Calderon Says Mexico Violence Stoked by U.S. Weapons

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Bloomberg

Calderon Says Mexico Violence Stoked by U.S. Weapons
By Patrick Harrington

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon said drug violence in his country reflects demand for narcotics in the neighboring U.S. and easy access to weapons.

“We are right next to the biggest drug consumer in the world,” Calderon told reporters in Tokyo today during a visit to Japan. The U.S. also “doesn’t have the least objection, any scruples, about selling all the arms it can to our country.”

The remarks followed the killing of at least 16 students attending a party in Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez over the weekend by masked gunman. Calderon, who has used the military to crack down on drug gangs since taking office in December 2006, won a promise from President Barack Obama last year to push for the ratification of an arms-trafficking treaty.

Obama said he would press the U.S. Senate to ratify the stalled treaty, which was adopted by the Organization of American States in 1997. More than 90 percent of guns used in violent crimes in Mexico are brought in illegally from the U.S., according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aTm1StgzWapc

[Chef Eric]

1. I'm glad he said it! nt

[madrchsod]

2. legalize pot growing!

[sharesunited]

3. I thought Gun Fancy Magazine proved that most of the killing in Mexico was

done with guns obtained from places OTHER than the USA?

Oh well. Guess I'll have to go with ATF on this.

[slackmaster]

5. ATF said that 90% of weapons submitted to them for tracing were traced to US sources

90% of the 17% of "recovered" weapons that Mexican authorities actually submitted to ATF. The remainder were either so obviously not of US origin, or so obviously diverted from Mexican military and law enforcement, that the Mexican government didn't bother submitting them to ATF.

You know the story on that number, sharesunited. Don't even try to pretend that you haven't seen it discussed on these forums numerous times.

[slackmaster]

4. That "90 percent" figure has been debunked innumerable times on these forums

It is based on a small percentage of "recovered" weapons for which a trace was actually attempted.

...There's no dispute that thousands of handguns, military-style rifles and other firearms are purchased in the U.S. and end up in the hands of Mexican criminals each year. It's relatively easy to buy such guns legally in Texas and other border states and to smuggle them across.

But is it true as President Obama said, that "more than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States?" No, it's not.

The figure represents only the percentage of crime guns that have been submitted by Mexican officials and traced by U.S. officials. We can find no hard data on the total number of guns actually "recovered in Mexico," but U.S. and Mexican officials both say that Mexico recovers more guns that it submits for tracing. Therefore, the percentage of guns "recovered" and traced to U.S. sources necessarily is less than 90 percent.

Furthermore, the 90 percent figure is based on a badly biased sample of all Mexican crime guns. Law enforcement officials say Mexico asks the U.S. to trace only those guns with serial numbers or other markings that indicate they are likely to have come though the U.S....

Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/04/barack-obama-gun.html

The real source of Mexican crime weapons would probably be a serious embarrassment to Mexican law enforcement and military people. Calderon and others are misusing information in an ongoing attempt to get the US to ratify a treaty that would be at odds with our constitution. They're trying to deflect blame for Mexico's crime problems away from their own inability to control it.

[ronnie624]

8. Factcheck.org alters 'not true' charge about U.S. guns

<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/04/factcheck-org-corrction-mexico-guns.html>

Apparently it hasn't been "debunked" even once.

[slackmaster]

9. OK, so maybe it's 90% of 36% rather than 90% of 17%, or maybe not

It's still a far cry from 90% of the total.

Here's a link to an original GAO report - http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09781t.pdf

[TheWraith]

11. Not to mention, a lot of US sourced weapons down there are stuff sold to the military.

There was a photo awhile back of a major bust the Mexican police had made, seizing a large cache of weapons from a cartel: US military grade short-barreled rifles in the M4 configuration, with attached 40mm grenade launchers and grenades. Probably either stolen from the Mexican army, or sold by people within the army.

[ronnie624]

13. Wash. Times advanced "myth" that 17 percent of guns recovered in Mexico can be traced to U.S.

But the Fox figure of 17 percent is based on a misreading of some confusing House subcommittee testimony by ATF official William Newell. The Fox reporters come up with a figure of 5,114 guns traced to U.S. sources in fiscal 2007 and 2008. That figures to 17.6 percent of the 29,000 figure for guns seized in Mexico, as given by the country's attorney general.

The 5,114 figure is simply wrong. What Newell said quite clearly is that the number of guns submitted to ATF in those two years was 11,055: "3,312 in FY 2007 7,743 in FY 2008." Newell also testified, as other ATF officials have done, that 90 percent of the guns traced were determined to have come from the U.S. So based on Newell's testimony, the Fox reporters should have used a figure of 9,950 guns from U.S. sources. That figures out to just over 34 percent of guns recovered, assuming that the 29,000 figure supplied by Mexico's attorney general is correct.

