McALLEN — The Rio Grande Valley ranks as the third-busiest market in Texas for firearms trafficked into Mexico, according to a federal official.

Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth rank first and second, respectively, said Dewey Webb, special agent in charge of the Houston Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Webb and Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms industry, convened a news conference here Tuesday to promote the "Don't Lie for the Other Guy" campaign, which seeks to reduce illegal firearms traffic by combating straw purchases.

A straw purchase occurs when a person buys a firearm in his own name and then illegally gives it to someone else. Criminals traffic firearms primarily through straw purchases, Webb said.

Anyone caught illegally purchasing a firearm for another person can face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The "Don't Lie for the Other Guy" campaign returns to the Valley a week after the U.S. Government Accountability Office - a nonpartisan agency that studies government spending - published a study documenting the flow of firearms across the U.S.-Mexico border.

According to the GAO, 87 percent of firearms seized and traced by the Mexican government in the last five years originated in the United States. That figure climbed to 90 percent during the past three years.

Straw purchasers buy these firearms from gun shops and gun shows in Southwest border states and pass them on to drug trafficking organizations, the study found.

Previously, the most common black-market firearms were shotguns, .22-caliber rifles and .45-caliber and .39-caliber pistols, but the demand for high-powered, military-style weapons has grown during the last 10 years as drug trafficking organizations sought to equip their private armies, Webb said.

Keane, of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, urged caution when interpreting the study's statistics. The average U.S. firearm seized in Mexico is 14 years old, which may indicate that traffic has not picked up, he said.

"The perception that truckloads of guns cross the border is not the case," Keane added.

Although the extent of cross-border firearms traffic is disputed, Texas remains Mexico's primary source of U.S. firearms.

"People don't drive across town to buy groceries," Webb said. "As it stands now, Texas is the closest, easiest, and cheapest place to buy firearms."

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Spence Kimball is an intern covering general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4423.