Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels

by Ioan Grillo

From the author of El Narco, a searing investigation into the enormous black market for firearms, essential to cartels and gangs in the drug trade and contributing to the epidemic of mass shootings.

The gun control debate is revived with every mass shooting. But far more people die from gun deaths on the street corners of inner city America and across the border as Mexico's powerful cartels battle to control the drug trade. Guns and drugs aren't often connected in our heated discussions of gun control-but they should be. In Ioan Grillo's groundbreaking new work of investigative journalism, he shows us this connection by following the market for guns in the Americas and how it has made the continent the most murderous on earth.

Grillo travels to gun manufacturers, strolls the aisles of gun shows and gun shops, talks to FBI agents who have infiltrated biker gangs, hangs out on Baltimore street corners, and visits the ATF gun tracing center in Virginia. Along the way, he details the many ways that legal guns can cross over into the black market and into the hands of criminals, fueling violence here and south of the border. Simple legislative measures would help close these loopholes, but America's powerful gun lobby is uncompromising in its defense of the hallowed Second Amendment. Perhaps, however, if guns were seen not as symbols of freedom, but as key accessories in our epidemics of addiction, the conversation would shift. Blood Gun Money is that conversation shifter.

Genres: Nonfiction, Crime, History, Politics, True Crime, Drugs, Journalism

386 pages, Paperback

Published March 25, 2021

About the author

I’m a journalist, writer and TV producer based in Mexico City. I’ve been covering Latin America since 2001 for news media including Time Magazine, CNN, The Associated Press, Global Post, The Houston Chronicle, PBS NewsHour, Al Jazeera English, France 24, CBC, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Gatopardo, The San Francisco Chronicle and many others. El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency is my first book.

I started covering drug cartels from my early days here. I was always fascinated by the riddle of these ghost like figures who made $30 billion a year, were idolized in popular songs and miraculously escaped the Mexican army and DEA. Over the decade I followed the mystery to endless murder scenes on bullet-ridden streets, mountains where drugs are born as pretty flowers, and scarred criminals from prison cells to luxury condos.

During the same time, Mexico’s drug war morphed into a horrific conflict with brutal beheadings, massacres and mass graves. Journalists here found ourselves reporting on a human tragedy of epic proportions – with a never-ending trail of grieving parents and atrocities comparable to brutal civil wars. The need for better understanding to help find a way out of this hole has become more important than ever.

We foreign journalists all have to turn to our homelands for part of that solution. I grew up in sunny England, near the seaside city of Brighton – famous for its pink candy, pebble beaches, colleges and bubbling night clubs. It is also one of Britain’s top places for drug consumption, switching with the fashions from Moroccan hashish to Turkish heroin to Colombian cocaine. Few there ever think about where the mind-bending substances come from or what they might give or takeaway from those countries. In Europe and the United States a hard discussion on our drug habits and policy is long overdue.

As well as following drug trafficking empires, I cover the other major issues of Latin America such as natural disasters (including the Haiti earthquake), the battle between left and right (including the Honduras coup), and the vast human wave of emigration to El Norte. I also love music and cover it whenever I get a chance. I co-directed a series of three short films with John Dickie, which all include a good dose of Latin American hip hop. They are Barrios Beats and Blood, Bajamar Ballad, and The Gangsters’ Granny.

Reviews

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The topic of this book is the flow of guns (which the author calls the “iron river”) of all kinds, to Latin America, especially Mexico. Also, the flow of guns within the United States.

By having extremely lax gun control in the United States this allows for guns to move to Mexico. Why is it, for example, that one is allowed to purchase several AK-47s? Shouldn’t this be simply against the law – or at least have the purchase red-flagged (of course this could contravene the law that gun purchases are not allowed to be registered as per the interpretation of the Second Amendment)? Why is there no background check on private sales? Why is the selling of .50 caliber rifles even permitted? These are used in warfare to pierce armor. Texas, right above Mexico, has the largest number of gun shows in the U.S., where private purchasing is permitted. I can’t resist adding that this is a state that now makes aiding an abortion a crime and also has passed restrictive voting laws, but selling loads of guns is very permissible.

Page 171-72 (my book) – at a gun show outside Dallas

We find private sellers who say they can sell guns with no paperwork… As one conversation goes:

Sean [author’s friend]: Hi, how are you? Is that the cash price for the AR-15?
Seller: Yep, no tax or paperwork.
Sean: So cash is all I need?
Seller: Yep
Sean: So what about ID?
Seller: You don’t have to have ID on private sales.

