I noted not long ago that the United States gave a new opportunity for the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, to stand in front of the American people and spit in their faces. Now we get to see world press organizations jump on the bandwagon by taking his words and twisting them (as if they were not bad enough to begin with).

To summarize his complaints:

1. The United States is too mean about illegal immigration (even though his own country is draconian far beyond anything the USA does).
2. The United States is at fault for drug wars because US citizens use drugs (even though his nation allows production and transport of those drugs over the aforementioned border without as much as a shot fired).
3. Mexico has too much violence because guns come from the USA (even though his country has been a virtual civil war zone for 200 years).

Now we have to listen to the media take it to the next level. For instance, check out this quote from a BBC story today:

In his address to Congress last week, Mr Calderon asked for help in stopping the flow of weapons across the border into Mexico, saying that 80% of recently seized guns could be traced to the US.

And I thought we had problems with reading comprehension in the US. Apparently reporters in the UK can’t read at all. How can I say this? Well, here’s the actual quote from El Presidente:

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.

Anyone see the difference? Anyone? Anyone? How about the part that says “of those we have been able to trace”.

And exactly how were those guns traced and how many total were they able to trace? Well, let’s look at some real numbers. Mexico seized the weapons over a period of four years (2004-2008), sent some of them that they thought were most likely from the US to the ATF for tracing and the ATF responded that of the guns they were given 87% came from the US.

Still, though, that must be a lot of guns right? Nope. In 2005 it was 5,260. In 2006 it was 1,950. In 2007 it was 3,060. In 2008 it was 6,700.  For the last three years reported that’s less than a third of the guns Mexico says it has seized. In other words, Mexico is awash in guns (despite their gun ban laws) and the few times they actually bother to arrest somebody less than 1 out of 3 guns they confiscate can be traced back to the USA.

But let’s even assume that this is still a problem that the United States should solve. What is El Presidente’s solution? Reinstate the Clinton “assault weapons” ban. Yeah…….cuz that really cut crime. I wonder where he got that idea. Um…..no I don’t. He had just had a lavish meal with Obama the night before.

Here’s an idea. Let’s really stop the flow of guns across the border. Let’s close the stinking border – lock it down! Put up a huge fence, a nice dry ditch (nobody would call the Rio “nice”), install some good watch dogs and cover the area with troops. And no, I don’t mean the farcical move by Obama today to “put more troops on the border” after he promised El Presidente that they would only be used for fighting drug gangs (scroll to the bottom of the story, it is CNN after all).

If Felipe Calderon wants to stop all those nasty American guns from getting into his paradise of a country then it’s simple – put his own troops on the border and shoot anybody trying to get over. Or he can work with the United States to put up a real fence. Or clean up the problems in his own country by cracking down on crime. You know, do something, anything that would indicate that he’s ready to take responsibility for his own country’s problems.

Or maybe he and President Obama can try to be straight with the peoples of both countries for once and tell the truth: Mexico is out of control and they will do anything to avoid dealing with it as long as the United States keeps footing the bill.

Tags: Guns, mexico, Obama