At least they're buying American

The New York Times has an editorial about the Mexican drug wars:

As the body count in the Mexican drug wars goes beyond 30,000, federal authorities have, in the past four years, tracked more than 60,000 guns back across the border to American dealers. Congress, enthralled with the gun lobby, has done nothing about a legal loophole increasingly at the heart of the carnage: the dealers’ freedom to make multiple sales of AK-47s and other battlefield assault rifles without having to report to federal authorities, as the law requires for handgun sales.
No wonder one dealer felt free to sell fourteen AK-47s to one trafficker in a single day.
The gun lobby previously convinced an obeisant Congress that “long guns”, like military rifles and shotguns, were not favored by criminals and deserved a pass at dealers supposedly catering to sportsmen. But the drug war toll is proving otherwise, with use of high-power long guns more than doubling in the past five years, as cartel gunmen turn to the rat-a-tat annihilators easily obtainable across the border.
A big reason for that preference is the failure to require reports on multiple rifle sales, according to a new inspector general’s report at the Justice Department. In Texas, the traffic is white hot. Eight of the top dozen dealers in Mexican crime guns are nestled profitably near the border, according to The Washington Post, which spent a year penetrating some of the data secrecy that Congress has enacted to protect the gun industry.
With a more Republican Congress in the wings and Democratic lawmakers openly fearful of the gun lobby’s political clout, there is no expectation of courageous legislating to close the loophole. But executive order is another possibility. It has enough traction lately among Justice Department officials to prompt a “grass-roots alert” by the National Rifle Association to its four million members, according to The Post.
It is hard to believe that most ordinary NRA members would not agree something must be done about the cross-border sale of war weapons that underpins the drug scourge. If it takes an executive order to cut the carnage, President Obama should not hesitate.

Of course, as usual, the NYT doesn't understand what it's talking about: AK-47s are machine guns, and not available for purchase by the average American, let alone the average Mexican. Rico says the problem is 'straw buyers', long an illegal practice; Mexican nationals can't buy any gubs in the US, much less multiple rifle purchases. The Feds should be concentrating their efforts on those clowns who are buying for their cartel buddies...