Sunday, April 12, 2009

Lying through statistics.. Mexican gun trade

USA today: "Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives records show 90% of the weapons recovered and traced originate from a growing number of sources spanning from the Northwest to New England." and this "2,000 weapons a day"

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico...come from the United States"

Diane Sawyer: "95 percent of the guns used were out of the United States. What is the U.S. going to do to stop the guns from getting there"

William Hoover, ATF: "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

Lies Lies and more Lies...

The source of this is supposed to be...
The (ATF) reports that more than 90 percent of guns recovered in Mexico are traced back to the US.

Here is the full text from the report. You will also see the "2,000 a month" statistic in context.
From FY2005 through FY2007, ATF traced just over
11,700 firearms recovered by Mexican authorities, and approximately 90% of those
firearms were traced back to the United States. In January 2008, ATF announced
that e-Trace technology would be deployed to an additional nine U.S. consulates in
Mexico (Mérida, Juarez, Monterrey, Nogales, Hermosillo, Guadalajara, Tijuana,
Matamoros, and Nueva Laredo). The number of traces performed by ATF for
Mexican authorities this fiscal year, FY2008, has increased markedly. For example,
from March 10 to April 9, 2008, ATF has traced nearly 2,000 firearms recovered by
Mexican authorities, as compared with the 11,700 firearms traced over a three-year
period, FY2005-FY2007.


This is what it should have said.
The (ATF) reports that more than 90 percent of the traceable guns returned to the US have been verified as originating from the US. Due to new offices and advancements in technology, we were able to trace 2,000 guns last month.

See the difference? "of the traceable guns returned" You see not all of the guns recovered in Mexico are returned to the US. Why would they be, if you see Russian, Korean or Chinese markings on them? And not all guns returned are traceable, many would have been sold on the black market or without serial numbers.

Special note: Notice that the 90% reference does not overlap 2008 and therefore does not include the new volume. It is pure supposition to assume that the new offices and new technology will result in the same statistic. An interesting exclusion from the report?

So all this statistic tells us is that the Mexican authorities are right 90% of the time when we can trace it back. So what percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico are sent to the US for tracing? Based on overall numbers complied by FoxNews : 32%. And what percentage of guns sent to the US for tracing can actually be traced to legitimate sources? Less than 50%.

So the real number of guns recovered in Mexico that can be traced to US sources is 5,114 of 28,000 or ... 17%. But it gets better. Some of those sources identified were the US government. We supply weapons to the Mexican government, some of which were illegally resold in Mexico. We also supplied Central American countries with arms during the 1980s. How many times have you heard than mentioned?

The actual percentage of guns making it into Drug lords hands from US suppliers is actually unknown, but seems to be less then 17%. Nowhere near the 90% being pushed by the Administration. The RPGs, grenades, AK-47s and other weapons are not coming from US gun shops either. So why blame the US for the problem? Well, "blame America first" is the normal stance of the American Left. Especially, when they are so much smarter than and disagree with those right-wing radicals that wrote that damn second amendment.

Pure and simple this is a convenient excuse to tighten the gun laws in the United States and the media is simply parroting a misleading statistic to push the President's agenda. They are either biased or stupid... you decide.

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