Thursday, April 02, 2009

Lies, Lies, and More Lies

As if the government doesn't lie enough, now comes the news that our own government has been been telling a real whopper about the number of guns flowing from the US in to Mexico.

The lie that's being perpetuated by people like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi is that 90% of the illegal arms in Mexico come from the U.S.

It turns out the figure is closer to 17%. They came up with the 90% figure because Mexico sends lists of serial numbers of guns it recovers to the U.S. for tracing. 90% of the serial numbers we trace for them come from guns that originated in the U.S. however most of the weapons they recover have no serial numbers so they don't send them to us for tracing so they don't make it in to our statistical pool.

Clinton recently went to Mexico spouting that number and blaming the U.S. for some of the violence in Mexico based on this figure. I wonder if she'll amend her statement now that this new figure has come to light? She also promised to do more about the illegal flow of arms to Mexico.

To me, it seems like it's not really that bad. It's not an insignificant problem, but how many millions or billions are we going to spend on "prevention" to try to slow down something that is so easily transportable in vehicles crossing the border. Seriously, it wouldn't be that hard. Vehicles come under very little scrutiny going from the U.S. to Mexico. Sure, they pull over some random cars for thorough checks but still, it wouldn't be that hard.

The sad part is, Clinton, Pelosi and the Justice Department will probably continue to use the 90% figure despite the fact that it's been proven false.

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