Misinformation In Two Languages

The 90% solution works for leading politicians in both Mexico and the United States, so expect to keep hearing it.

I refer, of course, to the widely cited statistic that 90% of the guns used by the drug cartels in Mexico come from the United States.  [FactCheck chimes in with helpful analysis - see UPDATE]

The most recent volley of misinformation came from Mexican President Calderon in his press conference with Barack Obama yesterday:

PRESIDENT CALDERÓN: Thank you for your question. I want to say that, in effect, on this topic -- not only on this topic, but on many of the other thorny topics of relations between the U.S. and Mexico, we have had an open, frank, trusting conversation between President Obama and myself. We have spoken of assault weapons. He is well aware of our problems.

And we have described it as it is from the moment that the prohibition on the sale of assault weapons a few years ago, we have seen an increase in the power of organized crime in Mexico. Only in my administration, in the two years and four months, we have been able to see -- or rather we have seized more than 16,000 assault weapons. And in the efforts we have made to track their origin -- and President Obama has referred to that -- we have seen that nearly 90 percent of those arms comes from the United States -- those weapons come from the United States. There are about 10,000 sales points in the U.S.-Mexico border -- only at the border.

Fox News and the NRA debunked this so for earnest libs there was no flutter in reality-world at all.  This is from Fox:

The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

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.

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.

If your common sense doesn't tell you that the AK47 is available to third-worlders everywhere then even the NY Times provides enough information to hint that Fox News is onto something here.  This is from their critical, hard-hitting piece titled "U.S. Is Arms Bazaar for Mexican Cartels" last February:

The Mexican authorities say they seized 20,000 weapons from drug gangs in 2008, the majority bought in the United States.

The authorities in the United States say they do not know how many firearms are transported across the border each year, in part because the federal government does not track gun sales and traces only weapons used in crimes. But A.T.F. officials estimate 90 percent of the weapons recovered in Mexico come from dealers north of the border.

In 2007, the firearms agency traced 2,400 weapons seized in Mexico back to dealers in the United States, and 1,800 of those came from dealers operating in the four states along the border, with Texas first, followed by California, Arizona and New Mexico.

Hmm, 20,000 weapons were seized in 2008, but in 2007 only 2,400 were traced back to US dealers.  Either there was a huge spike in cross-border traffic in 2008 (a belated response to the expiration of the assault-warpon bans in 2004?) or something is amiss.

Well, President Calderon is claiming that in the previous two years and four months the Mexicans have seized 16,000 assault weapons (which would be a subset of all weapons seized).  The numbers don't come together beautifully, but again, the BATFE is pretty clearly not being asked to trace every weapon seized.

The Times did better on April 15 (my emphasis):

Federal agents say about 90 percent of the 12,000 pistols and rifles the Mexican authorities recovered from drug dealers last year and asked to be traced came from dealers in the United States, most of them in Texas and Arizona.

"Pistols and rifles" is different from "assault weapons", so the numbers may not mix and match.  I'll bet most rifles but few pistols fit the hazy "assault weapons" category.

Even Bob Schiefer of CBS News noted a bit of hat-dancing by the Mexican Ambassador when challenged about his use of this "Blame America" stat:

The key issue, Sarukhan reiterated on CBS News' on Face The Nation Sunday, is to stop the flow of U.S. firearms and cash, “which is providing drug cartels in Mexico with the wherewithal to corrupt, to bribe, to kill.

“Ninety percent of all weapons we are seizing in Mexico, Bob, are coming from across the United States,” he said, citing the high number of Federal firearms licenses a few miles north of the border. "Just on the Arizona and Texas borders with Mexico alone there are approximately 7,000 FFLs, federal firearms licensees. And weapons bought by the drug syndicates, directly or proxy purchases, are coming from those gun shops."

Schieffer noted that the NRA has taken issue with the statistic, and asked the ambassador where the data originates – a question Sarukhan did not directly answer, although he used the example of a recent weapons seizure in a border town to explain how much ammunition U.S. sellers are directing to drug cartels.

“We seized more than 250 assault weapons and half-a-million rounds of ammo, these have just crossed over the border,” he explained. “By tracing back these weapons, by looking at the type of weapons, we determined that most of these weapons are coming from the United States.”

Pushed by Schieffer about how Mexican authorities can be so sure the majority of the weapons originated in the States, Sarukhan said through research with AFT they discovered that most the grenades are coming from Guatemala, while most of the assault weapons come from the United States.

Grenades and anti-aircraft guns are entering Mexico from from elsewhere, as would an even higher proportion of "assault weapons" if the US ban was re-instituted.

There is a report at the BATFE website which fell off my To Read list, but feel free...