Even that number is too low. At our request, an ATF spokesman gave us more detailed figures for how many guns had been submitted and traced during those two years. Of the guns seized in Mexico and given to ATF for tracing, the agency actually found 95 percent came from U.S. sources in fiscal 2007 and 93 percent in fiscal 2008. That comes to a total of 10,347 guns from U.S. sources for those two years, or 36 percent of what Mexican authorities say they recovered.

The mistake the Fox News reporters made was to focus on some numbers given by Newell and Hoover in separate testimony, regarding numbers of guns traced to specific states. But not all guns traced to the U.S. can be traced to specific states. The Fox numbers are "a subset" of the actual total traced to U.S. sources, one official said.

<http://mediamatters.org/research/200904200021>

"The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S."

Towards the end of the article, the authors quote the Mexican Ambassador to the US as saying 2,000 weapons from the US are seized per day in Mexico. That's just flat wrong - 2,000 guns per day reportedly FLOW INTO Mexico from the US, which is quite different than saying that many guns are seized daily, and I'm not even sure that number is accurate anyway. And the authors' basic math is really bad. According to the article, 68% of guns recovered by the Mexican government from 2007-2008 were never submitted for tracing. 29,000 guns were recovered, and 11,000 WERE submitted. That means 18,000 were NOT submitted. That's 62% folks, not 68%; if you're going to write an article with information that goes completely against the grain of what's out there on a hot-button topic like weapons trafficking, you have to at least get the basic numbers right. Then the authors combine the guns the ATF could not successfully trace - no reason was provided as to why - and the guns that were never submitted for tracing in the first place into one pile of guns and say that none of those guns could be traced to the US. That DOES NOT MEAN THEY DID NOT COME FROM THE US...that just means no one can prove it through checking a database. Any statistics amateur can tell you that the 6,000 guns submitted for tracing represents a sample of all the guns seized - and a good size sample, at that. If 90% of those guns were successfully traced back to the US, then STATISTICALLY SPEAKING, there's a pretty good chance that somewhere close to 90% of the untraceable guns and guns NOT submitted for tracing came from the US as well. I'm not sure how anyone can tell just by looking at a gun that it definitely was not originally sold in the US; if the authors know such an important fact, why didn't they explain in more detail how this non-US identification is made?

The authors present a lot of statistics in their article, but what is lacking is a considerable amount of context. It's true that many high-powered assault weapons, RPGs, grenades, etc. are not and cannot be purchased in the US by private individuals, so those things would not fall within the 90% statistic. What the authors DON'T tell you is that many of those weapons are part of legal government-to-government sales (not just from the US to the Mexican government), and they end up in the hands of the DTOs by various means. Just because those weapons came from El Salvador or South Korea or Israel doesn't mean they were manufactured there - there's still a really good chance they originally came from the US and arrived in Mexico through a more circuitous route. The authors say the standard issue weapon for Mexican army soldiers is the "Belgian-made M-16," which is also untrue. While the Mexican army does use the M-16, the current standard-issue rifle is the FX-05 or the H&K G3. Also, the M-16 is NOT technically Belgian-made, although some aspects are Belgian-designed. The M-16 and its many variants are mostly made by Colt Manufacturing - a US company - and Fabrique Nationale's US subsidiary in South Carolina.

Another disturbing issue the authors don't mention is the legal availabilty of parts kits for assault weapons in the US. According to the Impact Guns Online Superstore website, " kits are what's left from real AK-47, or AK-47 rifles that were cut in half to destroy them as weapons. Those parts are legal to import since they are not a gun. They are a great inexpensive source of spare parts for your AK, since many AK-47 parts are interchangeable between models. These kits are also made back into legal rifles in the US with American made receivers and semi automatic trigger parts. This is a fun project for those who can do it, but it takes lots of tools and knowledge of metalworking to do a good job. Many of the AK-47 rifles you'll see at a Gun Shop or Gun Show will have been made from these parts kits." The kits and parts for other assault weapons, such as the AR-15, can be legally purchased on numerous websites that are US-based. A DTO-obtained assault weapon put together in the US using AK-47 parts and a US-made receiver would probably fall under the "untraceable" category - but it still originated in the US. I'm also not a fan of the implication the authors make that just because a gun doesn't have a serial number (more and more weapons seized in Mexico have the serial numbers filed off), it probably didn't come from the US. Based on the TYPE of weapon seized (such as a semi-automatic handun or revolver or rifle), you CAN REASONABLY ASSUME it was sold - probably legally - in the US and moved south into Mexico.

<http://borderviolenceanalysis.typepad.com/mexicos_drug_war/2009/04/the-myth-of-90-percent-only-a-small-fraction-of-guns-in-mexico-come-from-us.html>

[friendly_iconoclast]

25. So it's really +/- 94% of a supposed 36%? Way to damage your own argument

Also, why would someone want a rebuilt semi-automatic KalashniKlone when they can get new-built fully automatic ones
from Venezuela's new factory?

[Javaman]

6. Which is fueled by drug, which is fueled by guns, which is fueled by drugs...

which is fueled by guns, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc...

[TheWraith]

10. How are drugs fueled by guns?

Drug trafficking is fueled by demand for drugs.

