PJM readers are among the best-informed when it comes to various stories involving firearms and crime because the editors employ writers that know firearms and firearms law. Perhaps more importantly, PJM editors and writers put in the effort to find and print the objective facts of a story. This is a not a trait of the increasingly dumbed-down mainstream media, which in this case churned out little more than a quickly re-worded press release.
Yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle printed a story by Hearst reporter Dan Freedman which uncritically regurgitated a Democratic press release from June 13 as the latest news. It included the “I told you so” arrogance one should expect from today’s under-educated class of journalist, stating:
The claim that Mexican cartels rely on huge stocks of military surplus weaponry from civil wars in Central America is the mantra of pro-gun organizations fearful that linking drug violence to U.S.-purchased weapons could lead to more gun control.
Though gun-rights advocates and at least one prominent U.S. senator ferociously stand by that politically charged theory, federal firearms data show only a tiny percentage originate south of Mexico’s border.
Indeed, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and others have cited the Mexico-bound flow of weapons from firearms dealers in border states including Texas and California in arguing for restoring the expired federal assault-weapons ban and other gun restrictions.
In response to a query from Feinstein, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported last month that of the 29,284 weapons recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing in 2009 and 2010, a total of 20,504 — 70 percent — were “United States-sourced firearms.” Virtually all of the remaining weapons were not traceable because insufficient information was submitted.
PJM readers know exactly what’s happening here: it’s the “90 percent lie,” again.
All of Freedman’s “content” comes from a dishonest claim made in Senator Dianne Feinstein’s dishonest June 13 press release:
About 70 percent of the guns seized in Mexico and submitted to a U.S. gun-tracing program came from the United States, according to a report released by three U.S. senators Monday.
Of the 29,284 firearms recovered by authorities in Mexico in 2009 and 2010, 20,504 came from the United States, according to figures provided to the senators by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Most of those weapons — 15,131 — were U.S. made, while another 5,373 were of foreign manufacture but had moved through the United States into Mexico.
The ATF said the remainder of the weapons total — 8,780 arms — were of “undetermined origin due to insufficient information provided.”
Freedman is obviously parroting the Feinstein press release and is simply too incurious to investigate the liberal anti-gun senator’s claim.
Once again, here is the truth: Far more than 29,284 firearms were recovered in Mexico in 2009-10.
The MSM will say and do anything to advance the agenda of the liberal extreme. Check out this humorous cartoon on “Civil vs. Uncivil” at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/civil-vs-uncivil/ It sums up the MSM and Hollywood pretty well.
Greetings:
They don’t call it the “San Francisco Commicle” for nothing.
I just want to know where I can get my cartel loyalty card so I can purchase gobs of firearms, too. It stinks being a lowly law-abiding citizen.
I want the FBI and ATF to use obama bucks to buy me weapons too.
The real cause of the drug wars in Mexico is the drug prohibition in the US. Just as ending Prohibition put an end to Bootleggers wreaking havoc in the US, ending drug prohibition will end the Drug Wars. And we can let half of our own prisoners out and free up prison bunks for violent offenders.
Arguing about who sold them the guns is missing the point. Who gave them the money to buy the guns is the real point.
Prohibitionists, including Tobacco Prohibitionists, need to be put out to pasture. Using the government to control which intoxicants people choose to imbibe has now had a nearly century long field test and it has failed miserably. It has shown itself to be a net minus for society and needs to be placed on the Ash Heap of History.
That makes too much sense.
The libs will never allow prohibition to end. This sham “war” pours $millions into the DNC’s coffers via the trial lawyers association and the police unions.
It is easy to understand why the airwaves are filled with pro police state propaganda 24/7 by the socialist media, three out of four shows are all about the police or the lawyers and how they are the chosen elite. It’s a self reinforcing myth that what people do with their own bodies is any of the government’s business.
Ha Ha. I remember a while back a contributor here or on reason.com wrote a piece on that very subject. The title was something to this effect; If the crime rate keeps going down the only crimes in the country will be committed by the cops on TV.
I cant stand to watch television just for that reason.
I turned off the TV years ago. I now only use it to watch movies on disk and sports. I’ll turn it on for the last phase of the Presidential Election from the Conventions to a few days after it is over. I turned off Rush as well after 16 years at the Institute. I get my news from Internet sites now. Faster and less noise. My life is much more peaceful, I worry less, and can concentrate on whatever I am doing better.
No, it’s a nice thought, but do you honestly believe that legalizing dope up here will automatically convert these armies of thugs into honest businessmen? They traffic in drugs, not because they are crusaders for the repeal of drug laws, but because it is tremendously lucrative. Legalizing drugs would do nothing but move them into a different business. You’re looking at the wrong part of the equation. Yes, Prohibition helped fuel the rise of the Mafia in the US, but nearly a hundred years after Repeal, we still have the Mob. They just diversified, and despite Don Corleone’s prediction, they are nowhere near being 100% legitimate.
