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Paslode
04-02-2009, 09:21
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.
While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.
By William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott

FOXNews.com

Thursday, April 02, 2009


-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. By all accounts, it's probably around 17 percent.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

A Look at the Numbers

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:

-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.

-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.

- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.

-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.

-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.

'These Don't Come From El Paso'

Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.

"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."

Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."

Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.

The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.

"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Boatloads of Weapons

So why would the Mexican drug cartels, which last year grossed between $17 billion and $38 billion, bother buying single-shot rifles, and force thousands of unknown "straw" buyers in the U.S. through a government background check, when they can buy boatloads of fully automatic M-16s and assault rifles from China, Israel or South Africa?

Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government, says the drug cartels are using the Guatemalan border to move black market weapons. Some are left over from the Central American wars the United States helped fight; others, like the grenades and launchers, are South Korean, Israeli and Spanish. Some were legally supplied to the Mexican government; others were sold by corrupt military officers or officials.

The exaggeration of United States "responsibility" for the lawlessness in Mexico extends even beyond the "90-percent" falsehood -- and some Second Amendment activists believe it's designed to promote more restrictive gun-control laws in the U.S.

In a remarkable claim, Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States -- 730,000 a year. That's a far cry from the official statistic from the Mexican attorney general's office, which says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008.

Chris Cox, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, blames the media and anti-gun politicians in the U.S. for misrepresenting where Mexican weapons come from.

"Reporter after politician after news anchor just disregards the truth on this," Cox said. "The numbers are intentionally used to weaken the Second Amendment."

"The predominant source of guns in Mexico is Central and South America. You also have Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns. It's estimated that over 100,000 soldiers deserted the army to work for the drug cartels, and that ignores all the police. How many of them took their weapons with them?"

senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, called the "90 percent" issue a red herring and said that it should not detract from the effort to stop gun trafficking into Mexico.

"Let's do what we can with what we know," he said. "We know that one hell of a lot of firearms come from the United States because our gun market is wide open."


Interesting.............

abc_123
04-02-2009, 11:09
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/



Interesting.............

We just need to build that wall to keep all those guns from the US out of Mexico. Mexico should be100% on board with that, don't you think?

Richard
04-02-2009, 12:16
It's always interesting to encounter the 'rest of the story'... ;)

Richard's $.02 :munchin

ZonieDiver
04-02-2009, 12:32
I would posit that a significant portion of any semi-automatic, assault-type weapons that ARE going across the border from the US to Mexico are being purchased by Mexican citizens who are prohibited by their laws from buying or owning such weapons (or ANY weapons), in order to offer their families some type of protection from the violence that abounds.

Defender968
04-02-2009, 15:46
Here's what kills me about this whole situation, Mrs. Clinton said that the violence in Mexico is the US's fault because we use the drugs (an illegal product out of South America) that give the Cartels the cash, now on the other hand the Cartels are using a legal product of our country illegally (i.e. guns to murder), so shouldn't then under Mrs. Clintons theory, the cartels be to blame?

Of course not it's all the US's fault what was I thinking. :rolleyes:

It's amazing to me that we have US haters in such high offices. I love their logic....or in reality the total lack of it.

Sigaba
04-02-2009, 15:57
By Senator Feinstein's and Secretary Clinton's logic, we should first shut down Microsoft.

After all, how many crimes are committed with computers using Windows as the OS?

Mrs. Clinton wouldn't make such a proposal. She and Mr. Gates get their hair done at the same saloon. (Wait, has anyone seen both of them at the same place at the same time?)

PSM
04-02-2009, 16:58
We just need to build that wall to keep all those guns from the US out of Mexico. Mexico should be100% on board with that, don't you think?

BTW, here's a pic of that impenetrable wall near Douglas, AZ.

Pat

abc_123
04-02-2009, 17:37
BTW, here's a pic of that impenetrable wall near Douglas, AZ.

Pat

You and I know our effort on our southern border is pure bullshit. Not to demean the folks that are there doing the job... I'm talking about our national effort.Let's stop kidding ourselves and call it like it is.... lip servce.

It is not inpenetrable because we don't want it to be. During WWII we built the Alaska highway between March and September 1942 across over 1500miles of virigin territory through forests, swamps, across rivers and over mountains. So now tell me why we don't have our southern border sealed?

