Mexican Authors Challenge 90% Lie: There was never a spike in violence or a sharp increase in drug addiction in Mexico, guns are not, mainly, coming from the US - and traffic is not likely to stop -, and the infiltration of crime organizations in the Mexican government is far from being the worse in its history… These are the controversial arguments put forth in a book called “Narco: The failed war,” coauthored by two close collaborators of former president Vicente Fox; his former spokesperson Rubén Aguilar and political analyst and former foreign minister Jorge Castañeda… The authors even challenge the repeated assumption that most guns and weapons come from the US and Obama will focus on that fact. They instead point to a large black traffic market located in Paraguay-Brazil- Argentina and to the fact the US has been clear in its position on the subject… (This article appears to have originally been written for a Mexican paper, La Prensa. As such, it does not accurately portray the position of the Big Brother administration, which has pushed the 90% lie but has recognized that the time is not ripe to significantly curtail the RKBA in the US.)
http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2010-02-01/mexico/the-so-called-war-on-drugs-a-complete-failure
The lie-detector team brought in by Mexico's top cop was supposed to help clean up the country's long-troubled police. There was just one problem: Most of its members themselves didn't pass, and a supervisor was rigging results to make sure others did. When public safety chief Genaro Garcia Luna found out, he canned the team, all 50 to 60 members. "He fired everybody," a senior U.S. law enforcement official said. But the episode shows how difficult it will be for Mexico to reverse a legacy of police corruption that has tainted whole departments, shattered people's faith in law enforcement and compromised one of society's most basic institutions… But Mexico has a habit of trading in one corrupt police agency for another, and it will be a long, uphill struggle to create a law enforcement system that can confront crime and gain the trust of ordinary Mexicans. Until then, crooked cops undermine efforts to strengthen the rule of law and defeat drug cartels… The U.S. government supports the push to expand and professionalize Mexico's federal forces, lending dozens of police instructors as part of a $1.4-billion aid package for Mexico known as the Merida Initiative… "You can train police all day long, but if they're still corrupt, then it doesn't really help," said Daniel Sabet, who teaches at Georgetown University and studies Mexican law enforcement. "The corruption and organized-crime infiltration has not changed." …
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-police17-2009nov17,0,6698620,full.story
Yes, But What About Military Armories?: Mexico has replaced all 700 of its customs inspectors with agents newly trained to detect contraband, from guns and drugs to TVs and other big-ticket appliances smuggled to avoid import duties. The shake-up - part of a broader effort to root out corruption and improve vigilance at Mexican ports with new technology - doubled the size of Mexico's customs inspection force. The inspectors at all 49 of Mexico's customs points were replaced with 1,400 better-educated agents who have undergone background checks and months of training, Tax Administration Service spokesman Pedro Canabal said Sunday… The main focus of the overhaul is to combat tax evasion, although Mexico is also trying to seize more guns smuggled in from the United States and elsewhere that end up in the hands of ruthless drug gangs. Mexican cartels are responsible for the majority of cocaine smuggled from South America to the United States… (Nice show but this will do nothing to stop the flow of firearms and grenades out of the armories or Mexico’s military.)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5giXKt9cXGSLc6qKi5rin-YOzghPgD9A48V781
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Where Do Mexican Gangs Get Those Grenades?: …Where did the grenade come from? South Korea. How did the Mexicans get them? “The United States and South Korea rank as the top two producers of the grenades seized in Mexico, according to the ATF.” Here's the thing: The U.S. government adheres to very strict ITAR regulations for munitions transfers to foreign entities. South Korea, as an ally and beneficiary of American military support, also complies with arms controls in its international dealings. Congress even certified it. Which means: There are either corrupt elements in the U.S. and South Korean governments skirting the audited systems and allowing arms shipments to unauthorized private individuals, and/or the corruption lies with the Mexican government. Hmmm... This isn't the first time we've discussed the impact of authorized weapons exports in the equation. And just a few days ago, we were wondering if some machine guns seized in the U.S. might not have come from the government-controlled supply chain. The picture sure is shaping up to look a lot different than we were initially led to believe, isn't it? And we all remember why we were being led to believe that?
