The new rule, to be enforced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), places restrictions on federal firearms dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. Licensed arms sellers will now be required to report buyers who purchase more than two rifles in a five day period.
The move is intended ultimately to bring down the death toll from cartel-related violence in Mexico and the U.S., which is up 16% since last year.
“The international expansion and increased violence of transnational criminal networks pose a significant threat to the United States,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole said in a statement.
Cole added that the increased oversight will “disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals and criminal organizations.”
Mexico’s Security Spokesman Alejandro Poire welcomed the Obama administration’s decision.
But Republican Representative Lamar Smith from Texas says the decision is a violation of the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution. “This rule unfairly punishes citizens in border states who have the right to purchase firearms to protect themselves and their families from dangerous drug traffickers and human smugglers,” he said in a statement.
The ATF decision does not apply to all guns purchased in the border states, but specifically targets the type of weapons favored by the drug cartels: semi-automatic rifles with ammunition larger than .22-caliber, and a detachable ammunition clip.
ATF says the investigation will have a two year trial period and cover 8,500 gun stores in the four states.
U.S. law already mandates that arms retailers with federal licenses report multiple sales of handguns to the National Tracing Center, which ATF says had led to prosecutions for firearms trafficking.
The regulation comes after a highly controversial investigation by the ATF dubbed “Operation Fast and Furious,” which allowed guns purchased by suspected arms smugglers to knowingly enter Mexico in the hope that they would lead investigators to cartel operatives. Mexican authorities say they found many weapons tracked by the U.S. at crime scenes.
