Wednesday, July 1, 2009

On the Mexican Border

CNN reports on the newest initiative in the war on arms trafficking along the Mexican border.


The two federal agencies most responsible for stemming the flow of firearms to Mexico agreed Tuesday to improve cooperation after they were sharply criticized by a congressional report for lack of coordination.

The agreement between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will result in a more effective fight against the flood of U.S. weapons that provide Mexican drug cartels with more than 90 percent of their firearms. Top federal law enforcement officials were in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to sign documents pledging to work together.

The agreement is expected to result in increased seizures of trafficked weapons and more prosecutions and convictions, said David Ogden, the deputy attorney general.

But "it's hard to say when we'll see results," he added.

There's that famous 90% figure again. Why do some people get upset at that one? There was such an uproar about it around here a few months ago, people saying the Brady Campaign made it up and all sorts of things. It turned out the figure came from the ATF.

What do you think about that final comment, "hard to say when we'll see results?" I thought it was pretty funny. Maybe we'll see results as soon as we turn the corner on the War on Drugs. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

21 comments:

  1. There's that famous 90% figure again. Why do some people get upset at that one? There was such an uproar about it around here a few months ago, people saying the Brady Campaign made it up and all sorts of things. It turned out the figure came from the ATF.

    The problem (or, more accurately, one of many problems) with the "90%" bullshit figure is that it is utterly unrelated to the percentage of cartel firearms from the U.S. civilian market. It's (supposedly) 90% of the firearms submitted to the BATFE for tracing. According to Senator John Kerry (no friend to gun owners--and thus no friend to the U.S.), that's 25% of the recovered guns. You don't suppose that the 25% that are submitted to the jackbooted thugs are cherry-picked, do you?

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  2. And of course that's 25% that the Mexican gov't admits to recovering.

    I'm sure there's no corruption in their police or military whatsoever that would take them and resell them to another cartel.

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  3. We all know that the 90% number is pure B.S. As far as that last statement, we know why we will not see results--because the 90% number is B.S.

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  4. Listen, the 90% figure comes from the ATF. I thought they were one of those sources of information we could trust. Why would they be spinning the story in order to call it 90%? And if anybody has an answer to that, I'll remind you of how Thirdpower has never stopped breaking my balls about my suggestion that the FBI stats are not above suspicion.

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  5. MikeB,

    The 90% number comes from the ATF, but you are looking at everything it says.

    90% of what is SUBMITTED.

    Let's say that Mexico recovers 10,000 guns. Out of that only 20% is sent to the USA for tracing, we are down to 2,000 guns.

    Out that 2,000 guns, some can not be successfully traced. Let's say about 300 can't be traced.

    So, that leaves 1,700 out of the original 10,000 recovered that are successfully traced to America.

    17% - see this news story
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/

    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."


    The question is, after we've explained this over and over again...why are you still pushing a number KNOWN TO BE BOGUS?

    Could it be you aren't interested in the truth, just more gun control?

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  6. Could it be you aren't interested in the truth, just more gun control?

    Give the man a See-gar!

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  7. I understand the "submitted" qualifier. But, isn't it possible that what was submitted was a representative cross section of all the guns being used in Mexico? If not, then we're back to my other question. Why would the ATF want to spin it this way?

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  8. First, keep in mind that it's not up to the BATFE (I always use all five of their initials, because it apparently annoys them to not get the respect that the three-letter federal agencies do) which guns the Mexican government submits to them for tracing--so we can leave the BATFE's anti-freedom motivations out of it altogether.

    We do know that the Mexican government wants the U.S. to have stricter gun laws--they've made no secret of that fact. There's also the matter of corruption within the Mexican government--how many guns are seized, and then sold right back to the cartels? Come on--you love to make wild guesses with wildly inflated numbers--go to town.

    But there wouldn't even have to be a desire to put a "spin" on the data, for the Mexicans to submit a disproportionate number of guns from the American civilian market to the BATFE. The BATFE would clearly have no useful information about AKs marked "Property of the Venezuelan Army," so why go to the trouble of submitting them? Why not, instead, focus on the guns that there does seem a good chance were bought at a gun shop here?

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  9. "But, isn't it possible that what was submitted was a representative cross section of all the guns being used in Mexico?"

    Sure it's 'possible'. It's also 'possible' Paul Helmke will become a life member of the NRA.

    When numerous Mexican military and police officials have been caught selling Gov't firearms, when countless officials have been caught being paid off by the cartels, it's more likely that they're hiding whatever makes them look even worse.

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  10. "Why would the ATF want to spin it this way?"

    They can get more money allocated to Project Gunrunner.

    No matter what number is quoted by who, you are not going to convince me that 90%, or 50% or 17% of full auto, grenade launchers and explosives that cannot even be bought at border gun stores, are coming from civilians buying them legally and smuggling them South. Not happening, no way.

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  11. If you tell a lie enough times, eventually people will believe it.

    The BATFE isn't spinning the number in this case. CNN is. The BATFE in official reports (not off the cuff comments by someone in the agency who hasn't seen the reports or data) state that 90% of traced firearms from Mexico originate in the US. Since the firearms sent to the US for tracing, more than likely have markings indicating that they originated in the US (i.e. no Property of the Venzuelan Army AK-47s), is anyone suprised at this? I am not. That is like raiding my house and the reporting that 90% of the guns came from the US.

