I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Guns used in crimes in Mexico are coming through New Mexico, Arizona and Texas at a rate nearly twice that of any other states, according to a report from a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The highest number of guns came through Texas, where gun control laws are relatively lax, the report noted; many fewer came through California, where laws are stricter.
Although the report says that “the vast majority of the guns” used in the drug wars in Mexico are of unknown origin many can be traced. The report found that 90 percent of the guns that were recovered from Mexican crime scenes could be tracked back to the United States. Three quarters of those guns originally came from border states— 40 percent of them from Texas.
A previous Mayors Against Illegal Guns report found several types of state laws, including requiring background checks for handgun sales at gun shows and allowing inspection of gun dealers, decreased the number of crime guns flowing through states. California has enacted four of these laws while New Mexico and the other three border states have not enacted any, according to the group.
The report uses data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that was originally restricted by Congress; those restrictions were relaxed in 2007 and 2009.
Santa Fe mayor David Coss is a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group headed by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston mayor Thomas Menino.