The arguments for guns in the U.S. are now being increasingly waged from extreme positions.

Page 105

Ruby Ridge [1992] galvanized public attention and dug deep into the American conscience. For urban liberals, it exposed the gun-toting crazies in the woods. For gun hard-liners, it confirmed the fears of a tyrannical federal government seizing firearms, shooting their families and killing their dogs.

The author balances his arguments with facts and he emphasizes the human consequences of guns. There is no permissible gun registry in the Unites States that can be entered on a computer database for easy access. But guns can still be traced, albeit manually, by forms filled in at a gun store and then phone calls. The author explains the differences between various weapons and the allure of them from gun collectors to street thugs to cartel leaders who have gold plated AK-47s.

The influx of guns to Latin America and especially Central America has destabilized governments where cartels and gangs control wide swaths of territory. This has created refugees who flee for their lives. And they want to go to the United States to find safety.

Page 284 Violetta Monterrosa left Guatemala

“There is nobody that can protect us there. We have seen in the other cases they kill the people and their children. Sometimes the kids ask to go home, but I say we can’t turn back, and they are sad.”

Much of this comes down to the Second Amendment in the U.S. I found this an interesting and frightening observation by the author.

Page 324

The United States has strong institutions, but Americans have little faith in them. This is worth bearing in mind for what the future will look like. If the U.S. government does become weaker and criminals can openly switch from handguns to automatic weapons and .50 calibers, it might not be the libertarian paradise some imagine. It might look more like Latin America.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much has been written about America’s relationship with guns, the ease by which Americans can buy guns, and in recent years, how this has fed into the never-ending roll-call of massacres (and here we have several weird euphemisms, such as “active shooters”). So people might be mistaken for assuming that they do not need yet another book on the subject, which would be wrong. Because the author of Blood Gun Money is not so interested in Americans and their guns as he is in the industry and how it feeds the narco-wars of Latin America and the gang violence which blights the projects of the inner cities. Because it turns out the legal arms industry fuels, and indeed supports, a massive illegal trade which the author calls the iron river.

Ioan Grillo proves definitely in this book that the iron river is the source of many of the criminal guns in Latin America today. What might be a surprise to readers is that most of the countries of Latin America have far stricter gun ownership laws than the US does. It’s difficult for someone to legally purchase a gun in Mexico. So what the Mexican cartels do is they get people to buy all the guns they need in the US and smuggle them across the border. And business is booming.

The NRA is (unsurprisingly) a villain in all this. By choking off even sensible gun control - such as background checks on private sales - they ensure that not only can criminals and those with serious mental health issues purchase firearms, but people can buy them for the cartels. It’s also incredibly easy to recruit straw buyers - people who buy multiple guns at once from gun shops on the criminals’ behalf - and to rob gun stores. A dirty truth is the arms industry doesn’t want to stop this. Guns are non perishable, so apart from a few serious collectors and those who truly believe an apocalypse is coming and thus they have to have an arsenal, most people buy one or two guns and then have them for years. So how does the arms industry stay afloat? Well, the criminal economy subsidises them, how else to explain why there’s more gun stores in border states? It’s not just Latin America either. There’s an internal trade, states with tougher gun control having weapons smuggled into them from more libertarian states, which undermines efforts by anyone to toughen up the law.

Grillo travels to various locations to demonstrate all this - talking to gun manufacturers, FBI and ATF agents, and criminals. He visits the ATF gun tracing center in West Virginia, which despite being hampered by ludicrous legislation which prevents them from holding any records or registers (again, courtesy of the NRA, who really has much blood on its hands) proves repeatedly the source of weapons which turn up in killings in Mexico and elsewhere. All this brings colour to the statistics, but it’s the data which proves his case, and there’s just so much evidence.

This is an eye-opening read, though quite depressing, because you know as a reader that it’s unlikely to register with the US electorate. Trump and others (the Democrats play this game as well) bemoan illegal immigrants and drugs coming north, while turning a blind eye to the export of weapons which kill and maim. Yes, the ATF arrests and prosecutes people (and if the NRA are a villain of the piece, the ATF really are unsung heroes) but sentences are far too low, and the political will is just not there to do more.

To be fair to the Democrats, Biden has pledged to plug some of these legislative holes and we’ll have to see if he manages it, because this book shows America needs to do so.