You are NOT going to get rid of criminal armies that easy.
It will take away their #1 source of income. I don’t think there is a second product in South & Central America that can replace drugs for these gangs. They can continue to try extortion and prostitution and gambling in their home countries, but those are not exportable commodities. The street gangs in our ghettos will face a similar reduction in cash flow. It won’t eliminate the gangs, but cutting off their #1 cash cow will hurt.
Since you bring up The Godfather, remember what the gang war was about; selling drugs. If we didn’t have drug prohibition, they never would have been able to do that. The mob’s other two big cash cows are gambling and prostitution. Again, it is the moral busybodies who made those trades illegal. They didn’t get rid of either, they just criminalized them and created a golden opportunity for organized crime to flourish.
Moral legislating never works if the definition of working is reducing the number of participants in whatever vice the law targets or the overall harm to society. Is it really better to have the big three vices, intoxicants, prostitution, and gambling operated by violent criminal gangs or legal businessmen who pay taxes and are subject to the usual legislative regulation? Look at alcohol; is Al Capone and the Chicago Mob preferable to the current system of legal manufacture and distribution? That is the only real choice.
Some people are going to drink, take drugs, gamble, and consort with prostitutes, and there is little we can do to alter their behavior. All society can do is select the method of supply of those vices.
To Old Guy-
There’s a problem. Once legalized, what makes you think the drug gangs are going to idly sit by and allow retail outlets to sell drugs?
What are they going to do, force the big box retailers to close down? They may attack a few stores at first, but with the money gone, the drug gangs will wither and die.
“About 70 percent of the guns seized in Mexico and submitted to a U.S. gun-tracing program came from the United States, according to a report released by three U.S. senators Monday.”
This merely shows that the Mexican government is right about 70% of the time when they trace a gun they believe came from the US. Since US-based firearms are required to have serial numbers, this is no real big surprise. However, this fails to account for all the other arms which are not submitted to the US for tracing (whether that is because the Mexican government knows where the gun came from, the gun does not have a serial number, or otherwise). You cannot generalize from this subset of weapons to all the weapons being used for criminal purposes in Mexico. Unfortunately, thinking is hard, and most people would prefer not to do it.
I surprised they still run this nonsense. It begs the question: How many of the 90% or 70% were sold to the cartels by the ATF, FBI, and State Department? The MSM might not like the answer.
Excellent question. That they wont like the answer is why they are not asking.
“But far more weapons were recovered, inspected, and determined to come from Central American or Mexican government stockpiles or from the black market (primarily from Asia).”
Bob, where does this excerpt above come from?
Here is a place to start:
Mexico’s Gun Supply and the 90 Percent Myth
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110209-mexicos-gun-supply-and-90-percent-myth
It references the Gov. Accounting Office investigation which found more realistic numbers.
The cartels get many of their weapons internally in Mexico from the police and army. Sometimes it is an inside job, but they also acquire them by force.
Here is a story where the state police were lucky. The cartel held them up and took all their weapons. Normally they would all be shot dead first. The heist included six uzis.
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/07/hooded-commando-disarm-state-police.html
As has been proven by even a cursory study of Obama’s rhetorical charm…”words are just words”. Any means; justifies the end result. Keep repeating a falsehood and people believe it…to hell with reality. Can’t we just stop the bullshit reporting of stories like this? It’s just the same ol’ crap over and over again!! Are we surprised or what? NOOOO we’re not. Hell, Stalin and Hitler had this stuff perfected a long time ago. Anf hey; Commies are Commies!!! Nothing new here so let’s move along.
The only difference this kinda reporting makes is when it hits 300,000,000 people right between the eyes!!! C’mon!!!! Let’s get with it!!!!
My response to Mr. Freedman’s article:
Dan, I guess if you keep repeating the same lie often enough, you will get some people to believe it. The question is, how many of those weapons were supplied by ATF themselves.
I’d like to know where the stories are in the MSM and the SFGate about the illegal and immoral gun running into Mexico by the ATF. Have you reported that 150 people, including a US Border Patrol agent, a US ICE agent, and countless Mexican law enforcement officers have been killed by weapons the ATF allowed to walk across the border into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. And since those weapons are still out there, they will continue to be used in killings by the cartels.
Criminal acts have been committed by the DOJ and its law enforcement agencies that have resulted in murders. Any US official involved , no matter how high up in the government, should be charged and prosecuted for this atrocity.
And, if the above is not bad enough, we have this DOJ obstructing justice by refusing to supply documentation to the oversight committees involved. That is, unless you consider supplying documents so redacted, that you have a totally blacked out page, compliance.
