Mexico City Trading Xboxes for Guns to Reduce Crime

Larger Weapons Get Computers, Smaller Get Xboxes or Cash as City Works to Clean Up Drug Trade

Who can resist a free Xbox system? Mexico City is offering them in exchange for getting high powered guns off the street. Depending on the type of gun, residents can get a computer, an Xbox, or cash in trade for weapons which the military will then destroy. Computer software and Xbox systems, Reuters reports, are donated by Microsoft.

According to Reuters, the new mayor of Mexico City is taking a number of steps to reduce the chaos, crime and violence in the capital city. Many factors stand in the way of sweeping the streets free of crime and refuse: casual vendors have been parked across sidewalks in narrow streets, a tenement has become a fortified drug sales center, and a whole neighborhood's shops specialize in selling parts from "chop shops" where stolen cars are dismantled and sold for often more than the car's original value.

With the new conservative President of Mexico leading the way in reforms and sending troops to combat drug crime in key areas, Mexico City's mayor has also decided that it is time to focus on the more entrenched criminal activity in the city, sending police squads to recapture areas known for their crime.

According to Reuters, Mexico City's Tepito area, only "a few blocks north of the capital's main square," was stormed by police, who seized a tenement complex called "The Fortress" which they report is "reputedly a major cocaine and marijuana distribution centre." On the first day of the program, the city received 17 guns, with 12 from Tepito.

News sources in Europe and Australia see humor in the Mexican initiative, recalling the small-scale violence produced by the initial sales of one of Sony's Playstation models, and speculating whether someone turning in a high-power semiautomatic weapon would rather learn about Windows Vista and "the latest features of Excel 2007" with the computer they would be entitled to, or play Grand Theft Auto and other violent games as a virtual criminal on the Xbox. Nevertheless, a commentary in The Australian suggested that gun control in general, which met strong resistance in Australia in the 1990s, would find a lot more cooperation with such an approach.