[Laura Newsholme · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be a fascinating and thoroughly detailed exploration of the illegal gun trade both in the USA and how this impacts on those in Mexico and the wider world. Grillo focuses on the 'Iron River' primarily, that is the flow of guns between the US over the border into Mexico and into the hands of cartels. He makes his own opinions on gun laws and the trafficking of weaponry clear, but doesn't allow it to cloud the objective way in which he discusses the topics and I thought that the information in this book was incredibly well displayed. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone with an interest in the gun trade or the wider history of gun violence.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

[Topcliffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

In “Blood Gun Money”, Ioan Grillo travels to USA, Central America and Eastern Europe and discovers the way the Iron River flows.
Grillo interviews smugglers, gangsters and ATF agents to get their personal take on the gun trafficking situation plaguing their countries.
This book is full of interesting facts and figures that will fascinate and depress the reader, as the conflicts and the smuggling of firearms to them is ongoing.

The interviews Grillo conducted for this book are excellent and carry a cinematic feel that reminded me of The Wire and Sons of Anarchy. The story of undercover ATF agent Darrin Kozlowski who infiltrated the Vagos, Warlocks, and Mongols biker gangs needs to be made into a movie or even a series, as it carries a certain level of badassery.
Yet I found that the level of violence in this book ramps up as it runs its course leading to an uncomfortable hopelessness. Gang on gang violence, cartels attacking the police, or even the ATF screwing up raids like Ruby Ridge in 1992 are all tragic, but when the cartels start attacking civilians or mass shooters take aim at randoms and cause massive devastation this book becomes truly terrifying.

Ioan Grillo does a fantastic job of explaining how weapons are bought and smuggled across borders, and more importantly how loopholes like the private sale of firearms make the initial steps to acquire weapons far too easy for criminals.

With gun debates always ongoing in the US, this book details how the easy access to firearms affects not only themselves but also other nations. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject. I feel like it gave me a wealth of knowledge that I would have never received on any news broadcast.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can barely remember the details of the other books I’ve read this week, but I can still remember harrowing stories from El Narco over ten years later. This book’s subject is likewise inextricable from horrific violence. Grillo’s reportage following weapons from their place of manufacture to the hands of killers is thorough and informative. And yes, killers is the right word as guns are designed to do one thing only. One of the best parts about living in Japan is never having to think about guns. While many in the US believe the insane notion that gun ownership is tried to “freedom,” never worrying about getting shot and not being chained to horrible ideologies is truly liberating. Anyway, back to the subject at hand, Grillo’s solutions are all common sense, though, sadly, none of them seem actionable in our current world. The causes of the problem are so broad and endemic that they can’t be covered in a book like this. Even if all the guns could magically disappear (not one of Grillo’s suggestions, to be clear), the US would still be fucked.

[Dav · Rating 1 out of 5]

.

More of the same.

Obama, Hillary and the rest of the anti-gun crowd were already caught telling the 90% lie: over 90 percent of guns recovered at Mexican crime scenes come from the USA.

About the same time Obama's illegal gun-running scheme, Fast and Furious, was also exposed.

"Fast and Furious was a Justice Department program that allowed assault weapons — including .50-caliber rifles powerful enough to take down a helicopter — to be sold to Mexican drug cartels allegedly as a way to track them. But internal documents later revealed the real goal was to gin up a crisis requiring a crackdown on guns in America. Fast and Furious was merely a pretext for imposing stricter gun laws." nypost

Now, Grillo's exposé of US guns flooding Mexico, just the 2021 version of the Obama era's vilification of guns.

..



The author has lots of anecdotal stories, interviews and assumptions that are used to condemn guns and the gun industry, with the primary villain being of course the NRA. He provides lots of stats in proving his premise of guns flowing like a river to the cartels, cheered on by the National Rifle Association, gun manufacturers, firearm retailers and other such profiteers.

As proof he cites numerous studies and comes to some false conclusions, which throw into question all his supposed research. For example Bill Clinton's 1994 assault weapons ban that lasted 10 years, according to the FBI's stats it had no effect on reducing gun crime, but the anti-gun liberals / Dems always tout it as so successful it should become a permanent gun ban.

In support of his claims the author cites anti-gun groups like the Brady Campaign and others who use "common sense" gun safety laws as a euphemism for banning firearms and he seems to ignore the determined efforts of the Democrat Party to ban and or confiscate all guns. [They have been unsuccessful at implementing gun confiscation, like Australia did, and are getting there through incremental gun restrictions].

The author makes guns out to be the big problem, but isn't it the violent and lucrative drug trade that compels the gangs and cartels to arm themselves? It seems the real problem may be America's immense appetite for illegal drugs. Drug customers could be the bigger problem and maybe harder to fix.