http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m8d5-Who-is-supplying-Mexican-drug-cartels-with-grenades
A senior Mexican official spoke with reporters today, in advance of the North American Leaders summit this weekend. The official, speaking on background, explain that this summit is basically laying the ground work for future endeavors, and advised not expect to see any obvious deliverables – that developing the relationship is essentially the goal… Mexico also wants more gun control in the U.S., particularly when it comes to assault weapons. “I would like to see the assault weapons ban reinstated – it’s not philosophical, it’s because of what we have seen on the ground…There is a direct correlation between the assault ban and expiring in 2004 and the numbers – simply the sheer numbers – of assault weapons that we seize in Mexico…We are both cognizant of what can and cannot be done right now – we will softly, diplomatically…continue to say that this is an important issue for us but I think the real perspectives of this moving on Capitol Hill these days are slim to say the least,” the official said… (I’m not sure what qualifies this Mexican official to speak on the origins of the Second Amendment but our Founders had to contend not only with seizures of arms, powder and lead by British troops but also with concerted efforts by the Crown to block their importation by the rebellious colonies.)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08/mexican-official-says-nal-summit-will-focus-on-security-and-trade.html
Mexican Standoff : After a claim by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that 90% of Mexican drug dealers' military weapons (machine guns, hand grenades and missiles) come from American gun stores was exposed as a lie several months ago, it's back - this time with the imprimatur of the Government Accountability Office… What you are unlikely to hear and read is that all such military weapons are illegal in the U.S., that Mexican criminals are supplied through an international black market and that this black market prominently features weapons the U.S. sold to the Mexican military and that are resold to drug cartels by corrupt Mexican officials… The facts don't matter. Reinstatement of the federal "assault weapon" ban that lapsed in 2004 matters, and is nothing short of a fetish among powerful supporters who will tell almost any untruth to achieve it. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she would pick the time and place to ram the ban through. The foundation work for her plan includes TV face time for renewal activists, and politicians and law enforcement organizations that will get larger budgets and more power if the ban is reinstated…
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=481544
Statistics, Damned Lies and Lies: Dishonesty is a common thread through the arguments for controlling crime by limiting the general public’s access to firearms. The theory is that people in this country buy guns that are legal here, ship them to Mexico and sell them to drug cartels, and have a major impact on Mexico’s crime rate. With the money those organizations have they could ship in whole car loads of AK 47s much more simply… The dishonesty of the argument is not surprising. It joins a long list of similarly dishonest arguments from those who would take away the public’s right to be armed…
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2009/05/03/readers/doc49fa72e86ad50364147991.txt
Why the 90% Lie?: …We can easily understand Mexico's reasons for preferring the 90% number to the more accurate 17%. Mexico does not want to openly discuss the many other sources of advanced weapons being used by the drug cartels. Thousands of advanced weapons and tons of military equipment are stolen from its own military and state police. Weapons are smuggled across its southern borders from Guatemala and by boats landing on its 8,000 miles of coastline, weapons that often originate in Venezuela, Colombia, and Nicaragua, or from purchases in Eastern Europe. But it is easier for a Mexican politician to blame the U.S. than to explain his own government’s failure to police its borders, its ports of entry and its military installations. Did the Mexican ambassador mention that over 100,000 soldiers have deserted the Mexican army in the past seven years and that many of them took their weapons and joined the cartels? …
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31649
Grenades and the 90% Lie: On June 21, CNN’s Anderson Cooper aired a special report for CBS’ “60 Minutes.” In this report, Cooper repeated the tired, discredited, blatantly incorrect idea that 90% of Mexican drug cartels’ arms supply comes from the United States. Cooper showed some interesting B-roll footage of seized weapon, some of which clearly cannot be bought on the civilian market. Initially, one might note the M16A1, M16A2, M4, and what appears to be a standard NATO-issue M60. There are, however, semi-automatic civilian versions of some of these weapons available on the American market which look quite similar – without a closer look at the weapons, it is impossible to tell. There also appears to be a 40mm M203 grenade launcher attachment on one of the weapons. That, dear reader, is unavailable on the U.S. market – even in Texas…
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mike-sargent/2009/06/22/grenade-goof-cnns-cooper-says-grenades-bought-united-states
Mexico’s Weapons Cache Stymies Tracing: Deep inside a heavily guarded military warehouse, the evidence of Mexico's war on drug cartels is stacked two stories high: tens of thousands of seized weapons, from handguns and rifles to AK-47s, some with gun sights carved into the shape of a rooster or a horse's head. The vault nestled in a Mexican military base is the government's largest stash of weapons - some 88,537 of them - seized from brutal drug gangs. The Associated Press was recently given rare and exclusive access to the secure facility. The sheer size of the cache attests to the seemingly hopeless task of ever sorting and tracing the guns, possibly to trafficking rings that deliver weapons to Mexico. And security designed to keep the guns from getting back on the streets is so tight that even investigators have trouble getting the access they need… (Yes, it’s not likely that the Mexican government wants most of these firearms traced back to its own armories.)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=7518874
More on the 90% Lie: The statistic - 87 percent of firearms confiscated and traced in Mexico since 2005 lead back to the U.S. - has a different meaning when you consider that so few of the known total are being traced. That figure is even more complicated when you consider the vast number of guns that are surely not being traced, as the very nature of illicit trafficking, no matter what’s being trafficked, is that it’s underground. For all we know, most of Mexico’s guns are coming from the small island nation of Nauru. Although federal officials stand by the report’s statistics, Second Amendment enthusiasts worry that the data will be used to restrict gun ownership in the U.S. The report does find fault with current regulations governing the sale of “used” guns from one private party to another, which can be done without licenses or background checks. Law enforcement officials say these private sales give straw buyers a way to covertly acquire lots of weapons for criminal purposes and should therefore be more closely regulated and scrutinized - an idea that will surely outrage those who feel liberal “gun grabbers” are after their armories…
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jun/25/us-guns-are-crossing-border-how-many/---
More on the 90% Lie: “There is an iron river of guns that flows South into Mexico [from the United States] to supply criminal organizations on the border,” says Tom Mangan, senior special agent with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in Phoenix. “They are in the market for machine guns, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles,” he continues. That’s right. The drug gangs can’t buy that and other military stuff like the 40MM grenades (the silver things in the upper left) and the rifles with launchers shown in the photo below in Mexico, so they drive to the United States and purchase them from American gun dealers at retail. Isn’t that the story you’ve been told? Well, congratulations. America’s First Amendment protected propaganda ministry has punked you on another important issue - this time on behalf of dissembling officials and gun confiscation advocates…
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dgifford/2009/03/31/the-america-is-arming-mexicos-drug-gangs-lie/
