Arms And America

Are 90% of guns used by Mexican criminals from the United States?

As usual, it's not as simple as this piece from Stratfor shows.

It concludes:

"There has clearly been a long and well-documented history of arms smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border, but it is important to recognize that, while the United States is a significant source of certain classes of weapons and ammunition, it is by no means the source of 90 percent of the weapons used by the Mexican cartels, as is commonly asserted."

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Of course, using this to somehow mask Mexico as essentially a failed state is a strawman.

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The United States defense budget is 41%. 41 seems like a big number, and it is considering it dwarfs all other nations in the list combined, but it represents 4% of U.S. GDP. That's how massive the U.S. economy is.

The U.S, naturally, is also the world export leader of arms. It's interesting to note self-professed peaceful countries like Sweden, The Netherlands and Canada are in the top 15. What's going on in Spain? From a negligible arms dealer to a top 10 country?