The 17 percent solution

The latest spin from the “it’s all Mexico’s fault” crowd is that only seventeen percent of guns recovered at the scene of narcotics-dealer related crimes are TRACED to the United States.

As “Mr. Pink Eyes” (a reactionary site chosen for the simple reason that it popped up in WordPress’ “Possibly Related Posts” thingy) wrote yesterday:

90% of the guns sent to the ATF to be traced did in fact originate in the United States, but  68% of the guns recovered at crime scenes were not sent to the ATF for tracing.  Most of these guns were not sent to the ATF for tracing because it was evident by their markings that they did not come from the United States.

“Mr. Pink Eyes” is, of course, repeating a FOX News report that gave these figures, and which depends on a pretty poor understanding of math.  Part of what Fox reported is perfectly true:

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced — and of those, 90 percent — 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover — were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

But, then, it veers off into “spin”:

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

In other words, Fox doesn’t understand statistical sampling.  A sample trace of 6000 guns, found 5,144 of them originated in the U.S.  While one (former) A.T.F. agent is quoted as saying 11,000 guns were originally sent for tracing,  but most were untraceable (gangsters have been filing off serial numbers as long as guns have had them) doesn’t mean anything in itself.  And, out of an original 29,000 guns recovered, 6000 is a damn good sample size.

While Fox does get points for highlighting a secondary issue… that some of these guns are legal exports to Mexican police agencies and end up in the hands of gangsters, means those guns ALSO came from U.S. sources. It’s no secret that guns sent under State Department license end up in illegal arsenals. Bill Conroy, who has been following the “NarcoWars” for years writes in Narco News:

The deadliest of the weapons now in the hands of criminal groups in Mexico, particularly along the U.S. border, by any reasonable standard of an analysis of the facts, appear to be getting into that nation through perfectly legal private-sector arms exports, measured in the billions of dollars, and sanctioned by our own State Department. These deadly trade commodities — grenade launchers, explosives and “assault” weapons —are then, in quantities that can fill warehouses, being corruptly transferred to drug trafficking organizations via their reach into the Mexican military and law enforcement agencies, the evidence indicates.

These “legal” purchases account for most of the Korean grenades , Israeli rocket launchers, old Soviet  and other “foreign” weapons… which are legally (though State Department license) imported into the United States for resale to supposedly legitimate users.   And, as it is, these exotic weapons only account for a fraction of the criminal arsenal … good old American 50-cals and AR-15s outnumber (I was gonna say “outgun”) the AKs and rocket launchers by a huge margin.  I wish I could say that they only made 17% of the gangsters’ tool kit, but I doubt it’s even that high.  Just that rocket launchers tend to get our attention, and get more press.

t’s not that difficult to become an arms distributor to police agencies, and even to police agencies that don’t exist… I knew someone who used to sell police equipment to Brazil that he knew was going to “private security forces”, but was perfectly legal.

While the extent of thefts from government arsenals, or fraud (by either Mexican police, or from exporters) needs to be looked into, that doesn’t change the point of origin of these weapons.  It raises troubling questions about the advisability of transferring still more firepower from the United States to Mexico, but that’s a different story.

Going after John Doe and Jose Lopez the gun-runners may do some good, but going after the corporate dealers, phony (or crooked) licensees and more controls on gun shipments (which will slow down border crossings into Mexico, but that’s the price the tourists are going to have to pay for feeling secure) are both necessary.  In the meantime, getting rid of even 17 percent would be a damn good start.  90% would be even better.