Fast and Furious aka Gunwalker, had nothing to do with a legitimate law enforcement operation. The testimony of disgusted ATF agents themselves, about this operation, confirms the lie that the administration and the media is perpetuating. This operation was all about fabricating evidence to support further gun control. This is the kind of devious, dishonest, subversive behavior one would expect from a totalitarian government, not the government of the US. This is an attack on the Bill of Rights by our own government, an attack on our most basic rights by our own government officials, who swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.
It is obvious now, where the real domestic enemies reside.
The Huffington Post actually “broke” the story, yesterday. Granted, it was a very short article with very little detail, but at least one very liberal website has exposed Operation Fast And Furious. I’m trying to bring them up to speed in the comments section.
Journalism used to be the voice and protector of the truth. Now it is the voice and protector of the incumbancy of the two-party dictatorship called Wahington D.C. Some time after the Kennedy assassination journalism was either scared off or bought off. then it became the blond-big-boobed bimbos and pencil-necked geek anchors we have as “entertainment” on TV. And every reporter in the nation wants to become that.
Sorry about the spelling (there’s no editing button once you submit) I corrected it.
Journalism used to be the voice and protector of the truth. Now it is the voice and protector of the incumbency of the two-party dictatorship called Washington D.C. Sometime after the Kennedy assassination journalism was either scared off or bought off. Then it became the blond-big-boobed bimbos and pencil-necked geek anchors we have as “entertainment” on TV. And every reporter in the nation wants to become that.
“Journalism used to be the voice and protector of the truth.”
lol
fyi – just heard the lies about the majority of mexican drug runner guns coming from the U.S. on Judge Neopolitano’s (sp?) Fox News show. I was surprised the judge didn’t jump the left wing bimbo about it.
the affirmative action ‘educated’ media cheerleaders are very successful in putting forth lies by constantly repeating it, even on Fox.
The prime issue will be whether one can receive the Pulitzer prize while wearing pajamas.
I follow Congressman Issa hearings and the onion of truth is being peeled back, layer by layer, day by day. Perhaps five or more of the highest officials in the DOJ either commited crimes, or regularly drool in their soup. Their options narrow by the day. But, at this time, we know that this story is perhaps a thousand times worse than Abu Ghraib. American peace officers were murdered, as a direct result of DOJ executive malfeasance. The Abu Ghraib story dominated world news for a year. Only people wearing pajamas know about this one.
The only comparable scoop, or non scoop, in recent events is the relative treatment, by the press, between Presidential candidate and Senator John Edwards’ love child, vs. Sarah Palin’s teen age daughter sorrows. If one reads the National Inquirer, they are far better informed, on important election issues, than the major American journalism institutions. I confess ignorance; I no longer read publications which are mostly pictures.
We live in a time where vital information is never published, except by the same means that destroyed several Arab nations in the last few months, social networking. The days of a major story being squelched by one editor in Manhattan, or Washington D.C. have ended. But like dinosaurs, one end of them is dead, and the other end does not know it yet.
Keep shining the light. All the liars in America can not stop it.
There may be method to this madness. I’ve not seen a key issue mentioned in any of the gunrunner material. The guns, evil, evil assault weapons, were purchased in US stores by ATF agents or their representatives and delivered to Mexican drug lords or their representatives. What hasn’t been mentioned is whether the guns were SOLD in Mexico. If som what happened to the profits?
It seems unlikely that the ATF folks simply gave the guns to the drug lords. They must have sold them and for more than they cost in Phoenix. Where is the cash; where are the profits?
I don’t claim to have followed this too closely, but I think that I know enough to say this: the ATF didn’t buy the guns but instead told gun store owners to sell guns to shady fellas whom the ATF suspected of doing who-knows-what in Mexico. The idea was for the ATF to track those guns into Mexico and, uh, investigate ‘n stuff. But they didn’t.
If there is a method to the madness, it isn’t turning a profit but instead justifying greater gun control in the U.S.–an omelette made from the broken eggs of Mexicans and Americans killed by drug lords.
I have a few questions for those more informed than I am.
1. If a full automatic AK-47 can be purchased in Guatamala for $55 used to $100 new why would the cartels want to buy semi-auto versions in the US for about $525? Did we subsidise their purchases? Did they give our government money or drugs as payment?
2. It is no secret that the Mexican authorities believe they have about 3,000 dead so far which were killed with guns from these gunrunning programs (approximately the same body count as 9-11). It is also no secret that the entire purpose of these programs was to create a crisis of such huge proportions that the 2nd ammendment could be abolished (Obama told Sarah Brady that by the end of his second term there would not be a gun left in the United States). It was hoped this could be accomplished by a large enough body count on both sides of the border. With that as a planned purpose wouldn’t everyone involved be guilty of facilitating mass murder? Arn’t these crimes against humanity? Where do the left wing leaders think they got a get out of jail free card? Will they get the needle like McVey?