The US, Mexico, and Guns - Updated by Fox News

There's a lot of stuff flying around these here Internets about the whole guns in Mexico thing.

I hear 90% of the traceable guns found in Mexico were from the US. (I, for one, would like to see a real number there instead of a nebulous percentage)

I hear there's no way to trace most of the guns found in Mexico because the Mexican government isn't releasing the serial numbers.

I think, ultimately, a large part of these guns had their origin in the US.

Not from straw buyers at gun shows, hell no. That's just silly. Drug cartels don't have the time to mess with that. They also do have the money to circumvent any set of laws and procedures in place to prevent large shipments of arms from reaching Mexico.

Those machine guns, grenades, explosives, rockets, etc., probably did, at some point, come through the US on their way to Mexico. It's just common sense. We ship and receive more stuff on a daily basis than some countries do in a year.

Then, of course, is the fact that the US has supplied virtually all of the anti-communist forces in Central and South America for decades. Those weapons came from the US as well. Years ago.

We gun-fanatics gun rights people need to better define this argument. Letting the legacy media define the issue never helps anyone get closer to the truth. We need to pin them down on the issue, force them to explain things in a clearer manner in order to ascertain where these weapons are coming from.

Responding to someone saying the guns are coming from the US by saying "No they're not!" isn't going to work. It would be better, in my opinion, to elaborate on how these guns may be getting into Mexico - not by straw buyers in Phoenix, but by the large-scale shipments they are undoubtedly getting from wherever these shipments originate.

For the record, I was somewhat surprised at Michael Yon's posts on this matter, considering his military background, but what really shocked me was this:

The idea that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" should be saved for someone who will buy it.

Coming from a former SF guy, that really shocked me.

Being a Combat Engineer in a past life, I've spent some time with SF types, and the one thing I've noticed about SF guys was how they were based in the real world. I had one tell me he never used terms like "give 110%" because 100% was all we have and most people who use those terms have never even given 90.

At any rate, this topic is shaping up to be the tip of the spear for the gun control movement. It's time for us to get focused on how we can present our side of the story to the general public.

UPDATE - Fox News' William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott (heh, Maxim) set the story straight:

You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

[snip]

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. By all accounts, it's probably around 17 percent.

You don't say!

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