Texas Is Arming Mexico’s Gunmen

Firearms were used to commit 1,799 homicides in Texas in 2023—a devastating human toll. Yet guns purchased in Texas likely contribute to even more homicidal violence south of the border that empowers fentanyl traffickers and pushes more migrants toward the United States. 

Of crime guns recovered in Mexico from 2017 to 2021 (among cases in which gun traces identified a country or U.S. state of origin), more than one of every four (29 percent) was sourced to Texas, according to new data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). 

More than 22,000 gun homicides occur in Mexico each year. With 29 percent of crime guns traced to purchases in Texas, that means 5,500 murders in Mexico likely involved guns from Texas. That’s three to four times as many gun homicides reported annually in the Lone Star State. (Texas had 1,799 homicides committed with firearms last year compared to 1,339 in 2019.) 

In May 2024, more than three years after I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request, the ATF released data on firearms recovered in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras and traced to purchases in the United States over an eight-year period. That new data shows 52,541 firearms recovered in Mexico between 2015 and 2022 were traced to a U.S. purchase. The new data reinforces the importance of Texas in the illicit gun pipeline: Of those, more than 40 percent came from Texas. 

A previous leak of gun tracing data also shows that some specific Texas firearms dealers are the source of a large number of crime guns recovered in Mexico. According to data on guns traced from Mexico to the United States in 2019-2020, Primary Arms in Houston sold more than 40 carbine rifles (most of them were Anderson AM-15s) recovered from crime scenes in 2019-2020 alone. 

More than half of firearms traced to Texas from Mexico came from a dozen cities: Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth, Dallas, El Paso, McAllen, Laredo, Brownsville, Pharr, Corpus Christi, and Grande Prairie.

Licensed gun dealers in just six zip codes in Texas border towns were the source of nearly three thousand firearms trafficked to Mexico, recovered, and traced to a purchase. Gun dealers in McAllen were the source of more than a thousand crime guns recovered in Mexico from 2015 through 2022; most of the 18 gun dealers in this border town are pawn brokers, but there is also an Academy Sports—and Dynamic Tactical Solutions. Dynamic Tactical Solutions, on its website, states that the Second Amendment is “the only thing standing between freedom and tyranny” and that it seeks the “normalization of gun culture.”

Academy Sports + Outdoors, a chain of sporting goods stores headquartered in Katy, has been identified as a source for many trafficked guns, according to data released on the origins of Mexican guns. The leaked data on guns recovered in Mexico in 2019-2020 and traced to the United States includes 349 firearms purchased at Academy Sports outlets, mostly in Texas. A single Academy Sports store in El Paso, located three blocks from the border with Mexico, was the source of 33 firearms recovered in 2019-2020, including nine carbines in the space of just over a year, according to the leaked data. 

In Uvalde, an 18-year-old purchased two rifles from Oasis Outback in 2022 and less than a week later murdered 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School using the rifles. Uvalde County was also the source of more than 30 firearms recovered in Mexico from 2015 to 2022, per the ATF data.

Zeroed in Armory in Pearland sold eleven .50 caliber Barrett rifles that were trafficked to Mexico and recovered in 2020, the leaked data shows. Fifty-caliber Barrett rifles shoot large rounds accurately for over a mile and have even downed a Mexican police helicopter. Around 60 .50 caliber Barrett rifles recovered in Mexico were traced to a purchase in Texas from 2019-2020, the data shows.

Firearms purchased in Texas and trafficked to Mexico are widespread. Data shows that firearms were purchased in 212 Texas counties before being trafficked to Mexico and recovered as crime guns from 2015-2022, for a total of nearly 22,000 firearms. 

Yet the number of crime guns recovered in Mexico represents only a small portion of the overall number of guns actually trafficked into the country, as with estimates of all types of contraband. The most rigorous study of guns trafficked from the United States to Mexico, a multinational research project called “The Way of the Gun” released by the University of San Diego and the IGARAPÉ Institute in 2013, estimated that 253,000 firearms annually were purchased in the United States with the intent to traffic them to Mexico. 

Mexico itself already limits legal access to firearms. Mexico’s gun production industry is very small, and Mexico-produced guns represent a tiny fraction of guns recovered in the country.

We all have an interest in stopping cross-border firearms traffic. With the new data on the origins in local communities in Texas and elsewhere of guns used in violence in Mexico and beyond, community leaders, elected officials, and firearms dealers have an opportunity to take measures to reduce the illicit gun trafficking of firearms that is strengthening fentanyl producers and accelerating forced displacement and migration.