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When does '90%' really mean '17%?' | by NDwight | 2009-04-02 11:31:50 |
| It's also not 17%. In fact no one knows. |
by werehatrack |
2009-04-02 13:50:54 |
As mentioned but glossed over in the discussion, 68% of the guns recovered were not submitted for tracing. No breakdown is given for that group; no explicit statement is made whether this was because they were all obviously non-US-origin (possible, but not likely) or whether they had missing serials (not uncommon at all) or whether they were simply not properly recorded for submission (quite possible) or perhaps the Mexican government and/or local law enforcement isn't really all that interested in (or staffed to permit) spending the time and effort to do after-the-fact paperwork when they still have a lot of perps on the street who need to be caught (very likely).
From what was presented, the only two statements that can be verified are:
68% of guns recovered in Mexico in drug enforcement activities were not subjected to US tracing efforts of any kind.
Of the guns submitted for tracing, 46.5% could be traced to the US, 8% could be verified as not originating in the US, and 45.5% could not be traced at all.
Unless the Mexican forces also supply data about how many US-manufacturer weapons with no serials were recovered (which are admitted as being present) and the actual distribution of other traceable national origins among the 68% not submitted, the article's cited 17% figure is as meaningless as the 90% was. And none of it addresses the degree to which US interventionism in Central America over the past 150 years has actively aided, abetted, encouraged, directed, supported and supplied the dealers who are now shipping arms across Mexico's even more porous southern borders.
Were it not for the fact that insane US drug laws have created the market that the cartels are supplying, and US-led arming of Central American hooligan states has been one of the important factors that has established a commercial culture of arms smugglers and open dealers in all manner of weapons across the region to the south of Mexico, it is unlikely that Mexico would be fighting an armed drug war today itself.
The critics are right to place the blame on us for the majority of the underlying problem, but it is wrong to blame the DOMESTIC US gun culture and its dealers; most of the arms that the cartels seek are not what you can get over the counter in the border states, and what they purchase in those areas is just one relatively minor component of the problem.
What they should be blaming us for is the fact that the drug smuggling exists at all; we tried essentially the same Grand Experiment once before, after all, and the only thing that was accomplished in the process was the evolution of a massive and well-organized structure of professional criminals operating cooperatively to supply what the government was forbidding legitimate businesses to make or sell. Prohibition was a bad idea then, it's still a bad idea today, and there is absolutely no excuse for the situation that has come to exist as a result. |
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[ Reply ] |
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*SIGH* | by DesertRat66 | 2009-04-02 14:15:21 |
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About the serial numbers: | by veran | 2009-04-02 15:17:00 |
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All over. The US is one of the few places that | by Classic_Jon | 2009-04-02 15:32:38 |
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I also want to produce arms and sell them | by veran | 2009-04-02 16:48:16 |
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