At any rate, the book serves as just another hit piece for anti-gun leftists to vilify everything to do with firearms and those who support American's 2nd Amendment.





.

[Andrew Paxman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little known fact about Mexico’s notoriously high homicide rate is that between 1940 and 2007 it generally declined, before rebounding due to a federal “war” on the drug cartels. Was the government solely to blame for the carnage, some 300,000 killings to date? How were the cartels able to fight back with firepower often superior to the Mexican Army’s? Could George Bush’s 2004 decision to let an assault rifle ban expire have anything to do with it? Grillo gives multi-sourced evidence that it does.
Blood Gun Money is not, however, a tirade against militant defenders of the USA’s second-amendment right to bear arms, inordinately influential though they are. It’s a book that listens to all parties: advocates for gun rights and gun safety, the ATF, the DEA, hitmen, and victims. And it focuses not on gun ownership per se but on the illegal sale of arms and its impact from Columbine, Colorado to Colombia. Guns, millions of them, have been trafficked throughout the Americas – the world’s most homicidal region, home to 47 of the 50 most murderous cities. Grillo illustrates the components to this “iron river”: straw purchasing (US individuals buying arms for third parties, often traffickers); the US private-sale loophole (allowing sales without background checks online and at gun shows); theft from licensed US dealers; and sale by corrupt members of Latin American security forces.
Grillo has collected an impressive array of evidence and anecdote as to how trafficking works. He muses fair-mindedly on the consequences, without offering pat answers to complex problems. But what makes his work most compelling is his interweaving of human stories, often action-packed: an ATF specialist in infiltrating biker gangs; a Colombian fisherman-turned-gun runner; the affable Mexican crime chronicler Javier Valdez. It’s a somewhat sprawling strategy, and there are a couple of tangential episodes, but the book builds a persuasive argument that moderate measures could substantially slow the iron river, without infringing the right of Alabama deer hunters to pack a semi-automatic. A US law against gunrunning (there isn’t one!) would be a start, as would another creating a US database for guns (there isn’t one!).
Grillo writes with a muscular, street-smart voice (think: Jason Statham with a notepad). His style fits the grubby milieux and keeps the narrative pacy, but it also chimes with his ability to empathise and get his subjects to spill their secrets. Over beers, a Honduran hitman tells his life story and admits to 45 killings. Grillo’s point is not to excuse the man but to show how environment, in this case a failed state and a multitude of orphans seeking affirmation in gangs, can combine with easy access to trafficked US arms to perpetuate a culture of violence.

[Mohd Nordin Che Omar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tell the history of how gun was used to kill both the innocent and badass by the criminals, cartels and psychopaths etc. A real eye opener on the problem if not regulated properly. Some will say its their constitutional rights while others support for banning and stricter control.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic, measured exploration of gun trafficking, particularly from the US to Central America. The writing is lucid, the reporting excellent, and the arguments for common-sense measures speak for themselves.

[Stefan S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impromptu read picked up from the new non-fiction shelf at my local library. There is a clear bias to this book, which is easily recognizable, but I still found the detailed stats and deep stories very interesting. Good look at the underworld of the US, LatAm, and global guns.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have enjoyed Grillo's previous work. Unfortunately, this work did not live up to their standard. Grillo has a strong left wing partisan bias, which previously had little impact on his writing. However, in this work, it becomes a burden on his narrative as he takes frequent asides to bash Republicans. Often adding in talking points that are suspect at best. Trump is constantly evoked, but how his 4 year stint in office had any effect on this 50+ year story is tenuous at best.

This book seems to have been written for an audience that agrees with his views. Certainly, with a chapter titled "Gun Nuts," it isn't likely to win anyone from the other side over. Grillo manages to write a chapter on Baltimore without bringing up its often dysfunctional (Democrat) government. There is plenty of blame to go around for the gun violence problem. But obfuscation and misdirection are not they way to make change happen.

In the chapter "The Border," Grillo dismisses the "Troubles" as a "period of bloodshed and instability." Grillo being British doesn't acknowledge his own countries history of violence and oppression in Ireland. Certainly, the story of Britain's own government sanctioned killing and gun running would make an excellent book. Something tells me Grillo is more at ease discussing other nations' failures and not his own.

[KEN · Rating 3 out of 5]

"No doubt Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels" is a fascinating book full of eye-catching and entertaining stories, but some would not consider these stories entertaining because they live the violence every day. What is the root of all this violence? The answer is the thug in the cartel. According to Grillo, the solution is to plaque America with draconian gun-control, but he refers to those measures as “gun-safety” throughout his book.

