THE NERVE OF MEXICO'S PRESIDENT (2)

President Calderon, the Obama administration and the advocates of gun control are all FLAT-OUT LYING when they charge that Mexico’s gun cartels get most of their firearms from the United States. In a previous post, DRUG CARTELS DO NOT GET MILITARY-STYLE WEAPONS FROM TEXAS GUN DEALERS (2) [10-16-09], I reproduced a letter to the Houston Chronicle from Joan Neuhaus Schaan, a fellow for Homeland Security and Terrorism programs in the prestigious James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

Schaan’s letter in the October 15, 2009 issue of the Chronicle unequivocally demonstrated that the Obama administration has been throwing out bogus statistics on the acquisition of weapons by Mexico’s drug cartels. In response to Calderon’s address before Congress, Schaan wrote another letter spelling out where the cartels actually get their guns from. She was awfully kind to Calderon, referring to his deliberate falsehoods as a mistake. Here is that letter as it appeared in the May 26 issue of the Chronicle:
　
GUN MYTH
　
I feel compelled to point out a mistake in "Calderón asks U.S. to renew ban on sale of assault guns."
　
At issue is the statement "Mexico has seized 75,000 firearms over the past three years, he said, and 80 percent of them were traced to the United States."
　
This statement continues to perpetuate a myth. The actual figure is approximately 20 percent of the guns seized in Mexico have been proven to be from the United States. In January, I was with a colleague from a northern Mexico university, and he also was perpetuating this myth. When I asked if my statistics were incorrect, or my understanding of the vast number of weapons seized that originated in other parts of the world was incorrect, he said they were not. In early 2008, the U.S. federal government instituted a program to inspect vehicles headed south for weapons. To the dismay of many, in the San Antonio sector, very few weapons were found, but approximately $65 million in cash had been seized by November.
　
Mexico has become a top international arms bazaar, with weapons arriving from China, Brazil, the former Soviet bloc and elsewhere. In one case, weapons were stolen in Iraq and brought to Mexico for sale. Key to this debate, and Mexico's weapons problems, are all these other sources of weapons.
　
Also key to this debate is under what authority the U.S. government is providing another country with a serious and acknowledged problem with corruption the access to U.S. citizens' personal information in gun ownership records.
　
— JOAN NEUHAUS SCHAAN,coordinator, Texas Security Forum and Fellow for Homeland Security and Terrorism Programs, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy