New Report Explodes Myths on Mexico's Gun Supply

[Mr VJP]

    New Report Explodes Myths on Mexico's Gun Supply

[/color]Editor's  Note: Recently, we were taken to task by a reader who was angry that we didn't  cite the specific statistics regarding Mexico's  allegedly never-ending supply of firearms supposedly smuggled in from the United States.  Today, with a very strong atta-boy to the National Shooting Sports Foundation's  news group, here's their report on the latest facts and figures regarding Mexico's  true sources of firearms. Like they noted below, it's almost impossible to kill  a myth once it's been misstated, but this is one you'll now have the facts and  figures - complete with a pie chart - to refute.

 

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  A new report calls "The 90 Percent Myth," which refers to the number  of illegal guns in Mexico  coming from the United States,  "more political rhetoric than empirical fact."

 

  We couldn't agree more. NSSF has been trying to stamp out "The 90 Percent  Myth" ever since ATF misstated the number in testimony at a congressional  hearing in 2009. A prompt clarification issued by ATF couldn't put the  proverbial genie back in the bottle. Unfortunately, "The 90 Percent  Myth" has been widely promoted by Mexican officials and wrongly cited in  U.S. news stories, although a Fox News study (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-small-fraction-guns-mexico-come/)of  the "90% statistic" noted "that number's just plain wrong."

 

  In a report issued last week (link below) , the independent research group  STRATFOR has corroborated what NSSF has been saying for some time about  firearms recovered from drug cartels in Mexico: that it is erroneous and  grossly misleading to say that 90 percent (a rounded up number) of the firearms  recovered in Mexico came from the United States.

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Link-if possible-to the    full-sized image. It's important to the story

          [/color]The truth is that less than  12 percent of the guns Mexico  seized in 2008 have been verified as coming from the United States. The proof can be  found in the U.S. government statistics (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09709.pdf)  that the STRATFOR report explains below and that the pie chart clearly  illustrates:

 

  According to a June 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report,  "some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in  2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24  percent) was submitted to the U.S.  Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these  7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some  3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.

 

  "This means that the 87 percent figure relates to the number of weapons  submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF that could be successfully  traced and not from the total number of weapons seized by Mexican authorities  or even from the total number of weapons submitted to the ATF for tracing. In  fact, the 3,480 guns positively traced to the United  States equals less than 12 percent of the total arms  seized in Mexico  in 2008 . . . ."

 

  Yes, nearly 90 percent of firearms that were recovered and able to be  successfully traced by ATF were found to have originated in the United States  (that's 3,480 out of 4,000), but why should that surprise anyone? The United States  has a very good system for tracking firearms through serial numbers and  purchase records (some countries don't track them at all). Mexico  submitted for tracing only those firearms that it believed, due to their serial  numbers, would likely trace positive. The vast majority of guns recovered in Mexico are not sent to the U.S. for  tracing at all because their markings, or lack of them, show they do not come  from here.

 

  A number of handguns-the top three are 9mm, .38 and .22 caliber-and other  sporting firearms have been smuggled across the border, but the STRATFOR report  notes that the drug cartels increasingly prefer military weapons instead of  sporting arms. Military-grade equipment such as hand grenades, rocket-propelled  grenades, automatic rifles and light machine guns are certainly not readily  available in this country from firearms retailers. These types of firearms and  military ordinance are coming from someplace other than the United States.

 

  The STRATFOR report points out where the guns are flowing from:

 

  "Most of the military ordnance used by the Mexican cartels comes from  other sources, such as the international arms market (increasingly from China  via the same networks that furnish precursor chemicals for narcotics  manufacturing), or from corrupt elements in the Mexican military or even  deserters who take their weapons with them. . . .

 

  Some of these seizures have included M60 machine guns and hundreds of 40 mm  grenades obtained from the military arsenals of countries like Guatemala. . .  .

 

  Latin America is awash in weapons that were  shipped there over the past several decades to supply the various insurgencies  and counterinsurgencies in the region. When these military-grade weapons are  combined with the rampant corruption in the region, they quickly find their way  into the black arms market."

 

  While Mexican president Calderon is to be applauded for cracking down on the  drug cartels and the rampant and systemic corruption in his country, blaming  the United States and its  Second Amendment freedoms for Mexico's  violent crime will not help solve Mexico's problem. STRATFOR's report  argues that Mexico's  political leaders have attempted to deflect responsibility for dealing with the  cartels: "According to the Mexican government, the cartel wars are not a  result of corruption in Mexico  or of economic and societal dynamics that leave many Mexicans marginalized and  desperate to find a way to make a living. Instead, the cartel wars are due to  the insatiable American appetite for narcotics and the endless stream of guns  that flows from the United States  into Mexico  and that results in Mexican violence."

 

  This argument, of course, implies that U.S. guns laws and the firearms  industry, specifically firearm retailers along the border, are to blame, yet  it's those same retailers who cooperate regularly with ATF investigators by  providing information that can help bust the illegal firearms traffickers.  Also, the idea that there's a steady flow of newly purchased firearms bound for  Mexico doesn't square with the fact that in 2008 the firearms successfully  traced to the United States were, according to ATF, originally sold at retail,  after a background check, on average 14 years earlier.

 

  We urge you to read the full STRATFOR report, which ends by dismissing  "The 90 Percent Myth": "It is important to recognize that, while  the United States  is a significant source of certain classes of weapons and ammunition, it is by  no means the source of 90 percent of the weapons used by the Mexican cartels,  as is commonly asserted."

 

  ---NSSF News

 

  Editor's Note: Read the STRATFOR Report at http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110209-mexicos-gun-supply-and-90-percent-myth?utm_source=SWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110210&utm_content=readmore&elq=78b57a7b244546e5a2b64f12f34fd298) 

[bpb]

Nothing new in this report that was not reported on ten years ago. It's our government that armed dozens of south American countries from Mexico to the tip of SA.

We're not the only country that supplies arms to the puppet ?Dictators of the decade.

[Mr VJP]

The report proves the weapons currently being used in the Mexican drug wars today, are not coming from American gun owners, or it's border FFL'S, in direct opposition to the claims of the Fed, BATFE, Holder, Obama, Hillary, and the rest of the Socialist, Gun Grabbing, Pigs!

[Mr VJP]

According to State Department cables, the Mexican drug cartels are getting  their weaponry from an international operation, with the cartels getting  military weapons through various government channels. Some of those weapons  did, in fact, come from the United States, but they weren't the result of  the "gun show loophole" straw-man purchases or any of the other individual  criminal acts anti-gun groups would have you believe.

 

  Large quantities of those US weapons -everything from rifles to machine  guns, grenade launchers, explosives and ammunition, came from purchases by  the government of Mexico from the United States. As the underpaid,  undermanned and undermined soldiers of the  Mexican army skipped out on the  military to put their training to work for the cartels, they took their  issued-arms with them.

 

  Others come from weapon buys from guerilla groups in South and Central  America that are then smuggled into the country.

 

  No specific numbers on how many of those guns "recovered in Mexico and  traced back to the United States" were, in fact, military purchases, but  the State Department cables indicate a portion of the fewer than 12 percent  of the traceable weapons actually came from the United States in gun  shop/individual type purchases. Remember, that's not 12 percent of the tens  of thousands of weapons recovered - it's only 12 percent of the weapons  recovered that were traceable. It's nowhere near the 12 percent figure that  has been misquoted and used as evidence of the United State's "horrific"  problem of illegal gun sales.