The Mexican Myth: Where Mexican crime guns really come from

Fox News says what the other media outlets won't. The claim that Mexican crime guns are coming from the United States, particularly US gun shows, is a lie being used by the Obama administration to pressure Congress to enact gun control legislation.

The real facts:

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.

That's right. Measuring the national origins of weapons traced by the BATFE is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They only trace guns that they have reason to believe originate in the US, and as a result, most of the guns they trace are found to have, in fact, originated here. But it's the guns that are not traced by the BATFE that make up the bulk of the problem.

Fox News is saying it today. Gunbloggers have been saying it for weeks. The rest of the mainstream media still isn't saying it, and that should embarass the hell out of every other news program out there.

Why does Obama want to enact gun control legislation that won't have any effect on crime, whether in the US or Mexico? This will be hard for some people to face, but it's the simple truth: Obama is a bigot. Not about race, but about culture. He has almost no experience with the healthy American gun culture, he doesn't understand it, and he doesn't like it. His cultural roots, such as they are, include Hawaii (notorious for having draconian gun control laws), Chicago (likewise), and third world nations.

He thinks that folks who own and use guns for sport, for hunting, or even just for fun are "bitter" and "cling" to their guns because they don't have anything else in their life to cling to. He thinks that because he doesn't know the American gun culture; he's never met us, never recognized us, and doesn't even understand that we exist. That's a sad trait for a supposedly post-racial President to have.

Right now, Congress understands what the President does not: that gun control would be political suicide. The House faces elections in 2010, but we're stuck with Obama until 2012 at least. He'll have at least that long to try to push his gun control agenda. We need to make sure that Congress understands that gun control legislation will have real political consequences for anyone who supports it.

Posted on 2009-04-03 01:44:03.0 by matthew@triggerfinger.org

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