An Atmosphere of Violence...

Mexico is a very unsafe place these days.  These stories rarely makes the news here, despite the number of casualties (over 3,000 so far this year).  Many Americans have been injured or killed as well.  Along our border, the Border Patrol has seen a huge increase in the number of incidents involving gunfire, and especially those involving automatic weapons.  Naturally, this has made the Border Patrol – mainly armed with pistols – quite nervous.  So I'm not surprised to read this:

Four people were injured and the busiest border crossing in the U.S. was closed to northbound vehicle traffic for hours Tuesday after federal agents fired shots across nine lanes of traffic to stop three vans suspected of smuggling illegal immigrants from Mexico, authorities said.

But I sure don't like it.

So far as I've been able to discover, the violence in Mexico is 100% driven by the illegal drug trade with the U.S.  And there's a very simple and instantaneous cure for that: legalize these drugs.  Overnight the drug cartels will be out of business, much to the benefit of both Mexico and the U.S...