Friday, June 10, 2011

Sources of Mexican cartel firearms

Evan Perez, writing in the Wall Street Journalstates, “The U.S. was the source of at least 70% of 29,284 firearms recovered by authorities in Mexico in 2009 and 2010, according to new U.S. government figures.”

Not so.

Scott Stewart's article at Stratfor provides a lengthy analysis of the question, including: 
According to the GAO report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.

How many of these US arms were supplied by our own Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (BATFE) in the recent ‘Gunwalker’ scandal?  How many come from Central America?  This is a large story that continues, & plucks at the strings of strongly held political philosophies.

But beware - these figures being touted by Perez are wildly inaccurate.

*****
And the fact is, nobody (not you, not me, and probably not the Mexicans) really knows the full breakdown of where these weapons come from.

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