4/12/2009

Mexico says US fuels gun crime

Understandably, Mexicans like to blame the US for the guns. What they should blame the US for is the demand for drugs. The BBC has this.

Mexico's ambassador to the US has urged America to stop the flow of guns and cash that pass into his country, fuelling the country's drug wars.
Arturo Sarukhan said US money and weapons provided the drug cartels with the means to "corrupt, bribe and kill".
President Barack Obama is due to visit Mexico later this week.
More than 6,000 people died last year in Mexico in drug-related violence and Mexico believes 90% of the weapons used by drug cartels come from the US.
US gun lobby groups dispute the figure.


CBS provided this.

“Ninety percent of all weapons we are seizing in Mexico, Bob, are coming from across the United States,” he said, citing the high number of Federal firearms licenses a few miles north of the border. "Just on the Arizona and Texas borders with Mexico alone there are approximately 7,000 FFLs, federal firearms licensees. And weapons bought by the drug syndicates, directly or proxy purchases, are coming from those gun shops."

Schieffer noted that the NRA has taken issue with the statistic, and asked the ambassador where the data originates – a question Sarukhan did not directly answer, although he used the example of a recent weapons seizure in a border town to explain how much ammunition U.S. sellers are directing to drug cartels. . . . .


Of course, it was a Fox News piece that questioned this number, not the NRA. Fox News came up with the 17 percent number, but Schieffer tries to discredit it by referring to the NRA for this general claim.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Steve said...

Actually, I did hear Wayne La Peirre dispute the 90% estimate in a FOX News interview a couple of weeks ago. He cited testimony during congressional hearing from the BATF which stated they weren't sure where the guns were originating from because most were untraceable.

4/12/2009 11:10 PM  

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