Data: Firearms in Mexican crime from U.S.

[shawn703]

Source: CNN

Nearly 70% of guns recovered from Mexican criminal activity during the past five years and traced by the U.S. government originated from sales in the United States, according to data released Thursday by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

All the guns that were traced were passed to the U.S. from Mexican authorities.

ATF Special Agent John Hageman was careful in his comments as he released the data.

"Our job is to provide the aggregate tracing figures and not to speculate," he said.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/26/us/mexico-crime-guns/index.html

[TheWraith]

1. The key phrase here is "AND TRACED."

If you do a little more digging, you'll find out that only about one in five weapons seized by the Mexican police was submitted to the US for tracing, making that 70% of 20% = more like 15% of the total.

[Travis_0004]

5. Its amazing more people don't realize this

All guns made in the US have a serial number, and the place of manufacture. Its easy to look at a gun, know that its made in the US, and ask the ATF to track it. If the gun has writing in a foreign (to us) language, its easy to determine that its not US made, and not send it to the ATF.

[Hoyt]

6. Don't get too hung up on percentages. 68,000 guns traced to USA -- that's a lot, even if only 15%.

[backwoodsbob]

2. and traced

fully 75% cant be traced

[rl6214]

4. Don't let the anti-gun zealots see you post this

They don't like real facts.

[baldguy]

3. Que the gunners saying "DON'T BLAME THE GUNS! IT'S ALL OBAMA'S FAULT!"

[slackmaster]

7. Key phrase, second paragraph, first sentence = "All the guns that were traced..."

They didn't submit all of the guns they confiscated; only ones that were likely to be of US origin.