75% of Guns Seized in Mexico Come From the US: Sheinbaum

ByJessica Xantomila

This article by Jessica Xantomila originally appeared in the July 9, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

At the atrium of the Basilica of Guadalupe, where she led the Yes to Disarmament, Yes to Peace program, President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo stated that 75 percent of the weapons that have been seized or handed in across Mexico come from the United States, and she therefore reaffirmed that the federal government will keep insisting “with firmness and respect” on the need to stop their illegal trafficking.

“Most of the weapons come from the country to the north, from the United States, and cross our border illegally to sow violence and take lives in Mexico,” she asserted.

She emphasized that just as the nation “works every day to prevent drugs from reaching our neighboring country, it is also essential to stop the flow of weapons that feeds violence.”

Before citizens and federal officials, as well as Mexico City Head of Government Clara Brugada and the general secretary of the Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM), Héctor Mario Pérez, President Sheinbaum Pardo also highlighted that more than 11,000 weapons have been handed in over a year and a half through the Yes to Disarmament, Yes to Peace program.

Photo: Juan Carlos Buenrostro / Presidencia

Today “we want to raise our voice from this place of hope: Stop the weapons, cease fire. Nothing is worth another person’s life, and nothing is worth putting one’s own life at risk either,” she stressed.

She noted that if each of the more than 11,000 weapons that have been collected had been used twice, they would represent “22,000 lives.”

The head of the Executive also made a call for peace, which is built every day “with justice, the construction of rights, education, values, community, and the collective decision to reject violence.”

Each weapon that goes out of circulation, she added, represents one more opportunity to save a life, a family.

“Today we want to say it with complete clarity, no to weapons, yes to Peace.”

In turn, Secretary of the Interior Rosa Icela Rodríguez stated that “if a single life is saved with this program, the whole effort is well worth it.” She stressed that in this strategy the Secretariat of National Defense has provided extraordinary collaboration, as has the Catholic Church, which has made it possible to install exchange modules in the atriums of churches.

In this way, she explained, from October 1, 2024 to July 6, 2026, citizens handed in 11,679 firearms across the country. Of these, 6,404 were short guns; 3,419 long guns and 1,856 grenades, in addition to more than 700,000 cartridges.

She recalled that since she was Head of Government, the President launched this program to invite the population to hand in, voluntarily and anonymously, without any investigation, the firearms, ammunition, and explosives they keep at home, in exchange for cash.

“We want to keep away from our girls and boys the danger of having a firearm nearby, within reach, in their own home, in the streets they walk, and in their communities, but also to prevent incidents that result from unfortunate or fatal events, and people going to prison for something that could have been avoided,” she said.

For her part, Head of Government Clara Brugada specified that in Mexico City, in coordination with the federal government, 1,800 weapons and 191 rounds of ammunition have been removed from the streets in more than 100 church atriums.

“Likewise, we have exchanged 700 war toys for educational and instructional toys. Now we are also going to exchange weapons for books, so that we only ignite the gunpowder of the word and the fire of culture. Let us build from below and from childhood a new pedagogy of peace.”

The event concluded with a tour by President Sheinbaum Pardo of the modules for receiving and destroying these devices.

A Mexican army soldier displays pieces of a weapon cut with an electric saw during a ceremony to commemorate the International Day for the Destruction of Firearms at the Basilica of Guadalupe complex in Mexico City on July 9, 2025. (Photo by Yuri CORTEZ / AFP)