Mexico offers money to buy guns off the streets: $1,200 for an AK-47 rifle and $1,300 for a machine gun

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Friday officially launched a campaign to combat the number of guns on the nation’s violence-plagued streets.

The plan, called “Yes to Disarmament, Yes to Peace,” will offer cash to those who anonymously drop off guns at designated locations, including churches.

Gun owners will receive 8,700 pesos ($430) for a revolver, 25,000 pesos ($1,200) for an AK-47 rifle and 26,450 pesos ($1,300) for a machine gun. Firearms must then be destroyed.

The disarmament plan is part of the government’s “integrated strategy” to fight crime.

“Why should we teach our children anything about violence?” Scheinbaum said at the presentation ceremony, which featured the symbolic destruction of the weapon by soldiers.

Children who participated in the event with their parents were able to replace the toy guns with other toys.

The scheme, first circulated last month, was published in the country’s official government gazette earlier this week.

It has been in place in Mexico City since 2019, but will now be implemented nationwide and implemented by the ministries of defense, interior and public security, with the support of Mexican religious authorities.

Mexico suffers from violent crime linked to the multi-billion dollar illegal drug trade.

According to the preliminary data of the National Institute of Statistics, 31,062 murders were registered in the country in 2023, of which 70 percent were committed with firearms.

Mexico strictly controls arms sales, making them virtually impossible to obtain legally, and has repeatedly called on Washington to crack down on arms trafficking across the border from the United States.

An estimated 200,000 to half a million US firearms are smuggled into Mexico each year. “60 Minutes” reported on this last month. Mexico asked American attorney Jonathan Lowe to help cut off the weapons pipeline.iron river.”

“If you think fentanyl overdoses are a problem, if you think cross-border migration is a problem, if you think the proliferation of organized crime is a problem in the United States, you should think about stopping the criminal weapons pipeline to Mexico,” Lowe told “60 Minutes” in December. “And you have to stop it at its source. Because all these problems are caused by the supply of arms by the United States to the cartels.”