Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-22-2026

Journal Title

Economics of Peace and Security Journal

Volume Number

21

Issue Number

1

DOI

https://doi.org/10.15355/epsj.21.1.17

Version

Publisher PDF: the final published version of the article, with professional formatting and typesetting

Disciplines

Peace and Conflict Studies

Abstract

Understanding the scale and dynamics of U.S.–Mexico firearms trafficking has been hampered by severe restrictions on access to firearm trace data. This article updates empirical knowledge of the illicit cross-border gun trade by assembling and analyzing more than 28,000 firearm records drawn from leaked Mexican government trace data, official Mexican seizure records, and U.S. trafficking court cases. Using capture-recapture techniques, meta-estimation, and econometric analysis, it is estimated that roughly 85,000–135,000 firearms are trafficked from the United States into Mexico annually. There is a positive relationship between trafficking flows and homicide rates in Mexico, evidence of circular causation between police arms purchases and illegal gun seizures, and the continued concentration of trafficking among a small subset of U.S. dealers. Together, these findings refine prevailing estimates of trafficking volumes and illuminate the feedback mechanisms linking legal gun markets, illicit flows, and violence.

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