UPDATE:  FactCheck is on this and says that Fox's 17% is low; their guess is about one-third:

But the Fox figure of 17 percent is based on a misreading of some confusing House subcommittee testimony by ATF official William Newell. The Fox reporters come up with a figure of 5,114 guns traced to U.S. sources in fiscal 2007 and 2008. That figures to 17.6 percent of the 29,000 figure for guns seized in Mexico, as given by the country's attorney general.

The 5,114 figure is simply wrong. What Newell said quite clearly is that the number of guns submitted to ATF in those two years was 11,055: "3,312 in FY 2007 [and] 7,743 in FY 2008." Newell also testified, as other ATF officials have done, that 90 percent of the guns traced were determined to have come from the U.S. So based on Newell's testimony, the Fox reporters should have used a figure of 9,950 guns from U.S. sources. That figures out to just over 34 percent of guns recovered, assuming that the 29,000 figure supplied by Mexico's attorney general is correct.

Even that number is too low. At our request, an ATF spokesman gave us more detailed figures for how many guns had been submitted and traced during those two years. Of the guns seized in Mexico and given to ATF for tracing, the agency actually found 95 percent came from U.S. sources in fiscal 2007 and 93 percent in fiscal 2008. That comes to a total of 10,347 guns from U.S. sources for those two years, or 36 percent of what Mexican authorities say they recovered.

[end of thread]

Comments

[MAS1916]

It is a good thing that Mexico has such strict gun control laws. Otherwise, this could be a serious situation.

[clarice]

Steve Gilbert has noted that we are always at fault:
The drug smuggling into the US is our fault because we BUY them, creating a market; the arms purchases in Mexico are our fault because we SELL (some of them).

Under Obama the US is like the proverbial rented mule.

[Ignatz]

Where to begin?
What percentage of illegal drugs entering the US are from or transit Mexico?
What percentage of illegal aliens are from or transit Mexico?
What percentage of crime in border towns are committed by Mexican Nationals?
Why not close the border if Mexico is being so unduly harmed by el norte?
Why can't Mexico elect anyone other than a whining twerp as president?

Mexico would probably be better off were it to actually receive a flood of AKs, FNs and ARs.
Then the common folk could shoot not only the drug lords but the corrupt elites of both political parties and start over from scratch. Hard to see how they could do worse than the current crop.

[pagar]

And the illegal immigrants are our fault because wages are too high here.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Could someone tell me where all those Kalashnikovs are being manufactured in the US?

[Uncle BigBad]

OT (but not really)

Spengler outs himself.

My favorite quote:
"...when he explained to me that the US would destroy the Soviet Empire by the end of the 1980s. I thought him a dangerous lunatic, and immediately signed on."

[narciso]

It's a fullsized kick me sign, that he's attaching in every corner of the world,
to us. Mexico is suffering the murderous
competition that Colombia was suffering in the 80s. Gun control wasn't going to stop that problem, and it will have no impact
on the current situation, except to make us more vulnerable.

On the positive side, it's my mother's
birthday today, and here's another LUN
focusing in part on this issue we were discussing on a previous thread, about the question of supply relating to OPEC's fortunes.

[Strawman Cometh]

Why not close the border if Mexico is being so unduly harmed by el norte?
Newt said a similar thing on fox (Hannity?) last nite.

[Thomas Collins]

I was going to call my LUN off topic, but actually it is on topic (namely, the general topic of the irresponsibility of the Obama Administration).

[cathyf]

Let's see: when Mexican police think that a gun came from the US, in the vast majority of cases they are correct.

I suppose "Mexican police are competent" isn't exactly a sexy headline.

[matt]

guns don't kill people in Mexico. Mexicans do.

[clarice]

I read that about 1 in 10 people born in Mexico lives here. Here's my idea..get them all to move here and then we turn that vast emptiness with its petro reserves into St Jane's Island--we use nukes to clear the Rio Grande and make it larger and seal us off from norteamerica aka Obamalandia..and it's ours, all ours..

[MayBee]

This is the gun genius we have in office, dealing with Calderon:

"As a long-time resident and elected official of Chicago, Barack Obama has seen the impact of fully automatic weapons in the hands of criminals," then-Sen. Barack Obama's campaign stated. "Thus, Senator Obama supports making permanent the expired federal Assault Weapon Ban. These weapons, such as AK-47s, belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets. These are also not weapons that are used by hunters and sportsmen."

[MayBee]

Dios mio!

The EPA has decided to regulate Carbon dioxide emissions.
Donde esta kim?

[bad]

If I weren't so lazy I'd google "fully automated weapons" crimes in Chicago and see how many people were the victims of such heinous guns.

[PDinDetroit]

The solution is too simple for "complex minds" to handle: Close the border with Mexico and put National Guard Troops on patrol. This is a WIN for all concerns: Lower Drug Traffic, Lower Gun Traffic, Lower Illegal Alien Traffic, and Provide National Guard Troops practical experience.

