Obama Repeats The "90%" Mexican Gun Myth Evan After It Was Busted

[Yota]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/19/obama-repeats-percent-stat-guns-recovered-mexico/

This is becoming commonplace with this administration. Cook the stats to cast America in the worst possible light.

You've all no doubt heard that 90% of guns "recovered" at Mexican crime scenes come from the US, right? Well it's a BS stat as the article above, and other articles posted by others previously, points out. And it requires the Obama administration's redefinition of "recovered" in order to even come up with it. But that's cool - liberals are expert at changing the meaning of complex words (like "is").

Anyway, the actual percentage of all guns found at Mexican crimes scenes that have been traced to some US source (not necessarily a gun shop either - remember that our government has sold arms to the Mexican military in the past) is 5114 / 29000 = about 17%. But I guess the simple stat didn't make America look bad enough to suit King Obama so he just made up his own.

[al24]

The Myth of 17 Percent



According to a Fox News report, titled "The Myth of 90 Percent", only "17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S." But the 17 percent figure is a myth, too. The reporters made some mistaken assumptions about how many guns had actually been traced to U.S. sources.

Fox News reporters William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott note, quite correctly, that Mexico doesn't submit all the guns it recovers to the U.S. for tracing. Furthermore, Fox reported, this is"because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S." And it quoted a law enforcement official as to why:


Fox News, April 2: "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.

We were able to confirm that with an ATF spokeperson, who said that U.S guns have special markings that make it possible for the organization to trace them. That means that the guns that ATF is given to trace are far from a random sample of all guns recovered. Indeed, it omits those that Mexican officials have reason to believe come from elsewhere, and includes only those guns with a good chance of being traced to U.S. sources.


But the Fox figure of 17 percent is based on a misreading of some confusing House subcommittee testimony by ATF official William Newell. The Fox reporters come up with a figure of 5,114 guns traced to U.S. sources in fiscal 2007 and 2008. That figures to 17.6 percent of the 29,000 figure for guns seized in Mexico, as given by the country's attorney general.

The 5,114 figure is simply wrong. What Newell said quite clearly (http://www.atf.gov/press/speech/2009/032409_newell-testimony.htm) is that the number of guns submitted to ATF in those two years was 11,055: "3,312 in FY 2007 [and] 7,743 in FY 2008." Newell also testified, as other ATF officials have done, that 90 percent of the guns traced were determined to have come from the U.S. So based on Newell's testimony, the Fox reporters should have used a figure of 9,950 guns from U.S. sources. That figures out to just over 34 percent of guns recovered, assuming that the 29,000 figure supplied by Mexico's attorney general is correct.

Even that number is too low. At our request, an ATF spokesman gave us more detailed figures for how many guns had been submitted and traced during those two years. Of the guns seized in Mexico and given to ATF for tracing, the agency actually found 95 percent came from U.S. sources in fiscal 2007 and 93 percent in fiscal 2008. That comes to a total of 10,347 guns from U.S. sources for those two years, or 36 percent of what Mexican authorities say they recovered.


The mistake the Fox News reporters made was to focus on some numbers given by Newell and Hoover in separate testimony, regarding numbers of guns traced to specific states. But not all guns traced to the U.S. can be traced to specific states. The Fox numbers are "a subset" of the actual total traced to U.S. sources, one official said.

An Elusive Number


Given the lack of hard data from Mexico we can't calculate a precise figure for what portion of crime guns have been traced to the U.S. Based on the best evidence we can find so far, we conclude that the true percentage is probably less than half of the 90 percent claimed by the president and others in his administration, who base their claim on a badly biased sample of all guns seized in Mexico. But we also conclude that the number is probably at least double what Fox News has reported, based on their mistaken interpretation of ATF testimony.

