Why is 60 Minutes spreading misleading information?
I happened to catch this evening’s 60 Minutes and caught the segment on Mexico’s drug war (http://tinyurl.com/nygkge). While this is of interest to me, I was appalled that they repeated the same lie that has been floating around for a while now… Namely that 90% of Mexico’s assault weapons come from us. I guess they do believe that if you repeat a lie enough times that it eventually is accepted as truth by the trusting public.
What’s worse is that they addressed this to Janet Napolitano who did not correct them despite the fact that this information has been absolutely proven false.
To top that, they interviewed Mexico’s attorney general who took the opportunity to slam our Second Amendment rights, essentially claiming that our rights are responsible for their weapon problem. So this is our fault? Interesting since we can’t own fully automatic weapons, grenades or rocket launchers… And I don’t suspect that drug cartels are armed with, and outgunning police and military with semi-auto rifles…
According to Mexidata.org:
It’s not correct. The 90% figure was originally based upon a misunderstanding, and thereafter it has been constantly repeated in the media and political world.
According to a spokeswoman for the ATF (U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), “over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S.”
To borrow a Shakespearean expression, “there’s the rub.”
The fact that 90% of the “traced weapons” were from the U.S. was transformed in the media to the false report that 90% of the weapons used for criminal purposes in Mexico were from the U.S.
They go on to say:
According to William Newell, an ATF Special Agent, during the period of 2007-2008 Mexico sent 11,000 guns to the ATF to be traced. Of those 11,000 weapons, 6,000 were able to be traced. Of those 6,000, 90% were traced to the U.S.
But those 11,000 guns weren’t the only weapons confiscated in that time period. In fact, from 2007-2008 Mexican authorities recovered 29,000 guns.
That means that during that time period (2007-2008) 83% of the recovered guns in Mexico were not traced to the U.S.A.
on June 24, 2009 on 7:35 am
The real goal is to promote more gun control in our country. They ignore the fact that the cure is quite simple. Legalize the drugs and take the criminal element out of the equation. I know, I know everyone will scream that I am a nut that wants to promote drug use. The fact is that countries like the Netherlands have lower use then we do. People fail to learn from history. The gang violence of today is very reminiscent of prohibition, guns did not create the problem, stupid laws trying to control human behavior and thereby creating criminals did!
on June 24, 2009 on 7:36 pm
Looks like the GAO just released a report on arms trafficking into Mexico. Not at all surprising, the report doesn’t support the 60 Minutes story…
http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=4991
on August 7, 2009 on 1:22 pm
Gee whiz, could it possibly be that a lot of the weapons from America ended up in Mexico be from the illegals coming over here, robbing and burglarizing our citizens and then taking the loot back to Mexico? What a friggin concept!!! Illegals are dangerous, and there are millions in our prisons to prove it. Lets just take all of them out and shoot them (they have no reservations about killing us) and save the gubment billions of dollars – and lets shoot them when they come across the border. OR we could do like the North Koreans did to 2 of our citizens. Guilty just because they are here.