came in response to a question about the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania on Saturday and the 20-year-old shooter’s ease of access to guns.
“I believe that controlling the sale of guns in the United States would help a lot,” López Obrador said. “It’s something that needs to be done urgently.”
López Obrador also said that if “the two candidates” for the United States presidency were to sign “a commitment to regulate the sale of guns” should they win a second term, it “would be a well-regarded act by Americans.”
“It would be an act of good faith in the quest for unity and peace, a first step,” he said.
AMLO added that “other causes” of gun violence in the U.S. have to be addressed as well “because this is a social crisis.”
“It has to be combatted, they have to get to the bottom of it, they have to return to the morals of the founders of that great nation. I believe that … [those morals] have been lost, and there is social decay,” he said.
López Obrador said that about 50,000 guns have been seized by authorities in Mexico since he took office in late 2018, and highlighted that “approximately 75%” of them were smuggled into the country from the United States.
“There is no control of guns [in the U.S.]. If we confiscated 50,000, imagine how many are coming in because we can’t seize them all. … And in the United States you can buy them in a supermarket; that can’t go on,” he said.
In Mexico, guns can only be purchased legally at one store operated by the army in the metropolitan area of Mexico City.
While random mass shootings in places such as schools and shopping centers are extremely rare in Mexico, targeted killings occur regularly, including in bars, and overall homicide numbers are significantly higher than in the U.S.
Political violence is also a major problem in Mexico.
The majority of homicides in Mexico are committed with firearms illegally brought into Mexico from the United States, a crime the Mexican government wants its U.S. counterpart to do more to combat.
In addition to advocating stricter gun control in the United States, López Obrador on Tuesday once again expressed relief that Trump wasn’t killed when a gunman shot at him as he spoke at a rally on Saturday evening.
“We feel good that nothing happened to former president Trump,” he said before acknowledging the “friendship” he and his government have with the 78-year-old Republican currently vying to return to the White House for a second term.
“I won’t forget that when I got COVID on one occasion he called me and sent me a packet of medicine. … I was already being treated, so I turned it over to the nutrition institute,” he said, referring to the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition.
“He was no longer president, but he demonstrated that kindness,” López Obrador said.
Mexico News Daily
