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It's getting to be a well-established pattern. Whenever today's leftist extremists announce some "statistic" that supports their cause, check into it carefully. It usually turns out to be false.
The leftists have been working for a while on the story that the violence in Mexico is the U.S.'s fault, and that we must start banning guns from our own citizens in order to help Mexico. Of course, they've used every excuse under the sun to ban guns from law-abiding American citizens, and this is just the latest try. It seems to be the "reason behind the push to reinstate the failed "Assault Weapons Ban" - the one that didn't ban any assault weapons and made no difference in crime rates during the ten years it was in place.
Unsurprisingly, it's not true.
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The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S. - Presidential Politics | Political News - FOXNews.com (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/ - broken link)
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
EXCLUSIVE: You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.
-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.
-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.
-- 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.
(Full text of this article can be read at the above URL)
I am not at all surprised. When does the Gov ever actually just tell the truth about anything. This is yet another case of spin. We have a decidedly anti-second amend. rights crowd in power. They will say what ever it takes to satisfy their agenda.
Tell me Mr Obama what has changed? Seems like you and yours are doing a lot of what the previous admin did.
What does the phrase "traced firearms originate from the U.S." really mean? Are these only guns that were sold to US civilians? Are these guns that were manufactured in the US? If so, were they sold to private citizens or the US military/government? Or were they US manfuactured arms sold/given to the Mexican government? Without more info that phrase is meaningless.
we are supplying the guns, they are supplying the dope and cheap labor. i didnt do it my hand made me do it. stop it. we seem incapable of enforcing the law any longer, any law. we only seem capable of punishing our citizens when they attempt to defend themselves. the wolves look for sheep to bite lots easier than biting other wolves.
Well...150,000 Mexican troops have deserted in the last six years....of course those arms would mostly fall under coming from the USA...
Just not in the way some think of the weapons getting into the wrong hands.
The other way they are being armed is of course from south of Mexico.
I wonder how many of the 17%, are guns that the US sold legally to the Mexican military or other divisions of the Mex government, and which then got stolen or bootlegged out to civilians as you describe?
90% sounds better for self-flagellation purposes, wouldn't you agree? It also gives the added bonus of an argument for gun control.
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