It's very easy to make AK-like and AR-like guns. Even if it's correct that the majority come from the US, they certainly wouldn't have to. Many hobbyists even do this kind of thing, and it doesn't require any particularly special manufacturing equipment. My guess would be that the reason they seize more ARs than AKs is not related to the source, but because they find ARs preferable.
If somehow guns stopped flowing across the border, and cartels still wanted them, they'd be up and running in no time. I'd be surprised if they aren't already doing it, because they have other operations that require much more sophistication.
Preface: I know guns, I like guns, I am a competent machinist and I know all about lowers, gun laws, and the shovel AK. It is not easy to make guns. You need huge factories and while the cartels are theoretically capable of such things, its incomparable to US-based gun manufacture. Mexican factories can be shut down. Mexico can do nothing about guns that come from the US. They can do far less to stop it than we can do to stop drugs from coming into America, and we have been able to do practically nothing.
Manufacturing AKs requires can be done by a blacksmith, but you can't hire ten thousand blacksmiths to produce a gun each every day. You need stamping presses, metal casting, etc. and you will never make a gun as good as a factory. That's just ignorant thinking- the steel, the manufacture, the precision all matter.
>If somehow guns stopped flowing across the border, and cartels still wanted them, they'd be up and running in no time.
That's nonsense. People can make cars from scratch in their garages, but if you stop selling cars to a country they will very quickly not have any more cars. Guns are not that complicated but they aren't that simple. Zip guns have never and will never be a problem in countries with even a partially functional government.
This whole "we can't stop them from getting guns" is emblematic of the magical thinking I was referring to. The scale of the number of guns coming from the US is just way, way beyond what is practical or even possible in other countries. There are plenty of reasons we shouldn't stop guns from flowing into Mexico, but it is a real problem that would no longer exist if we didn't let US guns go to Mexico. There's just no way they would be able to get even a fraction as many guns, anywhere close to the same quality. The US is unique in the entire world for how many (and how many kinds of) guns it has[1]. It's not possible to just go to Russia or China- of the countries that have the most guns the only ones who don't buy them all from the US are Switzerland (where my family immigrated from, incidentally) and France, and they certainly aren't selling to Mexicans.
A small shop in Guadalajara was making AR-15 lower receivers, using a Hardinge VMC 600 ii CNC mill.[1] This wasn't the usual operation starting from "80% lower receivers"; they were machining the whole part from plain aluminum billets. The machining job lacks a finish pass, but probably works.
There are some surprisingly primitive yet successful gun factories in the third world.
Yes, and they only exist because the government turns a completely blind eye. If you had a choice between all guns coming from America and all guns being made in Mexico, the government can do something about the latter but absolutely nothing about the former.
I was there a while ago - it's a fun place and for a few dollars you can take an AK out behind the shack and let rip. Usually the tourists use Russian ones and they are less likely to explode on you than the local copies.
I saw him thread a muzzle and priming rounds. It looks very much like they are getting 99% done guns and just assembling them, or making stocks or converting them to select fire, which happens in Mexico already. That's just a technical redefinition of what a "gun" is. However even if Mexico was forced to make do entirely with 90% lowers, it would still be a massive restriction in volume. The number of lowers is way, way smaller than the number of guns that are made every day.
If somehow guns stopped flowing across the border, and cartels still wanted them, they'd be up and running in no time. I'd be surprised if they aren't already doing it, because they have other operations that require much more sophistication.