Lede story front page of Austin Statesman

[A-R]

Below is text of today's lede story on A1 of the Austin Statesman. Nothing earthshattering in the article, and writer at least attemps to stay objective. But the writer does hover around the issue of US guns supplying Mexican cartels and blindly sites the bogus 90% claim that others have already shown to be false. There is mention in background of previously reported statements from Clinton & Holder, and information attributed to the ATF guy Reyes, "speaking generally," about how such straw buying has been used in the past to supply the cartels does lead the reader down the path toward assuming this straw purchase is linked to cartel violence - even though there is no evidence and many of the guns were "common hunting rifles".

But the placement of the story - lede story on page one - seems overhyped - as if merely the fact they could put "gun sales" in the largest headline was the reason to run it where they did (I write all this from the perspective of someone who worked on newspaper editorial desks for more than 10 years and was often involved in discussions regarding where and how to "play" a story).

Anyway, I've seen and read much worse and more blatantly one-sided articles. But the placement of this one and it's read-between-the-lines tendencies will have me watching how the Statesman plays this story in the future.

Wonder if correcting the 90% falsehood is worth a letter to the editor at this time?


http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n ... 5guns.html

Officials trying to stop flow of guns from Austin to Mexico
Federal officials cracking down on potential traffickers.
By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, May 15, 2009

The surveillance video showed two women leaving Cabela's in Buda and handing three guns they had just bought to a man, who then put the guns in the trunk of his black Lexus, according to a federal criminal complaint.

The purchase and handoff in November piqued the suspicions of Cabela's employees, who alerted federal firearms agents.

According to court documents, the agents soon identified the man as Humberto Fernandez, 47, who splits time between Mexico and the Austin area and who in recent years has enlisted help in purchasing dozens of guns to ship south of the border.

Last week, Fernandez, who has been arrested, and five of his so-called "straw buyers" were indicted in federal court in Austin on firearms conspiracy and other charges. His lawyer declined to comment.

The case is just the type that the Obama administration is pursuing as part of a stepped-up effort to curb the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico — guns that officials on both sides of the border say are being used by Mexican drug cartels to fuel intense violence.

In recent months, according to court records, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been watching Austin gun dealers and the monthly Austin Saxet gun show at the Crockett Center on North Lamar Boulevard carefully, looking for anyone illegally buying guns, including illegal immigrants and straw buyers who may be working with smugglers.

There is no indication in court documents that the guns Fernandez is accused of obtaining through others were intended for drug smugglers — in fact many of those listed in his indictment are common hunting rifles. But Michael Reyes, resident agent in charge of the Austin ATF field office, said because of the recent federal effort, any potential gun trafficking cases are getting close attention. He would not discuss Fernandez's case because it is pending.

U.S. officials have said that 90 percent of the guns seized by Mexican authorities from drug traffickers and submitted to the United States for tracing had originated here. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama have traveled to Mexico in recent months and announced that the United States shares responsibility for the bloody Mexican drug war, in part because many of the guns used by the cartels come from this country and because many Americans have an insatiable appetite for illicit drugs.

The Justice Department in March announced the deployment of 100 ATF agents to the Southwest border states. Reyes said that several new agents are stationed in Austin under the program.

Speaking generally, Reyes described how drug trafficking organizations gather guns in Texas for their trek south of the border. The traffickers send someone north with an order list to cities including Austin, he said. The lists are sometimes hundreds of guns long and include high-powered pistols and assault rifles, such as AK-47s.

They find people to buy guns, often relatives or friends, and give them the money to complete the purchase, as well as a little extra for their trouble. Sometimes the smugglers go to gun shows, where they can buy guns from people who are not gun dealers without filling out a federal firearms form, Reyes said.

The ATF for years has aggressively pursued gun cases in Austin, Reyes said, charging dozens of people a year, including many felons in possession of firearms. He could not say whether there has been an uptick in those who potentially could be buying the guns for gun smugglers but did say "we are looking further into the trafficking cases."

Charged in the indictment along with Fernandez are Claudia Pulido, Yahaira Banda, Laura Caraveo, Humberto Ruben Trevino and Astolfo Garza. None of them could be reached for comment. While Fernandez is being held without bond in federal custody, the other defendants have been issued summonses to appear in court next week.

According to a criminal complaint, Fernandez was suspected of illegally exporting guns to Mexico in 1997, though no charges were filed. A Smith & Wesson revolver he once purchased was used in a crime in Mexico in 2003, the federal complaint said. The complaint said that Fernandez has made many trips between Mexico and the Austin area.

After ATF agents were called to Cabela's, they learned that Banda, 30, bought the guns that were handed off to Fernandez in November, the complaint said. In February, she told ATF agent Daniel Jones that she had purchased 10 guns for Fernandez and was paid $80 per gun, the complaint said. Banda told agents that Fernandez kept a storage locker near U.S. 290 and Interstate 35, where agents seized numerous gun boxes and receipts.