As we transition to the Mexican border, one can probably hear the “crack, crack, crack” of gunfire in the distance. That is the American citizen’s fault in Grillo’s universe. While there are instances of smuggling across the border of items including firearms, drugs, and money, one must attribute that to the porous border. Border security is the most infallible method to decrease border chaos, not to disarm America.

Americans have a propensity for generosity and empathy. We all want the violence to cease. Our means to reach a permanent solution vary. Most Americans will not render their rights to the will of politicians for the illusion of security. All the gun-control measures that Grillo mentioned will not work because he believes the source of violence is the gun itself. However, the source is the individual who utilizes the firearm. Grillo wants to reduce gun access to the cartels but also the innocent hard-working American civilian.

What are the top solutions to the border violence? Grillo acknowledges many viewpoints that pro-gun and freedom-minded individuals adorn. One must go farther than just to acknowledge the opposing side when the proposals involve the loss of freedoms and pose no compromise. Here is a solution. The values that heralded America into a world superpower after World War II built a country that founding fathers envisioned. We should share those values of individual personal responsibility, ethics in government and daily life, and the dream of hope. People with no perpetual hope of daily life improving will not petition their government to rid themselves of criminal organizations. Mexican citizens should elect officials who represent honor and dignity to rid of corruption.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really good book. Grillo does an excellent job researching and reporting on the gun industry. Naturally that means talking about how guns are used, but -- more usefully, for me, as I didn't know much about this before -- he spends most of his time and text on how they are bought and sold.

That reporting is eye-opening. He traces a number of large problems, including international and domestic terrorism, the Central American economic crisis and resulting migration to the US, and the drug trade to illegal weapons trafficking. It's a convincing argument.

The book ends with some sensible prescriptions for ending that trade. Taking those steps wouldn't infringe the Second Amendment's right to bear arms, even as interpreted by most conservatives. But, he argues, it would limit the ability of criminals and terrorists to get them, and reverse some of the social ills that they cause around the world.

[Xiaoning · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author has some good materials, but the book is not well organized. Between chapters, even within a chapter, the editing is a bit incoherent.

Lack of systematic background introduction. The narratives are not very convincing, considering most of the interviewees are low level street level members.

The author spent a lot efforts, and this is such fascinating topic, it is unfortunate that the book could not deliver it's potential

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

fs there were a sound track for this expose' it would be Nick Cave's "The Weeping Song"...

[Viktor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let’s end the illegal smuggling of American guns to cartels.

So many missteps by the ATF, literally letting traffickers walk guns into Mexico without even apprehending them.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ioan Grillo is a very talented journalist, adept at both digging and conveying the results, with a special gift for locating people with information, getting them to talk, and shaping their stories into a compelling narrative. Having reported on Mexico and its struggle with the cartels, he here takes up the arms trade that made it possible. The fundamental question is how a country with strict gun control wound up with tons of them in the hands of rhe criminals.
It's a question that answers itselfm as with Porfirio Diaz' oft-quoted, "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States". The latter country appears in a starring role as a source of firearms, but not the only one; Grillo is diligent but also fair. Along those lines, he investigates both the international flow or arms (from such places as Romania and Jordan) and the leakage from Mexican police inventories and evidence rooms. But the remarkable folks at the one ATF information center (which the NRA spent oodles of cash and influence to keep from becoming a data center--they may be the only place in America still dependent on microfiche) provide some damning statistics when they get the chance. Grillo himself walks the reader through the ridiculous gun show loopholes.
Along the way, he is also interesting on other issues. "Ghost guns" from 3-D printing don't work well because they are vulnerable to the heat from firing. It is "ghost guns" cobbled together from unregistered metal pieces that are the main threat. Sub-machine guns are inefficient on the battlefield (but effectively mow down a lot of people in crowded spaces). The major gun manufacturers are actually not very profitable; it's the NRA machine crafted most recently by Wayne LaPierre that keeps the industry powerful, an interesting case of lobbyists identifying a weak industry and ginning up a small segment of the population to bend public policy to their will. Their motto should be "Your fear is our profit."
The book went to print before the U.S. designated certainly cartels as terrorist organizations, but Grillo writes well about how squishy the definition of terror actually is. Cartels don't fit very well because they don't have overt political aims in the U.S., although they are very interested in taking out potentially troublesome politicians on their home turf.
So we have reached the point where the bumblers in Washington pardoned people who actually, through violent means, tried to overthrow the government, while designating as terrorists who were too busy sneaking people, drugs and guns around the big, beautiful wall to care who runs the show up there. Poor Mexico! Thoughts and prayers! Thoughts and prayers!