Whether the number is 90 percent , or 36 percent, or something else, there's no dispute that thousands of guns are being illegalIy transported into Mexico by way of the United States each year.



http://www.factcheck.org/politics/counting_mexicos_guns.html

[Yucca-Man]

Whether the number is 90 percent , or 36 percent, or something else, there's no dispute that thousands of guns are being illegalIy transported into Mexico by way of the United States each year.



http://www.factcheck.org/politics/counting_mexicos_guns.htmlWhether the number is 90 percent, or 36 percent, or something else, there's no dispute that thousands of illegal aliens are being transported into the United States by way of Mexico each year.

Simply the fact that the above "facts" come from 'Factcheck' and therefore Annenberg, and therefore have ties to Obama and his pack o'lies makes them suspect to me anyway.

[rockhound]

If they have a crap load of our guns maybe there will be fewer of them that live long enough to sneak across our border. Fact is it is the illegal weapon that their drug gangs are sending back home it has nothing to do with the law abiding US citizen and his weapons.

I am not willing to give up our gun rights to protect them. If they don't like being shot with our weapons then maybe they should clean up their own streets and keep their citizens on the right side of the fence like every other country in the world does.

[DADA_JEEP]

you really think Mexico is the only country that provides us with illegal aliens? and do you really think that mexico is the only country that has a mass exodus of it's citizens?

[al24]

Simply the fact that the above "facts" come from 'Factcheck' and therefore Annenberg, and therefore have ties to Obama and his pack o'lies makes them suspect to me anyway.


http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/files/u12/tinfoil_hat.jpg

[Loki]

Face it, this administration subscribes to the policy that if you repeat a lie enough times, eventually enough sheeple will believe it, that it becomes a fact whether its true or not. They are especially likely to do it when it advances their agenda...in this case Gun control. :rolleyes:

[potter]

this thread needs lolcats. it brings the funny

[Pilot]

you really think Mexico is the only country that provides us with illegal aliens? and do you really think that mexico is the only country that has a mass exodus of it's citizens?


Yes, however, more illegal aliens come from Mexico than any other country.

Again, the gun grabbers like Obama want to blame the tool, not the real problem, the drug runners. If we lit these guys up with a .50 BMG every time they crossed the border, this sh*t would stop. They are paramilitary organizaions with military weaponry you just can't buy in a gun store.

[noahfecks]

Perhaps Mexico should step up border enforcement!?

[Scott39]

you really think Mexico is the only country that provides us with illegal aliens? and do you really think that mexico is the only country that has a mass exodus of it's citizens?
Its true that not only Mexicans come across the Mexican border, but Mexico is the leading problem of most illegal immgration from around the world.
The world knows, if you want to get into the USA, get to Mexico, and go through Mexico`s border, it is the easiest way to get into the USA.

Check out the minute men video, they are not racist like alot of people make them out to be, they are showing the truth about whats going on at the border, the crime of drug smugglers, the rape of young girls from the coyotes (coyotes should be shot on site), they murder innocent people trying to make better life for them selves.
Ask all persident`s, and Obama why is this happening?

Quick fix, put our military on the borders, we do it in alot of other countrys, but we can`t do it in our own backyard?

The drug smugglers, and big corperations are taking advantage of the Mexican people, and other immagrants from around the world, it is modern day slavery.
The big Corps. know the Mexicans will work for less, so they take advantage of there culture, and pay them less.
But Corporate America doesn`t get it, if you have no middle class, you become a thrid world country!

I do know a few things about this, I have a good friend from Peru, and another from Mexico City, and another from Tonga.

[ni0h]

These guns are going to Mexico to do the jobs Mexican guns won't do. In America, they spend their lives at target practice but with nobody to kill. Down there, they can earn a good living. The works's hard and doesn't pay all that great, but they're willing to do it, and they do it well. They're probably sending ammunition back here for the families they've left behind. If we close the border, what do they do then? It's inhumane.

[ni0h]

It's not a problem with us. It's not a supply problem - it's a demand problem. Here where the guns are plentiful, they don't cause much of a problem. It's over there where they're restricted that there's a problem. We wouldn't be smuggling guns in there if there wasn't a demand. If they stop buying, we'll stop shipping. THEY've got the gun problem. We've just got the gun supply.