ATF Figures Already Grow in Media
Last week the ATF released numbers, which suggested that American guns were being used by Mexican cartels. This “refresh” of a story that has been reported for years, was heavily picked up by the media last Friday and over the weekend.
Well the percentage is around 66 percent – according to the ATF – some media outlets have already rounded figure up, in an attempt to suggest that even more guns somehow came from the United States. TheHill noted:
Nearly 70 percent of all guns found in Mexico came from the U.S. over the past four years, according to data released by the federal government on Thursday.
More than 68,000 of the 99,691 firearms that were recovered between 2007 and 2011, and submitted to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for trace testing, were either made in the U.S. or legally brought into the U.S. at one point, according to the agency.
Fuzzy math rears its ugly head it seems.
Sen. Chuck Grassley Downplayed ATF’s Statics
Last week the ATF once again try to suggest that American gun shops with the source of firearms used by Mexican cartels.
Sen. Chuck Grassley responded:
“Thorough gun statistics are hard to come by and tricky to interpret,” he said in a statement Thursday night. “The key to this data is that most of these guns can’t be traced to U.S. gun dealers. And, some of those would actually trace back to the United States because of the federal government’s own gunwalking scandal.
“We also have to remember that the only guns Mexico is going to submit for tracing are guns they know are from the United States, which clearly paints an incomplete picture of the firearms found in the Mexico.”
However, the media will likely stick with the 66 to 70 percent figure released in the ATF. We assume by summer that number will grow to 90 percent.
ATF Now Claims 68,000 Guns Came From America
In what seems a bit like déjà vu, the ATF released figures last week that somehow once again suggest America is the source of guns being used by Mexican cartels. The Associated Press reported:
Mexico has provided ATF information on 99,691 guns. ATF determined that the source for 68,161 of the weapons was the U.S, 68 percent of the total. For the remainder, ATF was unable to determine a U.S. source or was unable to trace the request to a country of origin. The 68 percent figure is down from estimates of 90 percent in years past when Mexico was sharing less information with the U.S.
It is interesting to note that the AP failed to address that the 90 percent number was greatly exaggerated. We can only imagine – even assume – that this 68 percent figure is also exaggerated.
Katie Pavlich ‘Fast And Furious’ Book Acknowledges Efforts By Others
David Codrea:
“In Interviews, Author Doesn’t Credit Reporters Who Broke Fast and Furious,” M. Catherine Evans of American Thinker posted today.
She’s referring to Katie Pavlich’s media tour promoting her new book, “Fast and Furious,” and specifically to work by this correspondent, Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars, and Seattle Gun Rights Examiner (among his many other journalistic hats) Dave Workman going unacknowledged.
Ms.Pavlich’s reply was posted as a follow-up, where she cites references crediting us for our work.
Because this has been brought to my attention before, and because it appears to be one of contention among our respective readerships, it’s appropriate that it be addressed in this column.
Continue reading on Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/article/katie-pavlich-fast-and-furious-book-acknowledges-efforts-by-others
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. Read more at www.DavidCodrea.com.
NRA: Katie Pavlich on Her New Book About Fast and Furious
Cam Edwards talks to Katie Pavlich from Townhall about her new book, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up
NRA News: Senator Chuck Grassley with the Latest on Operation Fast and Furious
Ginny Simone talks to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Who Guards the Guards: Border Agent Smuggled Guns
American gun shops continue to be blamed for illegal guns flowing to Mexico, yet there seem to be other sources. Reuters reported this week:
A U.S. Border Patrol agent, accused of buying guns in the United States and smuggling them to Mexico for use by drug cartels, must remain in jail pending a detention hearing later this week, a U.S. Magistrate Judge ruled on Tuesday.
So should law abiding gun owners be punished instead?
Mexico Exhibition Blames American Guns
Last week the Los Angeles Times reported that a show titled, “A Farewell to Arms. Contraband on the Border” is heading to the United States. The article offered this misinformation along the way:
The Mexican government reports that it has seized 130,000 weapons during a five-year offensive against the drug cartels; 90% were from the United States, according to the U.S. government.
That 90 percent number has been widely debunked, and it is shameful that this story would continue to report it as if it were fact.
BusinessWeek: Mexico Blames Guns for Violence and Republicans
This week Bloomberg BusinessWeek noted the meeting between President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon reporting:
The explosion of drug-fueled violence along Mexico’s border with the United States could harm relations between the two nations, President Barack Obama said Monday; Mexico’s leader retorted that much of the problem of drugs and guns begins on the U.S. side of the line.
The article also noted that Calderon continues to point blame at the United States and gun owners:
The flow of guns, especially assault weapons, from the United States to Mexico sabotages the work of his government in fighting the drug gangs, and the U.S. government has not done enough to stop it, Calderon said.
Typical nonsense and again it is interesting that this article failed to note that many of the guns used by the cartel are true military hardware not readily available to U.S. citizens. But of course that is an inconvenient truth after all.
Even The Moral Liberal Calls Out Obama and Holder on Fast and Furious
When a website named The Moral Liberal calls out Eric Holder and President Obama you know something is very interesting – and in the case of Holder very wrong. The article, titled “Mexican Drug Lord Freed After Pledging To Cooperate, Keep In Touch,” offered this passage:
Just when you think you’ve heard it all involving the Obama Administration’s disastrous Mexican gun-running experiment, new details surface to illustrate a new level of negligence and incompetence on the part of federal authorities orchestrating the scandalous program.
Known as Fast and Furious, the federal experiment allowed Mexican drug traffickers to obtain U.S.-sold weapons so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels. Instead federal law enforcement officers lost track of more than 1,700 guns which are believed to have been used in an unknown number of crimes.
And when the Feds had alleged drug lord Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta, how did they handle it? The story describes how:
The top Fast and Furious investigator, Special Agent Hope MacAllister, scribbled her phone number on a $10 bill after Celis-Acosta promised to cooperate and keep in touch with investigators. Then Celis-Acosta disappeared into Mexico and later slipped back and forth across the border, illegally buying more American weapons and financing others. It’s all in the government records. You can’t make this stuff up.
Now if only this story made the mainstream media for the whole country to hear.