[Abhinav Bhattacharya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ioan Grillo's latest journalistic non-fiction work - 'Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels is different from his previous works - Gangster Warlords and El Narco. In this superbly researched and deftly narrated piece, Grillo talks about the 'Iron River' that flows through the Americas, taking advantage of the lax and toothless gun laws in the United States and enabling and arming the mob mafia, gangsters, hitmen and others throughout Central and Latin America.


Grillo is able to bring his experience and knowledge of the Mexican drug wars and the cartels which he has extensively covered both as a journalist and as an author.


For the new novel, Grillo has ventured north of the border into the United States and taken a look at the prevalent gun culture there which in so many ways, shapes and forms helps fuel the orgy of death across the continent and far beyond.


Ioan Grillo has travelled far - right to the source of the 'Iron River' to the gun factories in Europe which supply a vast majority of the guns to the hotspots around the world as well export with impunity to the United States.




He has travelled to Baltimore, to Texas, where guns are sold - sometimes legally, sometimes illegally, but ever so often with the same result.


The statistics which Grillo puts forward in his book, the number of gun related injuries and deaths, the number of mass shootings in the U.S., the number of guns in Mexico and other parts of Central and Latin America which can be traced back to the United States is horrific. Yet, the all powerful NRA and the overall unique affinity which Americans of all political stripe have towards guns makes it impossible to enact any law controlling the sale and movement of guns and ammunitions across the nation.


The ineffectiveness of the laws makes it tougher for the law enforcement organizations to act and while waiting to build bigger cases to make the penalty worth their while, fiascos like Fast and Furious happen.


The violence which Grillo has witnessed first hand, seeing friends and colleagues gunned down, seeing battle-weary gangsters with deep gunshot wounds, paralyzed children victimized through no fault of their own, would make anyone weary about change. But amazingly, Ioan Grillo still has hope. Hope for better legislation, better enforcement and better policing to stem the flow of the 'Iron River' and stop the waste of human life.


We must hope too.

Read my other reviews at : https://www.uprootedbong.com/blog

[WIlliam Gerrard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third Grillo installment that I have tackled and Ioan is an author who is a gritty investigative journalist who tends to put himself into quite dangerous situations in order to explore very controversial and often violent global subjects. Following on from Grillo's groundbreaking work on Mexican cartels, this book, which explores the Arms trade, begins with a flashbang as the author witnesses part of Joaquin Loera Guzman's trial in New York City. El Chapo, extradited from Mexico and alleged head of the Sinaloa Cartel has to try explain away the RPG rocket launchers and weapons caches that are produced as evidence in front of the judge. This is a great example of how (mainly) US weapons are falling into the hands of foreign armies or cartels. The book follows a trail of foreign arms manufacturers in for example Eastern Europe and explores in detail the US Arms trade and its often uncomfortable politics. The US Constitution empowers the right to bear arms for citizens and strong bodies such as the NRA are strong political lobbyists in ensuring that this right continues into the modern age no matter how many mass shootings or proven deaths these lethal weapons can produce. To a reader from the United Kingdom were gun law is strict very often some of the book's revelations can be quite eyeopening and shocking. It's an alien culture really to what I would consider civilised society. Grillo makes an interesting point, however, that when he lived in London for a period, the high and often fatal rates of London's knife crime made it perhaps more unsafe than a US City with high gun crime. The hospital emergency rooms can be just as bloody. The book neatly follows the arms trail and explores some of the major players involved and there is a lot of focus on the porous US-Mexico border where often large quantities of drugs are swapped directly for large quantities of US-made weapons. In an ideal modern world humans wouldn't have to still go around killing each other but the Arms trade looks here to stay and I feel that this book successfully portrays it and demands of the reader some quite difficult questions regarding the whole ethical dilemma future generations face. It's a page-turner and a thrilling ride of a read. Five stars.

