Cartel Crackdown Touted by Administration Runs on Guns Sold by Arizona Teenagers

…(cont) Then, the 24th of September, Ecuador's foreign minister told Fox News that American forces are working right alongside Ecuadorian military and police, joint operations, targeting the cartels together. I wrote that down too, under the other note, because it seemed like it belonged there — more pressure, more allies, cartels getting squeezed from every direction, they said.

Six days after that, on the 30th, I found a different item. The High Court of American Samoa ruled the Second Amendment doesn't apply out there, and a near-total gun ban took effect. One American territory, no guns, court order, done.

And then today, the New York Times. Mexican criminal groups, the story says, are relying on teenagers and young adults in border states like Arizona to help supply their weapons. High school students — buying, stealing, and selling guns bound for the cartels. Drawn by money and status, is how they put it.

I went out to the garage after I read that. I've got a roll-up door on the front, chain and a padlock I replaced last spring, forty dollars, good lock. The side door into the yard's got the same cheap knob it had when we bought the house, the kind a credit card gets through if you know the angle. I don't know why I fix the front and leave the side alone. Maybe because the front's the one I look at when I pull in.

It said he was killed in a gun battle the month before, so that's August. I didn't write much of it down, just two facts that stuck. He was killed alongside his uncle, who the story called a cartel leader. The headline on it called him an assassin. I don't know what cartel his uncle ran, or whether it's one of the ones getting squeezed by Colombia or Ecuador. The item didn't say. I looked.

So here's what I've got written down, side by side. One page says the cartels are on their heels, forced into expensive evasion, running out of room. Another page, from the same two months practically, says a boy was in a gun battle with his cartel-boss uncle. A third page says the guns might be coming from high schoolers in Arizona, selling for money and status, no crackdown required.

Excuse me — sorry, one more thing before you go. I almost left out American Samoa. No guns at all, out there, starting this fall, under that court order. Back on the mainland, the guns are still moving, the story says, out of Arizona, into Mexico, carried by kids looking for the money and the status, same as they were before anybody announced anything about Colombia.

So which one of those is actually keeping a gun out of the hands of someone who is fifteen?