OT: My daughter and I go shooting just about every week now. I picked up 2 new "assault rifles" for us: a Ruger 10/22 for her (all weather edition) and a Ruger Mini-14 for me (all weather edition).

I guess a representative from DHS will be visiting us soon since I cling to Guns, Religion, Disagree with the current administration, and have stickers on my SUV supporting Rogue Soccer Teams...

[Sue]

TC,

The son of a bitch said he was going to bankrupt the coal industry and by god he wasn't lying. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.............

[Rick Ballard]

"Donde esta kim?"

Kim está en combate aquí.

Which state will be the first to sue the dirty commusociafascists at the EPA?

[Ignatz]

If I weren't so lazy I'd google "fully automated weapons" crimes in Chicago and see how many people were the victims of such heinous guns.

I'm equally lazy, bad.
But I do know off the top of my head that since 1938, when fully automatic firearms were made illegal to own without a federally issued permit, there has been precisely one felony committed with a legally owned machine gun, and that includes tens of thousands of guns over the years. At least that was the number as of a couple of years ago when I last read up on it.

[Mustang0302]

The machinegun in that photo is not a .50cal M2.

It is most definitely a .30cal M1919...either .30-06 or .308/7.62NATO (appears, in this case to be chambered for .30-06).

Not that I'd trust a Mexican MFJP General, Al-Reuters or the Telegraph to notice the difference...absent an agenda.

Yeah, it's a machinegun...a big scary gun.

Anti-aircraft? .50cal? No, neither.

Not that my observations will make any difference.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Close the border with Mexico and put National Guard Troops on patrol.

Do you really want Obama to have federalized military forces all through the Southwest?

There's a reason for the posse comitatus laws.

[cathyf]

Which state will be the first to sue the dirty commusociafascists at the EPA?

Good luck with that.

[PDinDetroit]

ChaCo -

Although not stated, I was thinking that the states would be the one's in charge of the National Guard - 10th Amendment and all that...

[matt]

as I recall they haven't made the .30 cal 1919 for 50 years. Must be plenty of those kicking around in South America.

[Ignatz]

The machinegun in that photo is not a .50cal M2.

Not only is it not an M2 it is obviously not an AA gun of any kind, unless one were limiting oneself to shooting planes on the runway. It's on a tripod.

[Mustang0302]

From a tripod mount, it'd make a poor anti-aircraft gun no matter where it came from.

Of course, a .22 pistol will work as well as anything against aircraft parked on the ramp, or as well as the "antiaircraft" incidents cited in that article.

For "agenda's sake", I guess ".30cal" didn't sound as scary as ".50cal"...just like brown vs. black, conventional stock vs. pistol grip, barrel vs. "barrel shroud", etc., etc.

Remember the account of a sailor officially credited with downing a Jap Zero at Pearl Harbor?

With the well-known anti-aircraft gun...the M1903 Springfield Rifle!

Guns are evil. Get on board!

[fdcol63]

Numbering around 300 million people, Americans also consume a big chunk of Earth's oxygen supply.

They'll blame us for that next, too.

[PDinDetroit]

Mustang - speaking of .22 cal, see LUN for a really fun gattling gun you can make from 2 Ruger 10/22's.

[Ignatz]

Mustang - speaking of .22 cal, see LUN for a really fun gattling gun you can make from 2 Ruger 10/22's.

No time to look up links but there is at least one company which remachines M2 Brownings to semi auto so they are legal to own (except in my putrid California which has banned .50 calibers). Used to cost around $7-8000.
There is also a company or two which does the same for .30 calibers for about half that. can even get them with the spade grips. Very cool.

[PeterUK]

Could someone tell me where all those Kalashnikovs are being manufactured in the US?

Here. Having said that there has been some hundred million of AK47s made since the gun's inception,why anyone would buy an expensive copy when there are better guns available if you are going custom.
Probably get a Chinese knock off,or ex Soviet bloc manufacture cheap.Cuba,Middle East,South America must be heavin with the things.Small gunsmiths in Afghanistan make them also.

[bad]

Why would we give billions of tax payer dollars to Pakistan with no conditions when we place conditions all over US companies recieving taxpayer money?

[Mustang0302]

PD -

Look at this! "Miniature" belt-fed M1919 in .22cal.

Look at the relative size of the guy's hands!

It's a damned menace, I tell ya! A threat to everything that flies!

[clarice]

OT:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/pwned_by_china.html

[Mustang0302]

Ignatz -

As I'm sure you're aware, the M2 makes a fine unmodified single shot weapon.

Carlos Hathcock made a 2500yd kill with an M2 mounting a Unertl 10X scope (with the bolt latched locked).

700gr. of "bad day".

[PDinDetroit]

Mustang - I will have to look at later, corp blocks YouTube.

