The 90 Percent Myth: Only 17% Of Guns In Mexico Traced Back To U.S.

April 3, 2009 · Filed Under Crime, Gun Control

You know that statistic gun grabbing politicians have been relentlessly shilling in the press for weeks? The one claiming that 90% of all weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

The only problem with that statistic is that it’s a total and complete lie. It’s one of the most dishonest stats ever to be uttered by a politician.

The truth is that only 17% of guns found at Mexican crime scenes or recovered in Mexico are traced back to the U.S.

When confronted with this, a spokesman from The ATF told Fox News that 90 percent of traced firearms originate from the U.S. The keyword here is traced.

The facts:

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced — and of those, 90 percent — 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover — were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

The vast majority of guns are smuggled into Mexico from Russia, China, and South America. Most of the AK-47’s used by the cartels that John Kerry and Attorney General Eric Holder are always crying about do not come from America.

Most are fully automatic and have been illegal to own in the U.S. since the mid 1980’s. The drug cartels use their vast financial resources to buy shipments of fully automatic weapons from the third world.

Hand grenades and machine guns from South Korea and China have been recovered. Guatemala is also a major source of weapons getting into Mexico.

The other issue is corruption on the part of the Mexican military. Legitimate shipments of fully automatic M16 rifles from Colt have been sold to the Mexican government only to turn up later in the hands of drug cartel assassins.

According to Mexican officials, more than 150,000 Mexican soldiers have deserted in the last 6 years and most took their weapons with them.

You know our politicians know all this, but they continue to peddle these outrageous lies in the public as an excuse to pass more gun laws.

Democrats didn’t give a damn about border security until they saw an opportunity for a gun grab. This is an outright attempt to spread propaganda about what is really happening in Mexico.

-Chris Jones