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What GAO and ATF Left out of the Report on Mexican Guns from USA
Picture courtesy vice.com
The Government Accounting Office (GAO) recently released a report(pdf) of the guns that the ATF has traced, of the ones that the Mexican government sent the information to the ATF to be traced. They were careful to mention they have no idea of the total number of guns seized by the Mexican government over the time period covered (2009-2014). 70 percent of guns that the Mexican government thinks that the ATF can trace, are *surprise*! traced by the ATF!
What the GAO report did not mention, but what had to be available to the ATF, in order to do a trace were:
A breakdown of how long ago the guns were manufactured.
A breakdown by caliber.
A breakdown by manufacturer and model.
All of that information has to be available for the ATF to do a trace. They say they did 73,684 successful traces. That is enough for some very interesting statistical data, which they rather pointedly refused to give us. They reported that 61% were handguns, and 39% were long guns.
In my experience in Panama, the most common gun available in rural areas is the single shot shotgun. It is sturdy, reliable, sufficiently powerful for most game, does not require precise aiming, and is, most importantly, cheap.
If you look at the picture of the autodefensa above, you will notice that most of the guns being held are singles shot shotguns. I see at least three, probably four .22 rimfire rifles, and one double barrel shotgun. One man in front has a revolver tucked in his waistband. A 12 gauge break open shotgun can be made to fire 16 gauge and even 20 gauge shells, in a pinch, with some windings of tape to make them chamber without bursting. (Do not try this at home!)
In the old Soviet Union, people tried to figure out what was happening by cleverly understanding what was not being said or printed. I suspect that if we were allowed to look inside the ATF trace numbers, we would find a lot of old .22 rifles and shotguns. Sure, there were 61% pistols, which are hard to come by in Mexico; but I suspect that most of them are .22s or revolvers.
I find it sad, but wise, to attempt to determine reality by looking for what the administration does not say.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included. Link to Gun Watch
Source: http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2016/01/what-gao-and-atf-left-out-of-report-on.html
