President Calderon’s Misleading Claim
Ted Bromund /
In his speech before a Joint Session of Congress yesterday, President Felipe Calderon of Mexico made a bold claim. He asserted that:
Just to give you an idea, we have seized 75,000 guns and assault weapons in Mexico in the last three years. And more than 80 percent of those we have been able to trace came from the United States — from the United States.
The media immediately picked up on this claim. As Reuters summarized the President’s remarks:
[He] said more than 80 percent of [the guns] came from the United States
Except that, of course, was not what the President said. The President included a crucial qualifier in his statement: he was referring only to the guns that Mexico has (with U.S. assistance) been able to trace. And in that context, the President’s claim is correct: he was referring to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report concluding that, of the guns seized in Mexico and given to the ATF for tracing from 2004 through 2008, approximately 87 percent originated in the U.S. (more…)