Just when I think our war on drugs can’t get anymore absurd, I see truly sickening stories like one come to light. CBS News uncovered that the US Government has actually been working to allow hundreds of military-style guns to be smuggled into Mexico to see where they would end up. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that these military-style guns, sold at the border, end up with increasingly militarized cartels who used them to murder people to protect their territory from the government and other cartels. From CBS News:

Documents show the inevitable result: The guns that ATF let go began showing up at crime scenes in Mexico. And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets… the Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence.

One e-mail noted, “958 killed in March 2010 … most violent month since 2005.” The same e-mail notes: “Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone,” including “numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles.”

[…]

Senior agents including [Federal Agent John] Dodson told CBS News they confronted their supervisors over and over.

Their answer, according to Dodson, was, “If you’re going to make an omelette, you’ve got to break some eggs.”

Most of these weapons the US government allowed to be smuggled into Mexico haven’t been recovered, and two of these assault rifles were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Maybe, just maybe, politicians might ask if legalization and regulation of drugs is a better alternative than actively allowing criminals to buy military weapons.

If drugs, like marijuana, were legal, there would be no black market, no black market profits with which to buy military-style weapons, and no need to use military weapons to protect the black market businesses. Depending on estimates somewhere between 20 and 60 percent of all cartel revenue comes from marijuana.

I don’t remember the last time our government allowed the Coors Brewing Company to illegally buy hundreds of military weapons to see if they would use them in a territory dispute with Budweiser.