Clarice - I have had a feeling recently to start training to combat hacking as I feel that the next WW will definitely have an electronic front as well. I do not feel we are well prepared for this type of fight just yet...

[Nick]

Obama will tell any lie to foster support for more gun control/abolishment of gun rights.

[Mustang0302]

Not quite OT:

Susan Roesgen "not hot enough for Fox".

Poor Susan...a .22short trying to run with the .50s...Megyn, Jane, Patti, etc.

Thanks for playing! Put some tea on it! Walk it off!

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Clarice - I have had a feeling recently to start training to combat hacking as I feel that the next WW will definitely have an electronic front as well. I do not feel we are well prepared for this type of fight just yet...

PD, I think you'd be surprised. It is fun though.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Look at this! "Miniature" belt-fed M1919 in .22cal.

Want.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

That said, PD, you might enjoy this.

[PDinDetroit]

ChaCo - there are so many holes in so many layers that most people would be surprised to know even existed (let alone comprehend). The Internet is inherently insecure and was never designed for how we use it today.

Small Example: A couple years ago, there was a "hole" discovered in the way that Wireless Network Cards, their Firmware, and their Driver interacted that allowed for any person with the knowledge of it to connect to their laptop as an AD-HOC Network with Full Rights (without their knowledge).

Can you imagine, sitting in a coffee shop and being able to see everything that someone else is doing on their laptop as if it were in front of you?

How many people ACTUALLY go to the Computer Manufacturer's Support site and download all of the Hardware Updates (BIOS, Firmware, Drivers)?

I bet that there are still some laptops out there with this particular vulnerability...

[DebinNC]

Just watched that ingrate Capt. Phillips effusively thank the Navy Seals and all the servicefolk who contributed to his rescue. He thanked his employer, the ship owner for going all out on his behalf. But nary a word of thanks did Phillips offer to the one person most responsible for his safe return...according to the MSM.

[PDinDetroit]

God???

[Charlie (Colorado)]

PD, this has only been my major research area for 23–24 years.

I'm just saying that there is more -- much more -- going on in terms of counter-hacking and efforts to develop defenses than you're hearing in the open press, even the industrial press.

There is a good lot of stuff being done that we wildly hope doesn't get into the open press.

There's also a lot of threats that we were warning about 20 years ago, and being ignored, that are now being taken seriously. Like threats to the electrical network. (You could, for example, see the piece I had at PJM last December.)

It would be something interesting to get into, though. It is a lot of fun.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

God???

She said "MSM".

[libocrat]

It's all complete progaganda. Opie doesn't want you to have guns, but he does want to lick foreign governments and foreign Presidents balls.,
It's a win win for the fucking gutless piece of shit we have for President.

[PDinDetroit]

ChaCo - Thanks for sharing that info - it was very good. The questions raised on how and who to engage in situational tactics is very appropriate and policies and practices in this area will take time, persistence, and the dreaded "continuous improvement" maxim to develop fully.

The CSIS Report helped me better formulate my thoughts around this area and why I have been feeling like I need to focus efforts here.

I have been in the IT Industry for 16 years, the last 5 years as Systems Architect, and most recently as a Chief Architect for a Global Company. I deal with these types of issues on a regular basis for Global Systems that I work on.

We will have to chat further some time...

[PDinDetroit]

libocrat - you sound just like TCO off his/her meds.

[MarkJ]

Maybee,

"As a long-time resident and elected official of Chicago, Barack Obama has seen the impact of fully automatic weapons in the hands of criminals,"

Hmmm. What's really odd is that, as a long-time resident and elected official of Chicago, Barack didn't see the impact of endemic corruption and Democratic malfeasance, did he?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

PD, contact me at chas.r.martin AT gmail you know the rest.

There's actually some good stuff ramping up; if you seriously fear a rif, I may know people.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

you sound just like TCO off his/her meds

Nah, no one got called a RINO.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Oh, and have a look at this Wired article.

[Kev R]

Excuse my ignorance, but isn't an AK47 a Russian assault rifle? Anyone know?

[Scrapiron]

I've owned firearms since I was 12 years old (now 68) and still haven't found the source for cheap 'automatic' weapons in the U.S. As a natural born citizen With no criminal record and 22 years of military service it would take me months to get a permit from the ATF to possess any automatic weapon. Got to renew my CWP next week. Democrats bleed BS and eat BS.

[cathyf]

What's really odd is that, as a long-time resident and elected official of Chicago, Barack didn't see the impact of endemic corruption and Democratic malfeasance, did he?

Um, looks to me like he noted the opportunity to kick it up a notch (or 3) by going from a city to a national order of magnitude.

[screamingrightwingnut]

OOOOH, that nasty Obama is gonna take my precious AK-47s away! Mommie is calling the cops on me because my pooch is peeing on her carpet! Be back soon!

[Mustang0302]

Molōn labe, precious.

Don't tread on me.