    What the problem has always been is that people (bloggers, news organizations, etc.) report the 90% figure as if it applies to all firearms that the drug cartel has. Besides the fact that it is only traced firearms, there is no information that it is representative of all the firearms recovered. Logical thinking of how firearms are traced would lead one to believe that it is not a representative sample.

    Additionally, I highly doubt that the weapons recovered is a representative sample of the armament that the drug cartels have. So let me give you an example, the Mexican military is about to overrun your compound and you need to split. Do you grab 2 or 3 fully automatic AK-47s (which were smuggled from Nicaragua), or the Remington 700 and Mossberg 500 that Juan sneaked across the US border last week? The only case that it would be a representative sample (or close to it) is when some compound, storage facility, etc. is raided and none of the bad guys escape with any guns. Even then, you are assuming that the drug cartels store their weapons in proportional amounts wherever they are.

    I know that life would be easier if platitudes were all that was needed. Unfortunately, we live in the real world.

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  12. "The lamest so far came from a police officer: He said he bought a few military-style rifles, left them in his car and — on the same night — forgot to lock a door. He couldn’t explain why he didn’t file a police report or why he visited Mexico the day after the alleged theft."

    Hmmm.

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  13. I agree with you guys that the 90% is high, I've always said that. But, the fact that it comes from the ATF and that they keep repeating it, is interesting.

    More interesting still is the way some of you are "guessing" what's really going on. You're "figuring" and "theorizing" and "hypothesizing" and doing all those good things that you keep criticizing me for.

    Am I asking for proof where I know none exists? No. But when I put out a plausible explanation for the "famous 10%" theory or for the concept of gun flow, you demand proof or you say my statements are unacceptable.

    That right there is what you call a "double standard."

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  14. Hardly, a double standard. We have shown you exactly what the 90% figure is (the number of traced firearms from the United States). We have then pointed out that unlike what is reported by the media (not the BATFE) it is not the amount of firearms in Mexico from the US, it is not the amount of captured firearms in Mexico from the US, it is not a representative sample of the firearms from Mexico.

    With your 10% figure we have shown using the exact same logic you have (except with actual statistical datasets) that it is a fantastical number. What you have failed to accept is that criminals will obtain firearms regardless of the laws (look at Jamaica and Great Britain - they're island nations, what more control of their borders can you get). If they can't access firearms, they will resort to some other weapon. Disarming law-abiding people will not stop violence (you may think different but to me a gun murder is no more horrific than a stabbing murder - in fact less so, because with a gun murder you don't have to look the person in the eye as they are taking their last breath, most other forms of murder(knifing, strangulation, bludgeoning) involve physical contact with the victim, there is no distance to pretend that you aren't killing someone).

    In your posts you repeatedly denigrate the tools that are used (guns), question the necessity of self defense, and pretend that criminals who use violence against others are anything less than monsters. Some people are not capable of functioning in society at large. They need to be locked up. Letting them go with a slap on the wrist only exacerbates the problem.

    If we had a society like 1984, then maybe violent crime would be lessened or eliminated but at what cost? I have accepted that there will always be bad people in the world. I have also decided that limiting the rights of law abiding people does not control the bad people. Making everything illegal just turns more people into criminals, the bad people are still there, still not obeying the laws. They never have, and they never will.

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  15. "But when I put out a plausible explanation for the "famous 10%" theory"

    No MikeB, you didn't. And it's not a 'theory'. A "Theory" is supported by the evidence.

    Try and at least get the terminology right.

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  16. Mike, even enemies of freedom and humanity like AG Eric Holder and the VPC's Tom Diaz have backed off from the "90%" bullshit claim.

    But, the fact that it comes from the ATF and that they keep repeating it, is interesting.

    Do they keep saying it, or are they quoted over and over again from when they did say it?

    They're lying government pigs anyway, you know.

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  17. More interesting still is the way some of you are "guessing" what's really going on. You're "figuring" and "theorizing" and "hypothesizing" and doing all those good things that you keep criticizing me for.

    So what do you accuse us of "guessing" about, Mike? The rampant corruption within the very agencies of the Mexican government tasked with fighting the drug cartels?

    The numbers you come up with for "gun owners gone bad" just don't make any sense--they're based on nothing. You only backed away from triple that figure when you realized that wild guess was indefensible, but frankly, you might as well have stuck with it, because it had as much to do with reality as the "10%" figure does.

    As for "gun flow," it's not so much that I doubt guns end up in the hands of people who do bad things with them--that's pretty obvious. My point is that since my dozen or so (and counting) guns haven't been used for evil, stay the hell away from my liberties.

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  18. MikeB,

    Go back and read some of the THOUSANDS of stories on this.

    The numbers are PROVEN, the Mexican government has released how many firearms recovered, how many the ATF was asked to trace. Look at the Foxnews story alone....that has the information.

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  19. Sorry Mike, but as we've already told you the ATF has NEVER said "90% of the guns are coming from the U.S."

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  20. 45, I don't know if Diaz meant it was a lie when he called it a "red herring." Couldn't he have simply meant that it's beside the point?

    That's what I keep getting back to. The 90% is too high. Fine. But, does that mean no problem exists? I don't think so.

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  21. That's what I keep getting back to. The 90% is too high. Fine.

    Hey--you're the one who brought it up again:

    There's that famous 90% figure again. Why do some people get upset at that one? There was such an uproar about it around here a few months ago, people saying the Brady Campaign made it up and all sorts of things. It turned out the figure came from the ATF.

    But now you're saying that the percentage--which you would be hammering as a huge deal if it really had been 90%--isn't really the point, if it turns out to be 17%.

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