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December 13, 2010

WaPo Reprises the "90% Lie", Whines for Selective, Ineffective BATF

The Washington Post rehashed the infamous and oft-debunked Mexican Gun Canard again this morning in a story they laughably call an "exclusive."

The only thing exclusive about this fabrication is that they are the only fools outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave still pushing it.

The foundation and the National Rifle Association aggressively challenge statistics that show 80 to 90 percent of the weapons seized in Mexico are first sold in the United States, calling the numbers highly inflated. After being criticized by the gun lobby, ATF stopped releasing such statistics this year.

"To suggest that U.S. gun laws are somehow to blame for Mexican drug cartel violence is a sad fantasy," said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.

Cox said guns are coming to Mexico from other Central American countries and from former Mexican soldiers who have U.S. weapons and are now working for the cartels.

ATF disagreed, saying the biggest factors are the high number of dealers along the border and the convenient location.

When the Post reporter claims that the "ATF disagreed," he doesn't speak for the entire agency, just a regional supervisor that is either pushing a political agenda or lacks the big picture. Either way, his superiors have overruled his opinion with facts for over a year.

The myth that legal guns sales in the United States are responsible for Mexican drug cartel violence took another serious blow last week when an ATF official testified in Congress that only eight percent of weapons recovered in Mexico came through licensed U.S. gun dealers.

This figure is far lower than the 90 percent claim made previously as an appeal to reinstate ineffective gun laws that expired in 2004. The claim — still active among the less informed or serially dishonest — officially became myth during congressional testimony last week when Bill McMahon, deputy assistant director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, revealed the eight percent figure, how it was calculated, and where the 90 percent myth arose from.

Of the 100,000 weapons recovered by Mexican authorities, only 18,000 were determined to have been manufactured, sold, or imported from the United States, and of those 18,000, just 7,900 came from sales by licensed gun dealers.

The Post can't even get through their accompanying photo gallery without exposing their dishonesty; this FN MAG this South African Vector SS-77 machine gun certainly didn't come from a U.S. gun store.

Let's be clear: I am personally of the opinion that too many guns are heading south of the border from the United States, but the media and Administrations in both the U.S. and Mexico need to be honest. The number of guns imported from this country is dwarfed by the number of guns sold, stolen or given to the cartels by Mexican law enforcement and military sources, and from black market smuggling from Central and South America and Asia. You simply cannot get the machine guns and grenades the cartels favor in the United States. They come from corruption in Mexico and the same pipeline that bring in drugs from overseas.

The rest of the article is a complaint about just how dang hard it is for the ATF to prosecute criminals.

Bull.

You can give them all sorts of evidence, including pictures of felons with a gun in their hands, and they will actively fight against prosecuting them.

This article is about politics, not crime prevention.

Update: Per Big Country's expert eye, I've updated the post to correct the machine gun type in the photo. I await with baited breath for the media to explain how an American gun store is responsible for a weapon that cannot be sold on these shores.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at December 13, 2010 09:58 AM
Comments

This tired old lie was on national news tonight. Maybe they think if they repeat it enough someone will believe it.

Posted by: Secesh at December 13, 2010 09:13 PM

Bob:
Not to Nit-Pick, but the weapon you I.D.'d as a FN MAG is actually even more obscure. It's a South African made Vector SS-77 in 7.62mmX51.

http://world.guns.ru/machine/safr/vector-ss-77-and-mini-ss-e.html

The top picture is exactly what it is... interesting how they want to SO Desperately want to pin the weapons smuggling on the US, but have to essentially use lies and dishonesty and obscuration to prove the point.
Best Regards
Billy

Posted by: Big Country at December 14, 2010 08:41 AM

«only thing exclusive about this fabrication is that they are the only fools outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave still pushing it»

Not true. NPR also had the same thing, together with an interviewee, yesterday morning.

Lying bastards.

Posted by: Xavier Itzmann at December 15, 2010 09:35 AM

"...the media and Administrations in both the U.S. and Mexico need to be honest."

And vampires need to stop drinking blood. Without their dishonesty, there is nothing left.

Posted by: willis at December 15, 2010 12:50 PM

bated breath, unless you've been eating sardines.

Posted by: Slartibartfast at December 15, 2010 01:39 PM

The most ridiculous aspect of this story is that you have a government in Mexico that wants no restrictions for their citizens to cross the border northward, but they become outraged when guns allegedly head southward.

Every Arizonan knows that even a single round of ammunition found in their possession when crossing into Mexico can result in time in a Mexican prison. However, SB1070 is some crime against humanity in the eyes of the Mexican president.

Unfortunately for the law-abiding citizens of Mexico, their corrupt and hypocritical government is responsible for the tragedy of the border. Until the Mexican government decides that law applies to both sides of the border and to both nations, they will continue to reap the whirlwind of lawlessness they are now experiencing.

Posted by: Angry Dad at December 15, 2010 07:25 PM

Good Lord, Greta just did a spot on this on her show (Friday night), with Sari Horwitz from Wapo. Not a hint of the other side of the story, or any debunking. 'AK-47's!!

It's a zombie story, it just won't die.

Posted by: slickwillie at December 17, 2010 11:34 PM