[harmonicon]

12. really?

Being able to murder police officers who try to stop drug trafficking surely aids the drug traffickers.

[TheWraith]

15. You know how few police officers actually get killed in the US every year?

And it's usually not by organized drug trafficking.

[harmonicon]

30. this is about Mexico (nt)

[booley]

32. Guns buy the drugs

I don't see why this would be hard to believe,

We have looser gun laws and better access to guns.

Mexico has all those drugs.

So when a smuggler drops off his drugs in the US, he then gets guns to sell back in Mexico which gives him more money to buy more drugs from the suppliers. He makes a profit both ways. this has been a well established rule of trade for millenia.

If drug smugglers aren't doing this, they would have to be complete idiots who don't care about money and somehow I doubt that.

[Fumesucker]

14. No, it's not fueled by "drugs", it's fueled by the *drug* *war*..

Exactly the same thing happened with alcohol during alcohol Prohibition, everyone knows it, it's not a matter of dispute at all.

We haven't seen shootouts between and assassinations of alcohol distributors since alcohol Prohibition ended.

It wasn't alcohol that was causing the violence between alcohol distributors during Prohibition, it was the black market in alcohol due to its illegal status.

The same is precisely true of "drugs".

[TheWraith]

16. +10,000.

The sooner we end this farce of an idea that we can get rid of our problems just by banning certain things, like drugs, then the sooner we'll be able to address real problems.

If there isn't an incredibly lucrative black market to sell into, then there isn't anything to fuel the gangs and gang violence.

[FiveGoodMen]

20. Absolutely.

Anyone who doesn't get that isn't paying attention. (And there's a lot that aren't paying attention)

[lonestarnot]

7. Bet he would have dreamed up something different if a CON were in charge.

:eyes:

[Haole Girl]

17. k&r

[timo]

18. I wonder???

How many of the machetes used to behead people in mexico (and lemme tell ya its a shitload) were made in brazil?? those damn brazillian machete mfg companies should be burned to the ground!!! keep drinking the kool aid on mexico folks all the yammering wont change shit down there,never has never will!!!

[Flaneur]

19. I hope the DU gun contingent doesn't injure their spines...

...bending over backwards to deny reality. We pay a price for our lax guns laws, and so does Mexico.

[Pavulon]

21. That price is democracy and a Democratic pres.

feel free to organize a petition to repeal the second amendment. The people who banned booze did, was a flaming success.

This is a drug problem.

[Flaneur]

31. Funny...other democracies manage to control guns.

[Pavulon]

33. The swiss and finns do a great job. (nt)

[hack89]

22. Don't the Mexicans pay a high price for their corrupt and ineffective law enforcement?

We have more guns per capita then Mexico does - why is our murder rate so much lower? When you have elite military units defecting wholesale to the drug gangs along with all their automatic weapons, you have bigger problems then US gun laws.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

23. What's Bloomberg.com? Any relation to NYC mayor?

[friendly_iconoclast]

24. Yes. And it's merely a coincidence that they share his views on guns!

Just like the fact that all News Corporation outlets happen to agree with Rupert Murdoch.

[benEzra]

26. Here are some of those U.S.-made guns...

I see military/police/government restricted M203 grenade launchers and M203 rounds; M4's with military/police restricted uppers (Title 1 civilian barrels must be 16" minimum, those are probably 10.5"); and hand grenades. There are a few civilian-market guns in there, but not many.

"U.S.-made" is not the same as "made for the U.S. civilian market." Those aren't U.S.-available civilian guns. However, that stuff IS sold to the Mexican military, about a million of whom have defected to the Zetas.

Here's some more of those U.S.-made weapons:



More military/LEO only stuff.

Are there civilian handguns, and undoubtedly some civilian rifles and shotguns, flowing south? Undoubtedly. But given that automatic weapons, M203-type grenade launchers, and RPG's are as tightly controlled in the USA as bombs, tanks, and poison gas, the automatic weapons and other military/government restricted hardware the cartels are wreaking havoc with are not coming from the U.S. civilian market, because they're not on the U.S. civilian market.

The 90% figure is also bogus, of course, since that's only 90% of the cherry-picked sample that the BATFE was given to trace, and that figure also includes all the weapons provided to Mexican military and law enforcement by U.S. manufacturers.

Funny that so few are talking about the most obvious thing the U.S. could do to hurt the cartels---ending the War on Non-Approved Herbs...

[slackmaster]

29. I doubt that any of the military/LE-only stuff was submitted to ATF for tracing

The results would have been embarrassing to the Mexican government.

[PacerLJ35]

27. If Mexico doesn't want US guns in the hands of drug lords, they should stop buying them

and then either selling them via black market to the gangs or outright having them stolen. We sell those arms to their military and police forces. If Calderon wants the flow to stop, he can just stop buying them.

[Katya Mullethov]

28. Wait till Hugo's AK plant is at full tilt .

Dont forget to ask , there's a discount for helping stamp out yellow running dog imperialists .