National Review – Numbers Still Lie
This week The National Review attempted to once again debunk the infamous “70 to 80” (sometimes as high as 90) percent number – as in the percentage of guns that supposedly come from the United States, which are used in crimes in Mexico. This time it was Senator John Cornyn (R-Tex.) who offered his thoughts, writing:
The debate over U.S. gun laws and Mexican drug violence brings to mind Mark Twain’s famous quip about lies, damned lies, and statistics. In a recent editorial, the Washington Post blamed American policies for exacerbating the bloodshed, pointing out that “70 to 80 percent of the traceable guns seized in Mexico can be tracked to the United States.” The key word there is “traceable.” While it’s true that most of the traceable guns originated north of the border, those weapons represent a very small portion of total Mexican gun seizures.
According to a Government Accountability Office study based on data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), only 7,200 of the roughly 30,000 guns seized by Mexican authorities in 2008 were sent to ATF for a tracing analysis. Scott Stewart of STRATFOR has noted that just 4,000 of them were found to be traceable. Of the traceable guns, 3,480 were linked back to the United States. In other words, only 12 percent of the guns confiscated in 2008 were positively traced to the United States. In May 2009, the Associated Press reported that the Mexican military had “305,424 confiscated weapons locked in vaults.” Because those weapons were not submitted to ATF, their origin is unclear.
If those in the Senate can see the problem with the numbers why can’t his fellow senators such as Dianne Feinstein, Sheldon Whitehouse and Charles Schumer see the same thing? Or is it that those against guns don’t mind that this lie about the numbers continues, as it could help their push for gun control?
Additionally Cornyn has been one of the few to explain the assault weapon ban and how it relates to Mexico:
What about the U.S. assault-weapons ban (AWB), which expired in 2004? Citing estimates from a senior Mexican official, the Post said that the portion of seized guns classified as “assault weapons” has grown from about one-third in 2005 to 60–65 percent today. Yet Mexican drug violence was accelerating before the AWB lapsed — in 2001, then-president Vicente Fox called for “a war without mercy” against the cartels — and President Felipe Calderón’s courageous post-2006 crackdown on organized crime has prompted the gangs (1) to fight back against the government and (2) to fight a lot more with each other.
But again it is easier for Calderon to blame America than admit he’s facing a failing battle against the cartels. The corruption in his own government is the cause of Mexico’s woes – not America’s guns.
John Lott: “Blame Bush – Is That Holder’s Strategy to Get Out of ‘Fast and Furious’ Mess?”
Our friend John Lott asked, the question this week, namely “Blame Bush – Is That Holder’s Strategy to Get Out of ‘Fast and Furious’ Mess?” We have to answer, it appears to be so. Lott, writing for FoxNews.com, suggested:
Blame Bush. It has been almost three years since President Obama took office, yet he still blames Bush for the bad economy. Now the Obama administration is following the same strategy to get out of the “Fast and Furious” mess.
Lott also noted that this “Blame Bush” strategy is very much in the works:
The Obama administration has also tried to show the practice originated in the Bush administration during 2006 and 2007 under operation “Wide Receiver.” After all, it is what Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer argued just last week. When Breuer testified last week, he confessed that he had learned about “gun walking” tactics as far back as April 2010, but it wasn’t the Obama administration’s “gun walking” that he confessed to learning about, it was a program run briefly during the Bush administration.
So how did this happen and why? Lott is not alone in his thinking. First he noted:
What is really missed by all this is the utter failure of gun tracing programs. The problem isn’t really that the Obama administration simply screwed up the tracing plan. Few guns move from the U.S. to Mexico and just as drug cartels bring in drugs from other countries, they can bring in the weapons that they need to protect those drugs. Mexican drug cartels aren’t getting their machine guns, grenades, and rocket launchers from the United States.
This is contrary to much of what has been made in the media that 70, 80 or even as much as 90 percent of guns used in Mexico come from the United States. Of course as we’ve also noted, it is hard to figure out where those machine guns, grenades and rocket launchers were coming from. It certainly wasn’t gun shops in Texas. We can see this, our friend John Lott and many others can see this. So why did outlets such as The Washington Post and Christian Science Monitor stick with those 70, 80 or 90 percent figures for so long?
And Lott asked another good question:
Why would the Obama administration not trace the guns? Why would they not inform Mexican officials about the program? One hopes that it was sheer incompetence combined with a desire to stonewall any investigation, but the fact that people knew that the guns weren’t being traced raises questions even about this plan.
Finally, Lott noted something we have long considered too. It is one that bears repeating, even if it sounds a bit crazy:
The only other possibility — deliberately increasing the number of guns sold to increase the share of crime guns in Mexico from the United States and thus generate support for more gun control — is conceivable if only because “Fast and Furious” started at the same time that Obama began his campaign falsely claiming that most Mexican crime guns came from the United States.
