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This is 100% correct. Mexico has an average desertion rate of about 16000 soldiers per year out of 195,000. They take all their equipment in many cases, so yeah the guns may have been made in America, but somewhere on them is probably also a "propiedad del gobierno mexicano"Excaliber wrote:You're right.AndyC wrote:I'm putting this breakdown here for my own future use so I can find it again:
* I'm the Mexican gov't - I have 29,000 weapons before me recovered from crime-scenes.
* I give 11,000 to the US for tracing - I don't give the US the other 18,000 (for whatever reasons of my own).
* Of the 11,000 guns I gave the US to check, 6,000 are traced successfully - and of those 6,000 guns, 5,114 actually did come from the US.
That's where the 90% figure comes from - 90% of the 6,000 - NOT the 29,000.
5,114 out of 29,000 = 17.6% of ALL weapons used in Mexico killings come from the US.
Now here's the real kicker:
About 1/8 of the Mexican army deserts every year - with their weapons, uniforms, and equipment. I haven't seen the figures for their police, but I suspect their retention rate is no better, and may well be worse. Many of these ex government employees start new careers as drug cartel employees.
Mexico buys most of its military small arms from the U.S.
When the deserters' guns are recovered and traced, it should come as no surprise that they are found to come from the U.S.
The most interesting figure, which no one can seem to pry out of either the U.S. or Mexico, is how many of those traced guns entered Mexico through authorized government sales to the Mexican military and police.
Since this simple and obviously relevant piece of data appears to be top secret, it would be reasonable to suspect that the answer would not be helpful to the anti 2A propaganda effort both countries are using these numbers for.