[Ashleigh Hoare · Rating 5 out of 5]

• tells the tale of America's Iron River and how guns made and bought in America end up in the black market in America, as well as in the hands of Mexican Cartels and other international organised criminal groups responsible for destabilizing entire countries and countless civilian murders
• essentially, America's failure to introduce any kind of regulation to their gun market means there are several loopholes which can be exploited, and for those who get caught arming organised criminal groups there is little to no penalty - because guns are legal in America, there is no law against firearms trafficking, even when the guns are being used to arm Mexican cartels
• there is no such thing as a firearms license, law enforcement are not allowed legally to maintain electronic databases or records of guns sold, or gun owners
• there are four main ways guns are introduced into the black market: straw buyers (those who are legally allowed to by guns - pretty much anyone who doesn't have a conviction, history of family harm), theft (there are no rules around how gun shops/dealers have to store their guns), private sale loopholes (no background checks are required for a private sale meaning gang members can rock up and buy guns of a private seller) and ghost guns (guns which are home made using kits readily available in America - these don't have serial numbers and are hard to track)
• America has 393 million guns in civilian hands - more guns than the following 25 countries combined. America also has the worst murder rates and highest number of Police shootings in the developed world
• fun fact: the AR 15 was tested during it's development in the early 60s - at first with hundreds of live goats, followed by heads imported by India filled with gelatine (because heads from America were too difficult to procure)

This was a wonderful book - well researched, beautifully written and super informative (as well as depressing). I would absolutely recommend this to anyone with an interest in true crime and world politics 🔫

[David Garza · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about America's "iron river" of guns, the millions of weapons that flow from the legal industry to the black market, feeding criminals across the nation and drug cartels across the continent. It follows this river from the corners of Baltimore to the battlefields on the border, the factories of Transylvania to the gun shows of Texas, and the gun vaults of Arizona to the jungles of the Andes.

Singular. Iron river. Ioan Grillo does an impressive job of demonstrating how so many aspects related to guns (from the manufacturing of to guns as a commodity, from their cultural symbolism to the mutable politics, regulations, enforcement, and response surrounding) are interconnected, forming one singular iron river. Grillo pronounces it "America's," but he shows how it flows worldwide. These are durable goods, which can float both upstream and down for decades, often washing up on the banks of other hemispheres.

Sure, Grillo does use some charged or biased language on occasion, which really seems unnecessary since simply stating facts and his research would make his statements just as strong and compelling (and possibly give him more credibility for some readers), but I don't think that gets in the way of the big picture he's detailing.
One other writing issue was that he sometimes gives us sentence fragments instead of fully formed sentences, and the syntax of some of those just left me scratching my head trying to figure out what he was trying to say. Tighten up that editing.

[RoF · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy from Goodreads.

This book is a deep dive into the easy access to guns in America and its link to violence. It clearly describes the vicious circle involving different traffics, mainly illegal drugs, guns and money laundering, which support each other. The proliferation is a cause and a consequence. Ideologies and basic instincts are at stakes and the author manages to guide us through the different aspect of the self-destruction of some communities and countries heavily hit by these powerful forces.
As a journalist he presents examples to support his analysis, thanks to the multiple interviews of people involved in the ordeal, from criminals and victims to law enforcement officers and politicians.
What is annoying with the book is the unclear separation between chapters and inside a chapter the author sometimes puts an end to a topic by jumping to another one. The reader has to connect the dots.
Eventually the author can only insist on the magnitude of the issue an recognize that if there is a solution, it will imply to really have a look at the values a country wants to cherish, display and enforce.
Can we put limits to liberty ? Do we prefer health or money ? And what about justice and education ?

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

IOAN GRILLO - BLOOD GUN MONEY 8.5/10

Book 19 of 2023.

A book I found by chance as it was on clearance sale, 70% off.

A staggering probe of the relationship among gun violence and the drug and arms trades, all closely related. The gun control controversy is revived with every mass shooting, which is a monthly affair in the USA.

Overall, Blood Gun Money will immeasurably entice readers fixated on cartels and arms trafficking. The book is highly enlightening and an attestation to Grillo’s ongoing investigative dexterity and serves a better insight of the criminal insurgencies and furtive flows in the Western hemisphere.

It also showcases, in savage detail, of assault rifles such as the US-made M-16, Russia's Kalashnikov made AK-47s and Germany's Heckler & Koch G3.

There are an estimated 393 million guns in civilian hands in the USA, the most of any nation by far and more than the total of the next 25 countries combined. Two-thirds of gun owners say they own them for protection. Yet in a recent year, guns were responsible for about 500 accidental deaths, more than 23,000 suicides and 14,000 murders.

Recommended.

[Matthieu Picard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning read about guns flowing across the US and into Mexico; after finishing Blood Gun Money I just had to stand up and walk around the block. What struck me most was the distinctly kind, human lens Ioan Grillo applied to the many characters in the book. He sits down and listens to a wide range of convicts, law enforcement, advocates (for both gun rights and regulation) and victims (with many interviewees falling in multiple buckets), capturing the bona fide fears, motives and hopes of all.