This does sound “out there,” but again consider that President Obama – before he was POTUS – has been very anti-gun. He voted for gun control when he was in government in Illinois and was a pro-gun control U.S. Senator. But to get to the White House he had to cool it a bit. However, he has since said to Sarah Brady that he was working on gun control but “under the radar.” Is Fast and Furious part of that “under the radar.” And is he only being quiet on gun control in the run up to next year’s election? Time will tell, but voters should know these facts.
Human Events: Uncovering the Cover-Up: The Truth About “Operation Fast and Furious”
In Washington, the old joke is, “it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.”
Very true indeed. This is one of the few media outlets that notes that President Obama could be part of a bigger conspiracy in regards to Fast and Furious. Even if this isn’t exactly a true conspiracy in the sense, it is – as the story notes – a bit of a cover up. Consider this passage:
On April 16, 2009, President Obama visited Mexico and while there he commented on the drug war, saying, “This war is being waged with guns purchased not here but in the United States, more than 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that lay on our shared border.” President Obama was not being honest then, and he is not being honest now about what he knew about Fast and Furious.
The story adds:
Three years ago this month, President Obama was elected, partly based on a promised new era of transparency and accountability. But if the handling of the Fast and Furious scandal is any indication, the corruption inside the Beltway is not only unchecked but more dangerous than ever.
And Human Events also adds a fact we have long maintained and stated on Eric Holder’s handling of this situation:
There are only two possible scenarios: Eric Holder was either incompetent in failing to exercise any kind of supervisory control over a rogue agency, or he is intentionally misrepresenting what he knew and when he knew it.
Why aren’t more in the media on this story? Or is the media just helping cover up Obama’s and Holder’s cover up?
Town Hall: Breuer Blames Second Amendment
It seems it isn’t a who to blame for the ATF debacle known as Fast and Furious, but rather what, as in the Second Amendment. That’s what Townhall.com is reporting this week. The story from Katie Pavlich noted:
“During a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing today on Capitol Hill, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who is facing pressure surrounding his role in the Obama Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious, asked for more gun control and blamed law abiding gun shop owners for violence in Mexico. Breuer declared that nearly 70 percent of guns found in Mexico come from the United States, a figure that has been disproven by the National Rifle Association, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact and by Senator Charles Grassley’s office multiple times. Also during testimony, Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein pushed for more gun control and Breuer expressed his agreement with her statements that American gun laws are too ‘lax’ and therefore result it more violent crime.”
Are we back to this again? Back to the 70 percent (or 80 percent, or even 90 percent), which has been widely debunked time and time again.
As we’ve noted, it seems this is just a way of spinning the blame away from ATF, away from Eric Holder and away from President Obama and pointing the finger at so-called lax gun laws. And yet the mainstream media says that President Obama isn’t working on gun control.
However, this is exactly how he is working on gun control “under the radar” as he admitted to Sarah Brady earlier this year. He is using Senator Dianne Feinstein to defend the ATF while blaming lax gun laws. He is using Lanny A. Breuer to reintroduce that 70 percent figure again to suggest it is lax gun laws.
If President Obama wins reelection just wait, gun control will most certainly be his signature agenda!
Fast and Furious Conspiracy: Facts or Fiction
There have been a number of editorials recently suggesting that Fast and Furious could be a conspiracy. The liberal media, and many liberal bloggers have dismissed this as nonsense. While we at FirearmsTruth.com are not endorsing or even supporting the theories, we wanted to offer a recap.
90 percent
Much of this ominous sounding number is fiction. The 90 percent number has been around for a while, and used by the media as in “90 percent of guns used in Mexican cartel related crimes can be traced back to the United States.” This number was widely circulated throughout 2009 and even throughout 2010. Occasionally the numbers are cited again, as low as 70 percent and more often 80 percent.
Fact: The truth is that only 17 percent of guns recovered at crime scenes were even sent to the United States, and of those 90 percent were traced back to being purchased north of the border. But 90 percent of 17 percent is a far cry from 90 percent. Read more
Clarion Ledger Calls Out “Control of guns reason for F&F?”
Daniel L. Gardner writing for the Clarion Ledger in an op-edit titled “Control of guns reason for F&F?” notes that “conspiracy theories abound.”
He makes a couple of key points the mainstream media continues to ignore:
“You may have heard the Obama administration or the Bush administration saying 90-percent of guns going to Mexican drug cartels come from U.S. gun store sales. Officials in the Bush administration routinely quoted this figure to justify any number of law enforcement operations. Officials in the Obama administration continue using the same figure even though actual documented figures show no more than 20-percent of these guns come from U.S. gun stores.”
We have been tracking the use of that 90 percent figure for years, and do note that the Obama administration has continued to cite it. Gardner then adds:
“But that’s not the story worth pursuing. On Dec. 14, 2010, a killer used an AK-47 – one of the F&F guns – to murder Brian Terry, a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Why would anyone in Washington approve an operation not only to facilitate sales of guns to cartels in Mexico, but also to use taxpayer money to purchase these guns? Thousands of guns have ‘walked’ into Mexico from the U.S. as a result of Operation Fast & Furious. Wouldn’t someone know that sales of assault weapons to criminals would escalate crime and violence? Some have speculated that F&F was a political plot ‘to prove’ lax gun laws in America contribute to drug violence on our border with Mexico. Such proof could be used to justify stricter gun control laws.”
