Sales of legal weapons, on the rise in Mexico

By Silber Meza

Sales of legal weapons have grown in the last 15 years. In 2015, Mexicans bought one weapon per hour to protect their homes or land or for hunting.

Specialists say that the rise can be attributed to a perception of insecurity.

Official figures show that 956 legal weapons were sold in Mexico in 2001, compared to 10,115 in 2015.

According to figures released by the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena), it sold 95,115 weapons in the last 15 years, one third of them (28,582 pieces) in the last three years.

Sedena's catalogue includes semiautomatic rifles: a 0.22 caliber model GSG-5 (A) costs 9,777 pesos (US$556), while a 9 mm Ceska Zbrojovka gun model CZ 75 SP 01 Shadow costs 18,700 pesos (US$1,022) and a shotgun for hunting 20,550 pesos (US$1,123).

The Ministry also revealed that in 2009 17,642 legal weapons were sold to federal agencies and private companies, compared to 10,097 in 2015.

Also, since 2009 until October 31, 2015 Sedena sold 268 weapons on the internet.

In 2001 it issued 2,851 permits to carry weapons, compared to 6,378 in 2015.

A study conducted by the Chamber of Deputies revealed that there are around 15 million weapons in Mexico, 85% of them illegal.