One highlight was pages 335-342, which outline modest policy measures proposed by Ioan:
1. increasing the penalty for buying a gun on behalf of someone else.... i.e. straw buying
2. universal bankground checks...eliminating private sale loophole
3. reducing number of guns that can be purchased simulataneously (this could slow flow of guns, making it harder for a straw buyer to buy 10 kalashnikovs
4. strengthening requirements for gun stores to secure guns from robbery
5. making ghost guns subject to the same legal requirements as normal guns

[Tanner Keen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ioan Grillo is a superstar reporter. In the best of his three books on the world of drug cartels and organized crime in the Americas, he takes a deep-dive into the gun black-market and gun trafficking of the US and Latin America, detailing the ways that gangsters, criminals, and cartels become loaded with weapons they aren’t allowed to have. He looks at the drastic societal effects this has caused in a wide variety of areas, offers a remarkable and intricate look into the history of guns and gun culture in America, and provides fair and nuanced discussions about the potential solutions that exist. One of my favorite books of the year—I read it any chance I had spare time (and even times when I had other things to be doing) over the last couple weeks. A truly fascinating story.


(Additionally, it came out in 2021, meaning it is incredibly up-to-date with its data and it’s stories. I hope he puts out another book soon!)

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye opening account of how the American gun industry feeds the "Iron River" across borders, particulary in the Americas (Mexico, Central, South, etc.) It is an important examination to understanding that the role of gun sales within the U.S. and to other countries is a two-way street and it is a big money-making industry even though a large percentage of Americans don't even own guns (per stats in the book and elsewhere). Another thing that this book does is shows the reader that the business of guns is far more complicated that most people realize. I think what would be most eye opening to many is that the U.S. is one of the largest producers and sellers of guns in the world so that the culpabilty of its role in crime--both at home and abroad--is important to recognize and understand before blame is unduly placed.

I listened to this as it was a book club selection for a group I'm part of. I probably would rate it more like a 3.5 simply because it is A LOT of data and dates which makes it a little more difficult to digest however the audio book version helped (for me anyway).

[Saf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, I learned more about the extent of gun history and policies, violence, illicit trade, and societal impact. I think some of the most powerful ideas argued by the author were how the United States is complicit to the problem via the iron river or flow of guns to Latin America. The explanation that Sweden has strong institutions and its citizens believe in them, China has weak institutions but citizens that believe in them, Mexico has weak institutions and its citizens have little faith in them, and the United States has strong institutions but little faith in them was eye-opening to how American policies that weaken our institutions that we take for granted could devolve society.

This one took me a while to read. It is timely and relevant and I appreciate that the author conveyed the book’s message without the inflammatory politicization normally used in gun rights conversations.

[William Yip · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author wrote sentences with extraneous, incorrect, or missing words. He was biased, inconsistently applying statistics and reasoning to his arguments. Some chapters did not deal much with the subject matter expressed in the title. That said, the author did a lot of research and met with a variety of people that are involved in the "iron river". It was interesting to learn how influential the NRA is and how it's impacted government agencies and gun laws as well as the different ways cartels obtain guns: private-sale loopholes, straw buyers, theft and purchase of weapons supplied by the US to Central and South American governments fighting civil wars, and ghost guns. It's also incredible to see how impoverished inner-cities in the US have rates of violence and lack of opportunities similar to impoverished areas in Mexico and Central and South America.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ioan Grillo’s Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels investigates the “iron river” which supplies the drug underworld—both in the United States and around the world—with guns. Although there a multiple avenues guns reach mass shooters, gangs, and drug cartels, they overwhelmingly begin in the United States. Grillo shows the impact this “iron river” has and possible solutions, as well as political pitfalls of pursuing them.

Blood Gun Money is an interesting and thoroughly researched read that illustrates the role the United States has in the supporting cartels, aside from buying the drugs themselves, and the disgraceful state of gun regulation and policy in the United States.

[704graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great on the ground journalism however the book is frustratingly carceral throughout. A few passing sentences in the final chapter hint towards a abolitionist solution to the guns/drug trade and how more law enforcement is not a substantial solution to the underpinning socio-economic forces driving it. These omissions come across as the author intentionally putting on blinders when it comes to the larger systemic issues of USA international policy and in turn, capitalism. From NAFTA to the CIA’s violent involvement in Latin American regime change, passing mentions of these policies come off as an act of self censorship.

Again, the interviews and intricacies of the gun trade are amazingly well done, the author obviously is incredibly knowledgeable on the subject. This makes the lack of a larger, systemic macro economic analysis all the more disappointing.