President Obama used a speech at Mexico’s Museo Nacional de Antropología – the National Anthropology Museum – to claim that ‘most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States.’
‘I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms,’ Obama said. ‘And as president, I swore an oath to uphold that right, and I always will.’
Does Mexico need any bridges? He can sell them the Brooklyn Bridge too.
Senate testimony in 2011 from a top Department of Justice official indicates that Obama may be correct in saying that the U.S. is the source of 'most' guns used to commit violence in Mexico.
Lanny Breuer, then the Assistant Attorney General, referred a Senate Judiciary subcommittee to statistics showing that 94,000 weapons had been recovered from Mexican drug cartels in the previous five years, including 64,000 – a 70 per cent ratio – that could be traced back to the United States.
That study of course, has been
thoroughly debunked.
The media — for example, Reuters — have widely reported that “nine out of ten guns” found at Mexican crime scenes came from U.S. gun dealers, but this claim has been debunked: The statistic takes into account only guns traced by the FBI. Such tracing is possible only if the Mexican authorities submit a weapon to the FBI, and they submit only weapons designed for the U.S. civilian market (the only kind of gun the FBI is equipped to trace). Once all guns retrieved in Mexico are included, only 17 percent come from U.S. gun dealers.
Brian Terry could not be reached for comment.
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