Guns and Mexico

The big lie by the Obama administration was that 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico were traced to the USA. They used that statistic to imply there was a serious problem with guns being illegally smuggled from the USA to Mexico. The truth of the matter was something else.

Mexican authorities recovered a lot of weapons from battles with the drug cartels. Most of the weapons recovered (about 75%) were non-US made guns, like AK-47, FN-FAL, Vz-58, and similar military rifles.

Mexico did not submit the serial numbers of these guns to the US for tracing as it would be fruitless. These fully automatic firearms aren’t sold in the USA. Mexico only submitted firearms made in the USA for tracing. Most firearms are marked with their country of origin via a stamping that says “Made in ______” which helps trace the origins of small arms.

Of the gun serial numbers submitted for tracing to US authorities over a 4-year period (2007–2011), about 66% were traced to US sources, according to the BATFE (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives). But the story doesn’t end there.

Of those identified and traced, over half were M-16 rifles provided to Mexico by the U.S. Government. In other words, the US provided M-16 rifles to the Mexican military directly, and they “disappeared” from Mexican government custody, either by cartels raiding armories or bribing armory officials.

I’m working from memory here (on my laptop away from my home computer), but as I recall from previous work on this subject, of all weapons seized by the Mexican government, only about 25%-27% were US made and of those, just over half were military rifles supplied directly to Mexico by US “foreign aid” programs. Commercial firearms, the kind you can buy in any US gun store, accounted for less than 10% of all guns seized.

Just to add insult to injury, the BATFE, the agency responsible for enforcing most of the US federal gun laws, was actively aiding gun trafficking to Mexico. Allegedly, the BATFE wanted to “follow the breadcrumbs” by allowing the sale of weapons in border state gun stores and then follow the guns into Mexico to unravel the smuggling ring. This project was given the code name Fast and Furious.

Several border area gun shops were coerced into allowing BATFE to install video cameras so they could see the buyers. BATFE intercepted background check calls and authorized sales to known gun runners so they could allegedly track the guns. But BATFE would trace them to the border but were told not to cross the border. Thus, once across the border the guns “vanished” to law enforcement.

It’s important to note that the BATFE did this without notifying Mexican authorities which meant there were no Mexican agents to pick up the trail south of the border. Several thousand guns were permitted to cross the border unchecked. BATFE was not allowed to notify the US Border Patrol nor the Mexican authorities to intercept the guns.

Either this was the biggest clusterfuck operation the BATFE ever did, or, as many people believed, an attempt to bolster the number and percentage of US made guns recovered by Mexican authorities. If successful, it could have allowed the Obama administration to justify even more gun control laws.

Sadly, two weapons permitted to cross the border were later recovered after one of the weapons was used to kill Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. After that incident the truth started leaking out slowly. Eventually there were some congressional hearings over it, with the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder being charged with Contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the oversight committee.