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New York Times
President Barack Obama, vowing to confront drug cartels that are "sowing chaos in our communities," called Thursday for the Senate to ratify a long-stalled treaty aimed at curbing illegal arms trafficking. But Obama also suggested he would not press lawmakers to revive an expired ban on assault weapons.
On the first day of a four-day swing through Latin America, Obama arrived here Thursday afternoon for a visit that was intended to demonstrate what he called "a new era" in U.S.-Mexican relations and to show support for his Mexican counterpart, President Felipe Calderon.
But while the two pledged their "shared responsibility" in the drug wars, they seemed to diverge on the issue of the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. Calderon said 90 percent of the weapons seized in Mexico can be traced to the United States, adding that the flow of weapons increased after the ban expired.
Obama campaigned on a platform of renewing it, but he suggested Thursday that reviving the ban is politically impossible because of opposition from gun enthusiasts.
"None of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy," Obama said, while insisting he was "not backing off at all" from his conviction that renewing the ban makes sense.
Instead, the president said he was taking other steps, including sending more border agents to patrol the border with Mexico and more helicopters to Mexico. He also said he was pressing the Senate to ratify the long-stalled inter-American arms treaty, which the United States had a major hand in negotiating through the Organization of American States.
On Capitol Hill, a senior Democratic official said that despite the president’s urging, it would be difficult to move forward on the long-stalled treaty
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