Current Fiction: U.S. supplying 90% of Narco guns in Mexico?
Some time ago the Mexican government contended that:
“In 2008, 5,376 people died due to drug-related violence in Mexico, including 505 military and law enforcement officials killed in the line of duty. According to the Mexican Government, about 90 percent of the weapons they seize from Mexican drug cartels came into the country illegally from the United States.”
The U.S. national news media has been on fire parroting this curious statistic over the past few weeks since it has been uttered from notable U.S. dignataries such as Diane Feinstein and Hillary Clinton. Here is a Blurb from the Brady Center publication “Exporting Gun Violence“.
“American gun sellers are supplying the cartels with the guns used to wage war. Upwards of 90% of the crime guns used by the drug cartels and recovered and traced by law enforcement originate from U.S. gun sellers.“
If you read the news articles articles it would seem that a huge volume of straw purchases at border firearms dealers are to blame for the influx of firearms to Mexico which is firing the violence between Narco and Government forces. What is unbelievable is that these same articles state that fully automatic firearms, rocket launchers, fragmentation grenades and dynamite are part of the weaponry that is now in the hands of the Narco forces.
When was the last time you could go down to one of the dwindling number of firearms dealers and purchase a fully automatic M16 or AK47 let alone a fragmentation grenade. Probably 1968 from the prior and never for the former. What is even more unbelievable is that these weapons are supposedly coming from the four states that border Mexico – Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California. The fact that any guns that a bunch of drug running thugs would actually want could come from California and the land of the “if its fun, it’s probably illegal” firearms laws is simply laughable.
The truth
Well it turns out that this whole brewhaha is another classic case of poor reading comprehension skills of our elected public officials such as Diane Feinstein and her staff and anti-gun groups like the Brady Campaign who have an agenda.
Here is the actual quote that they are all talking about:
According to ATF’s Tracing Center, 90 percent of the firearms about which ATF receives information are traceable to the United States.
Read it carefully and notice the difference in the meaning of the quote versus the reported statistic. That means that not all the firearms that are confiscated are actually submitted to the BATFE for tracing. So what is the real number of guns coming from the U.S.?
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. 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.
It appears that the source for the U.S. firearms in Mexico may actually be from U.S. government sanctioned firearms sales to Mexico and not from illegal straw sales and smuggling. These weapons then get into the hands of the Narco forces through their connections and infiltration in the the wildly corrupt Mexican government. From the NarcoSphere.
A former senior U.S. Customs Inspector, who asked that his name not be used, provided the following reaction when presented with the DCS data:
I would agree entirely [that] DCS (and DoD gifted, as opposed to DCS sold) weapons are obviously the simplest explanation for the massive rise in the number of fully automatic weapons, grenades, rockets, etc., obtained by the narcotics gangs. … That is to say, they are obtaining their weapons from their own, Mexican, government, by various illegal means.
… The Mexican government has a long and well-documented history of corruption at all levels, from city to federal. Most of the weapons being “displayed” [in the media] are simply not available for sale to American civilians, particularly including the grenades — both 40mm and hand types. …
… The source of these weapons can be easily traced by ATF. … All foreign sales must be reported to ATF prior to shipment, just in case the government wishes to hold up a shipment to a particular country, etc. Tracing the serial numbers would be easy, with US government assistance, of course.
But that assumes the Mexican government, and our own government, really want to trace those weapons. A November 2008 report in the San Antonio Express News, which includes details of the major weapons seizure in Reynosa, Mexico, that same month involving the Zetas, reveals the following:
Another example of coordination problems occurred this month. Mexican authorities in Reynosa across the border from McAllen, seized the country’s single largest stash of cartel weapons — nearly 300 assault rifles, shoulder-fired grenade launchers and a half million rounds of ammunition.
But weeks later, Mexican authorities still have not allowed the ATF access to serial numbers that would help them track down the buyers and traffickers on the U.S. side.
To be sure, cartel corruption and intimidation of Mexican law enforcement at every level and in every agency has caused some dysfunction.
So I guess two corrupt governments = no gun rights for citizens.
