BS Will Never Die - Ongoing Phony Gun Trace Stats

Back in the day Obama and his chorus used to claim that 90% of crime guns recovered in Mexico were traced back to the US, which clearly signaled a need for stricter gun control here.

And now the NY Times is reprinting letters and citing a new Council on Foreign Relations report which makes the same claim.

Of course, Obama is more verbally than numerically oriented so his stats were widely debunked. The gist - Mexico recovers many, many crime guns, submits likely candidates (such as those with serial numbers that aren't obvious Bulgarian Army surplus) to the BATF, and gets a trace result on that subset. From FactCheck, updated 3/13/2010:

But is it true, as President Obama said, that "[m]ore than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States?" Government statistics don't actually support that claim.

The figure represents only the percentage of crime guns that have been submitted by Mexican officials and traced by U.S. officials. We can find no hard data on the total number of guns actually "recovered in Mexico," but U.S. and Mexican officials both say that Mexico recovers more guns than it submits for tracing. Therefore, the percentage of guns "recovered" that are traced to U.S. sources necessarily is less than 90 percent. Where do the others come from? U.S. officials can't say.

...

And Mexico recovers a lot more guns than it submits to the U.S. In December 2008, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora put the number of recovered crime weapons in the country over the past two years at nearly 29,000, according to USA Today. And figures given by ATF make clear that the agency doesn't trace nearly all of those.

According to ATF, Mexico submitted 7,743 firearms for tracing in fiscal year 2008 (which ended Oct. 1) and 3,312 guns in fiscal 2007. That adds up to a fraction of the two-year total given by Mexico's attorney general. 

11,000 crime guns were submitted to the BATF for tracing in that time period, which is roughly 30% of the 29,000 revovered.

Are things that different today? Pending booth review, the judge's ruling is that the new CFR 'stats' are as phony as the old ones.

FWIW: This April 2013 report from the Wilson Center doesn't seem to have relevant e-trace data past 2011. They say this about Mexico:

Based on the most recently available data, ATF determined that 68,000 U.S.-origin firearms were recovered at crime scenes in Mexico from 2007 to 2011.60 Despite the strong past cooperation between U.S. and Mexican authorities on firearms tracing, the new Mexican administration has been slow to submit firearm trace requests to ATF. While this may simply be the result of new leadership personnel familiarizing themselves with ongoing government projects, U.S. officials have indicated that they have seen a worrisome lack of action on tracing and other law enforcement matters related to firearms trafficking.

And here is an interesting factoid from Guatemala, a country contributing to our border crisis, as mentioned in the NY Times letter, but not discussed in the CFR report:

Based largely on an ATF examination of just one Guatemalan military bunker with firearms recovered from FY 2006 to FY 2009, ATF determined that 2,687 of the 6,000 firearms (40 percent) had a nexus with the United States...

40, 70, 90, whatever.

GHASTLY: More from FactCheck:

The 90 percent figure was similarly cited by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) during a March 17 congressional hearing on the subject. Durbin said: "According to ATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], more than 90 percent of the guns seized after raids or shootings in Mexico have been traced right here to the United States of America." Feinstein added: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico used to shoot judges, police officers, mayors, kidnap innocent people and do terrible things come from the United States, and I think we must put a stop to that."

And it's been reported by a phalanx of news organizations, including the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times, NBC and the Chicago Tribune, that 90 percent of Mexico's recovered guns come from the U.S.

Mexican authorities have made the same error: On CBS' "Face the Nation" on April 12, Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan said: "Ninety percent of all weapons we are seizing in Mexico, Bob, are coming from across the United States."

Most who have used the statistic attribute it to ATF. Others attribute the figure to officials within the Mexican government. But that's not correct.

Comments

[Happy, happy, joy, joy Ignatz]

Let me guess, the creeps discussed the entire thing without once mentioning that Barry and Eric were two of the gunrunners responsible for illegal guns flowing to Mexico.

[Captain Hate]

Has anybody in Congress negotiated with Mexico about trading 404 and Stedman for the jailed Marine?

[narciso]

there was something wrong with the Premise of Worth's piece that seemed awry;

http://freebeacon.com/columns/power-precedes-politics/

where did the Medellin Cartel get it's guns, why would we care?

[Jane]

This is big: IRS failed to tell federal court of lost Lois Lerner emails

Clarice do you know the judge?

[narciso]

Surprise, surprise, jane, he presided over the Senator Stevens witchhunt, and only after Begich had
been installed, did he point out the fraud, daddy knows the details,

[rich@gmu]

so this we be one of the reasons for the amnesty congress is cooking up?

[rich@gmu]

wasn't the only person fired in that whole sorry episode the fbi whistleblower. could only imagine if it were a critical Dem senator being railroaded.

yikes ... >>>so this we be one of<<< that is the beer talking .... "so is this one of ..."

[narciso]

yes, rich, maybe not all of these experts are lying
jackalopes but it does seem that way;

http://babalublog.com/2014/01/12/the-ballad-of-julia-sweig/

[rich@gmu]

our future

http://news.yahoo.com/blackout-hits-venezuela-interrupts-presidential-broadcast-204030360.html

A blackout cut power to much of Venezuela on Friday, snarling traffic in the capital Caracas and other major cities as authorities scrambled to restore electricity after the outage, which twice interrupted a presidential broadcast.