Damn, since Sept 11, 2001 we could have walled off that border 3x over if we really wanted to. Mobilize the Nat'l Guard Engineer Units that aren't going into the box plus some infantry units for security and extra labor and build the damn thing this year.

Or maybe we should start killing people who decide to invade our country rather than enter legally through approved points of entry?

Richard
04-02-2009, 17:45
Or maybe we should start killing people who decide to invade our country rather than enter legally through approved points of entry?

Hey, I'm for it - we'll call it the NORTH BANK or some such meaningful title and get the UN to provide an international observer force to monitor our every action while siding with the invaders. I'll bet the Indians wish they woulda thought of that. Sounds like fun. :rolleyes: :D

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Paslode
04-02-2009, 18:47
BTW, here's a pic of that impenetrable wall near Douglas, AZ.

Pat

That is worth about $25 per 8 ft. section if that.....how many millions were appropiated?

grog18b
04-03-2009, 09:24
BTW, here's a pic of that impenetrable wall near Douglas, AZ.

Pat

I've seen more secure walls around junkyards... If they want to know how to build the wall, they need go no further than the DMZ in Korea. THAT'S a barrier... Of course, you need the guard towers and mine fields to go with it.

RT AXE 10
04-03-2009, 10:20
The biggest source of weapons have been from those wars recently fought through out the world. Example, RVN, 1972, many abandoned warehouses full of US weaponry, went into the international market. A bunch showed up during the late 70's, early 80's, in central and south America. Since then, some of those weapons have made their way into and through the hands of guerrillas, terrorist, druggies, bandits and the rest of the terrorized population. Some of those weapons are finding their way back to US soil. Others are making their way to troubled spots all over the world. Other weapon producing countries have also sold tons of weapons to support upcoming wars Internationally. All these weapons are unaccountable.

Sigaba
06-21-2009, 20:34
In tonight's broadcast of 60 Minutes, in a story by Anderson Cooper, on the violence in Mexico, the 90% statistic was presented was established fact. Once again, we can thank CBS's news division for going the extra mile and vetting its facts.

Fortunately, the secretary of the DHS was able to be the voice of reason and expertise. :rolleyes:

LarryW
06-21-2009, 21:14
Maybe Sheriff Joe Arpaio has an idea as to where we could get the labor to build the wall..."What would Joe do?"

The Reaper
06-22-2009, 07:28
I really doubt that the bulk of the weapons I have seen in the media reports are U.S.

Certainly not the full-auto AKs (mostly Chinese) and frag grenades (Korean).

When the Chinese were trying to smuggle full-auto AKs into the U.S. back during the Klintonista era, they tried to send them through Mexico. Slip a crate or ten past the Mexican customs officials and then put them on a truck coming through our porous southern border. I wonder what percentage of illegal weapons in the U.S. came through Mexico? They sure seem to be able to smuggle in millions of pounds of drugs every year with few complications. Maybe we should restrict movement and limit access across our sovereign borders?

Really makes me wonder how hard it would be to bring WMDs across to use here, and if/when that happens, if we will finally enforce our own laws.

TR

Team Sergeant
06-22-2009, 08:08
Really makes me wonder how hard it would be to bring WMDs across to use here, and if/when that happens, if we will finally enforce our own laws.

TR

I agree, most of the mindless sheeple are afraid of the north koreans and their rockets. I've little doubt when we are hit with a WMD it will be tracked back through mexico, brought in to the US by some islamic coward driving a 66 VW bus.

Utah Bob
06-22-2009, 16:50
I really doubt that the bulk of the weapons I have seen in the media reports are U.S.


Really makes me wonder how hard it would be to bring WMDs across to use here, and if/when that happens, if we will finally enforce our own laws.

TR
Not hard. Not hard at all, unfortunately.

ZonieDiver
06-22-2009, 17:26
I agree, most of the mindless sheeple are afraid of the north koreans and their rockets. I've little doubt when we are hit with a WMD it will be tracked back through mexico, brought in to the US by some islamic coward driving a 66 VW bus.

Something like this...???

http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/3/31/Back-to-the-Future-AK-47.jpg/500px-Back-to-the-Future-AK-47.jpg

Utah Bob
06-23-2009, 08:30
Something like this...???

http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/3/31/Back-to-the-Future-AK-47.jpg/500px-Back-to-the-Future-AK-47.jpg

Now if we just supply the BP with DeLoreans......:D