So, here's an interesting statistic: There's only one gun store in all of Mexico. One. In the entire country. It's on a military base in Mexico City, and buying a weapon there isn't easy. Even if you do jump through the necessary hoops and pass the various background checks, you're still only allowed to buy one small handgun and one box of bullets.
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Good luck getting your cartel off the ground with that arsenal.
Understand we are talking about a country that, in 2012, had more homicides by firearm than the U.S. Do I even need to tell you where all of their murder guns come from? Depending on who you ask, as much as 90 percent of them arrive illegally from America. Back when Mexican authorities made that claim, there were more than 6,000 federally licensed gun stores on the U.S. side of the border, so it's a pretty safe bet that estimate wasn't too far off. Just to be clear, that's how many there were just on the border between Mexico and us. That number doesn't even begin to scratch the surface when it comes to how many gun stores we now have in total. They outnumber McDonald's in this country, if that tells you anything.
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The gun stores are less dangerous, though.