[narciso]

btw, this is 'Kaylee' decidedly not in mechanic's garb,

[clarice]

No, Jane.

[Threadkiller]

Speaking of guns:

Fox News' Andrea Tanteros: We didn't vet pResident Obama now. But at some point we're going to have an honest conversation about who he is and where he came from...

http://youtu.be/f3O5D3HJYqQ

http://www.birtherreport.com/2014/06/shock-fox-news-host-maybe-one-day-we.html?m=1

She has a lot to get off her chest...

[narciso]

Yes,these are the folks we are giving 500 million to,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10930345/Syrian-rebel-army-sacked-over-corruption-claims.html

we might need something north of a hundred proof,

[rich@gmu]

nice legs ...

[rich@gmu]

very nice, narciso.

[rich@gmu]

and on your other link narciso, of course a member of the Political Class would go over to Cuba to preach the virtues of oil exploration there.

Here in VA we can't do that cause that would run afoul of McAwful's rental agreement with Steyer (which is doubly dumb because Accomack and North Hampton are probably the poorest counties in VA and given the impact feature it is worth exploring its potential).

Same could be said for exploration on the Florida gulf coast as well but we have to have a panic attack over 210 million gallons of oil spilled into 643 quadrillion gallons of water.

[narciso]

it's not about oil exploration, the Chinese are going at with gusto with the same delicacy they pursue every other project, it's about getting
US investment in Cuba,

As with Mary Ann over Ginger, Jewel had more understated beauty,

[Happy, happy, joy, joy Ignatz]

Greg Sargent believes deporting people who come here illegally is apparently insane or at the very least quite unreasonable.
If only he were correct that the GOP really is the party of get the hell out for people who break into our country.

[rich@gmu]

narciso-

i'm drinking so sometimes my rants are only partially on the subject of the link.

[DrJ]

Rick Ballard, I will soon be getting a 1961 (!) scientific article written in Italian. Is that something you would be willing and able to translate if I help with some of the technical terms? info at sonatabio dot com .

[Cecil Turner]

So what's the actual number? Based on that 30% submitted, and 40% traced to the US, it'd seem to be about 12%. Which is pretty close to being exactly wrong--the inverse of 90%--which is the sort of accuracy I've come to expect from our credentialed-morons-in-charge.

[Eric in Boise]

Clarice do you know the judge?

Ick, I glanced at that and got a TBT flashback.

[narciso]

'friends don't let friends' take Greg Sargent seriously, as with the Mad Professor Krugman's
latest 'all is well' missive

As with foreign authors like Gabriel Vazquez, and Volpi, foreign filmmakers like Guillermo Del Toro, seem to have new takes on the horror genre, as decidedly as far from Twiight as you can get, more in the Nosferatu vein

[Janet - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

The set up for Fast & Furious does seem the same as the set up for all these illegals coming.

*F&F gets the groundwork laid with purposefully letting guns into Mexico...& then the WaPo starts writing stories about all the US guns in Mexico.

*Ads go out from the federal government to hire people to transport illegals - http://weaselzippers.us/190573-government-advertised-in-january-for-escorts-for-65000-illegal-alien-children-to-be-resettled/

& then in June...here come the illegals.

ID card programs are ready to roll in New York - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-26/new-york-to-issue-id-cards-for-undocumented-immigrants.html

Rush pointed out how voter IDs are too hard for Americans to get...but illegals are all set in a week.

[Captain Hate on the iPhone]

That Sargent article was so sub literate that only the paper of Jen Rubin would be an appropriate forum.

[narciso]

You're right to suspect ,janet, people and/or materiel, don't move without resources, infrastructure, who would be the most obvious
partners in this enterprise, the ones involved in the last one, in this case, the successors to El Chapo Guzman

[Rick B]

DrJ,

I responded via email.

[Rick B]

Cecil,

Even if they weren't assbackward, the numbers tell us nothing about guns stolen by illegal Mexican immigrants in the US and then repatriated. Cartel mules need something for their backhauls as well.

[DrJ]

Rick,

Got it on the gmail account. Thanks!

[Happy, happy, joy, joy Ignatz]

Can you imagine the corruption that will be uncovered down the road with this crew of scum?
No matter how you bury it, even in Chicago, plenty of it eventually comes out.

[narciso]

Meanwhile, back in the real world;

http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/kosovo-police-arrest-three-alleged-isis-jihadists-114062601212_1.html

[Captain Hate]

Can you imagine the corruption that will be uncovered down the road with this crew of scum?

I mentioned on the other thread that some of my lib Farcebook friends are getting really really pissed off at the illegal immigration. I'm wondering if this will have some legs regarding the MFM's ignoring the issue. If people far away from the border points start wondering "why am I not reading or hearing about this" when people they trust are making multiple references to it, there may be some more layoffs of Carlos Slim's increasingly unemployable chimps. The trust level of the MFM is polling at wretchedly low levels, which seemingly doesn't bother them in an Alfred E Newman way.