Clearly we aren’t the only ones who see that the mis-cited 90 percent number, added up with the approval of Fast and Furious, coupled with calls for gun control could add up to a conspiracy. We’re not saying we believe this to be the case, but it is does make you wonder.
Factor in that President Obama uttered the words “under the radar” when he said he was working on gun control, and add in the calls for an assault weapon ban by three Democratic Senators including Charles Schumer, Dianne Feinstein and Sheldon Whitehouse and the conspiracy theory doesn’t sound so farfetched.
Editorial Offers Why Americans and Media Ignore Fast and Furious
This past weekend, writing for The Midland Daily News, Ralph E. Wirtz boiled down why Fast and Furious is getting little attention. He writes “America should be outraged by Mexican drug situation,” and says:
“…our attention is turned by more easy to digest events — Amanda Knox, the Occupy Wall Street protests, any entertainment news. We dwell on those minor news events because they are low-hanging fruit for an overwhelmed news media.”
This is a very true take on the situation and we’d like to agree with Wirtz in his editorial. While we do on the above point, he unfortunately offered some misleading information along the way, notably the source of many of the firearms used in Mexico.
“Without the guns — more than 90 percent of the guns captured in the on-going war have been traced to the U.S — the war would be less violent, even if not less grisly.”
That 90 percent number has of course been widely debunked, and unfortunately Wirtz sticks with it in an otherwise profound editorial.
Opposing Views Puts Focus on Holder and Fast and Furious
This week Opposing Views noted that Fast and Furious is heating up, and reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could be (and in our opinion should be) questioned soon as well.
This article notes that Eric Holder was the point man on guns during the President Clinton era. The story reports:
“Issa’s focus on the Attorney General is well-placed. Holder became the point man on gun control during his stint with the Clinton administration and was an obvious choice to help navigate the Obama administration through the turbulent waters of gun control.”
This is very true and one point that has been widely dismissed in the media. But Opposing Views also notes that this is a very partisan issue:
“Holder was quickly repudiated by Democrats in Congress, more than 60 of whom said in a letter that a renewal of the gun ban was a non-starter, and Holder was forced to back away from his comments.”
So why are the Democrats in Congress defending Holder? Could it be that they don’t want to see President Obama suffer from this event, which by some accounts could be his “Watergate?”
And what about Clinton? Here is what Opposing Views noted:
“A month later, as she embarked on her first trip to Mexico as Secretary of State, Clinton told CBS news that, “The guns that are used by the drug cartels against the police and the military, 90 percent of them come from America.”
“Clinton’s use of the 90% number sent honest reporters looking for verification. Instead, the number was debunked within days. Still, the administration clung tenaciously to the 90% claim.
“The following month, in April 2009, speaking at a joint press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Obama said:
“This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.”
How is it that the 90 percent number lived on so long? That conspiracy theory doesn’t seem as much a conspiracy theory when the pieces are started to be put together.
Candadian Free Press Editorial Calls Fast and Furious a Conspiracy
We’ve long maintained the stance that we take conspiracy theories with a grain of salt, but apparently the idea that Fast and Furious could be part of a bigger web of lies makes us question it too. This week The Canadian Free Press presented this argument in a very interesting editorial.
The article noted how Then Senator Obama was extremely anti-gun, how the ATF traced guns from 2007-08 and the findings were widely reported to be that “90 percent” were from the United States, only later to find out the true number was closer to 17 percent. But the governments of the United States and Mexico still maintain the 90 percent number even today.
As the article concludes:
“All of this is the stuff of a conspiracy theory that most of us would dismiss as so much rumor. Disturbingly, we have documentation that proves otherwise. Fast and Furious may have been the name the administration chose for this operation as a means of further curtailing our Second Amendment rights in a fast and furious manner. We the People must remain vigilant. For without the Second Amendment, the other nine could never stand.
True words indeed.
HULIQ: Conspiracy Theory: Fast and Furious an Attempt to Further Gun Control
This week HULIQ ran a story that bears resemblance to a lot of what we’ve been thinking. Clearly we are not alone, when it comes to “Conspiracy Theory: Fast and Furious an Attempt to Further Gun Control.” The story notes:
“The investigation into the ATF (Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) undercover operation known as ‘Fast and Furious’ continues and is the stuff of conspiracy theories.”
Among the points addressed:
“Both presidents of Mexico and the U.S. have claimed that 90 percent of the weapons recovered by Mexican authorities in a variety of crimes originated in the U.S.; all this in support of the gun-control agenda. However, Bill McMahon, ATF deputy assistant director, testified that of 100,000 weapons recovered by Mexican authorities, only 18,000 were made, sold or imported from the U.S. Of those, 18,000, just 7,900 came from sales by licensed gun dealers—8 percent, not 90 percent.”
This is a point we’ve made time and time again. And consider too that President Obama had said he was working on gun control but “under the radar.” Could it be that Fast and Furious was meant to fly under the radar?
