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| Repeating The Mexican Gun Lie In Testimony Today |
| 2009-06-18 |
| Government efforts to stop the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico have suffered in recent years from having no clear plan to combat gunrunners affiliated with drug cartels, investigators have concluded. The Government Accountability Office, which is delivering its findings to Congress today, noted that federal agencies only recently began coordinating with Mexican counterparts on ways to stop gunrunning along the border. Investigators were critical of two agencies - Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives - for not working together. Until early June, the GAO says, "the U.S. government did not have a strategy that explicitly addressed arms trafficking to Mexico." Investigators said that without a strategy, "individual U.S. agencies have undertaken a variety of activities and projects to combat arms trafficking to Mexico." Citing ATF data, investigator Jess Ford says that over the past three years, more than 90 percent of the firearms traced after being seized in Mexico have come from the U.S. "While it is impossible to know how many firearms are illegally trafficked into Mexico in a given year, over 20,000, or around 87 percent, of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced over the past five years originated in the United States," Ford says in testimony prepared for a House subcommittee hearing today. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #10 This attempt by Obama's DHS Secretray and others in the fedeal government to link weapons in Mexico to the US is another stealth attempt to use treaty language and other international mechanisms to inhibit our 2nd amendment. The only problem is, the statistics and innacurate misrepresentations of the truth at best, or flat-out lies at worst. The statistic is designed to suggest overwhelming weapons seizures are sourced in the U.S. But is really a two-part misdirection: 1. Only the weapons requested for trace are cited, a small percentage of the weapons seized, and only those weapons legal for sale in the US are among those traced. 2. The overwhelming, and alarming weapons seized in Mexico from the narco-traffickers and high caliber auto and semi auto assault rifles, most of which come into Mexico across the souther and sea borders, and are used by cartels, Los Zetas and other participants in the cartels/trafficking organizations. This is more of the traditional democrat/liberal/progressive tactic of misdirection of actual policy intent and prevaricating with apparent facts. Since I spend a great deal of my time actually paying some attention to the SW Border, this kind of Washington BS makes me crazy. Next big lie will be the DHS/FBI/US DOJ focus on white supremacist groups as a major domestic threat. As soon as Obama's polling falls far enough becasue of the American public's overwhelming buyer's remorse at buying a total Manchurian Candidate, they will trot out the "RACIST" and "SUPREMACIST" GROUPS, who are legitimately a minor concern, but recast them as a major threat. Then they will have polling data that dissects these groups and makes them very visible. Why, because polling, especially on sensitive issues, directs public opinion more that it reflects it, especially push polling. All this will keep the One with high approval numbers, grossly misrepresenting what people really think, and maginalizing his critics as racist. Remember, Alinsky taught the big O to focus, polarize and personalize enemies as a tactic to destroy or neutralize them.... |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2009-06-18 17:29 |
| #9 I guess the optimum question should be whether or not the vast majority of the weapons used or seized are of the AK or M16 family or their derivatives. I have a feeling most of the weapons would be from the M16 class based on the US supplying military weapons to Mexico and her neighbors as well as gun smuggling. I would be more concerned about Mexico being awash in AK's which could mean new destabilizing forces making inroads. |
| Posted by: rightwing 2009-06-18 17:27 |
| #8 Also: 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing You can interpret that 2 ways. 1. Guns submitted for tracing were done so randomly, so if ALL guns were trace, 45% would be found to have US origin, including stolen Mexican military arms. 2. The 2/3 not submitted for trace were done so because many were obviously not American manufacture or import. That would imply that if all were traced, between 17 and 45% passed through US control. |
| Posted by: ed 2009-06-18 16:30 |
| #7 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. That includes Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river." |
| Posted by: ed 2009-06-18 16:08 |
| #6 Friend of mine before being deployed last mentioned, "I don't understand why we are going to (the northeast) during winter in order to train for our deployment to Iraq. Why not send us off someplace like NM to work the border. We could get used to tough terrain, warm climate, many of us communicating across language and culture differences, approach with the mentality of perhaps getting shot at, and at the same time work protection on the southern border?" Makes more sense then this crock about responsible gun owners being the fault of Mexican drug and human traffic violence because the government skirts its responsbility to enforce the US border. What I would like to know is how many of that great number 87% of seized weapons are from ordinary citizens buy guns in the US because the Mexican military and/or trafficers won't sell guns to average citizens for fear of the sheep turning into rams. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2009-06-18 15:55 |
| #5 I cannot even get ammo at my local gun store. Must all be going to Mexican narcotraffickers. Not for a minute do I believe narcoterrorists are getting their guns from the U.S. Why get them from the U.S. when you can buy them from the Mexican military or police? Or from surrounding countries? Or on the international blackmarket? Besides, some of the stuff that has been shown in the news are RPGs, fully-automatic weapons, grenades, etc. things most of us don't have access to. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2009-06-18 14:53 |
| #4 There's no point in trying to trace a Chinese-made Model 50 (AK-47 clone) or Czech-made RPG's in the US. They ain't from here. Never were. Surprise. |
| Posted by: mojo 2009-06-18 11:19 |
| #3 What was that statistic? Something like only 15% of the guns seized in Mexico are ever traced? So that means 90% of 15% or... 13.5% of guns seized in Mexico can be traced to the U.S. Well now, that's certainly the kind of number that means we should entirely upend how we do things here! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-06-18 10:20 |
| #2 more than 90 percent of the firearms traced after being seized in Mexico have come from the US. This does explain the near total absence of battle rifles, RPGs and crew-served weapons at the local MC Sports. It's all about supply and demand. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2009-06-18 10:12 |
| #1 Investigators were critical of two agencies - .......and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives - for not working together. But, but, but.... we've seen them in action before, places like WACO and Ruby Ridge. I simply don't understand. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-06-18 09:17 |