Among the items in the storage locker, the complaint said, were business cards. On them, the complaint said, next to Fernandez's name, was printed "Fernandez Imports & Exports."

skreytak@statesman.com; 912-2946

Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n ... 5guns.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[A-R]

Well, I didn't write a letter to the editor, but instead sent this email to the reporter who wrote the story. I'll post if I receive a reply ...

To: skreytak@statesman.com
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 10:20:22 AM
Subject: Gun sales story


Sir,

Regarding your story at top of the front page of today's paper, I respectfully request that you read the information contained in the link and text below regarding the bogus claim "U.S. officials have said that 90 percent of the guns seized by Mexican authorities from drug traffickers and submitted to the United States for tracing had originated here." Just because US officials said it, does not make it true.

The truth - ever changing as it is - regarding this 90% claim is that 90% of guns that "were submitted" AND "could be traced" were traced to the US. But no one seems to know what percentrage of the total number of confiscated guns "were submitted" or "could be traced" .... so any use of this statistic is specious at best. There could be a huge number of guns that simply "could not be traced" precisely because they DIDN'T originate in the US, thus the US government has no means to trace them. I would love to see either a US or Mexican government official produce these total numbers so the ultimate "truth" of this statistic could be properly ascertained.

Also, I fully understand why you make the "general" links in your story's background between this Cabela's incident and the supposed US-Mexico gun trafficking - without it, you don't have a front page story - but the overall tone in your story implies that there is - or soon will be - a link. Why not wait to report this aspect of the story when there in fact IS a link? Why the rush to print half a story and run it as lede on A1?

I support the newspaper industry in this country and in fact worked as a newspaper editor myself for more than a decade. But these kinds of "weak links" in stories about hot button issues are precisely why fewer and fewer Americans TRUST what they read in the newspaper.

Anyway, didn't intend to lecture. Only to ask that you consider re-stating the "facts" of your story, specifically as it relates to the 90% claim.

Thank you for your time.

http://www.factcheck.org/politics/count ... _guns.html

[Who'sJohnGalt]

I had to look up "Lede" since you used it repeatedly and were an editor. Thanks for "learning" me a new word, or at least the history of the spelling.

[A-R]

I had to look up "Lede" since you used it repeatedly and were an editor. Thanks for "learning" me a new word, or at least the history of the spelling.

Ha! Sorry 'bout that. Old habits die hard. When talking newspapers, I also find myself subconsciously using words like "hed" and "dekhed" (one of my personal favorites). Sentence structure like this was not uncommon in the good ol' days ... "dekhed lede sty 16pt 2C/1L" ... meant the editor wanted a secondary headline (subhead or deckhead) on the top story (lead story or lede story) in 16-point type 2 columns wide 1 line deep.

[Rockrz]

If they would simply close our southern border and enforce current
immigration laws, it would stop a large majority of illegals that
come here to buy guns to sell to Mexican dope dealers.

I don't doubt that there's alot of that going on because
it's so easy for illegals to do while they are here.

[lrb111]

The real story here has not been reported or revealed. A large percentage of the weapons traced back to the US were sold legally. The part that has been ignored, to near the point of cover up, is how many were legally transfered from the US to the Mexican Police, and Mexican military. Then were stolen/sold to the cartels. Many of the numerous deserters just took their guns with them,

If US citizens had real numbers as to how many of those weapons have been sold to Mexican crime cartels, and how depleted the police and military have become, there might be some outrage. I guess, They just don't want to upset us with this particular reality.

[A-R]

lrb111, do you have some facts or something to back that up? I'm in an email back-n-forth with the writer of the Statesman article and would love to email that information to him (I've already challenged him to do a more thorough report that explores all the OTHER possible ways Mexican cartels are obtaining guns.

[boomerang]

I still think we should offer to trade them one for one. They send an illegal gun back here and we'll find it a good home in the US. In exchange we send them an illegal alien and they find them a good home in Mexico.

[Oldgringo]

Why do we/you subscribe to and/or pay for such garbage? Quit reading/paying and they'll quit publishing their tripe.

[A-R]

I still think we should offer to trade them one for one. They send an illegal gun back here and we'll find it a good home in the US. In exchange we send them an illegal alien and they find them a good home in Mexico.

That's the best "gun control" and immigration reform plan I've ever heard

[A-R]

Why do we/you subscribe to and/or pay for such garbage? Quit reading/paying and they'll quit publishing their tripe.

I agree, but I'm a news junkie and I gotta get my fix somewhere. I'm getting more and more from the internet, but I'm an old newspaperman at heart. I need my daily fix of print stock and soy-based ink.

[Skiprr]

I still think we should offer to trade them one for one. They send an illegal gun back here and we'll find it a good home in the US. In exchange we send them an illegal alien and they find them a good home in Mexico.

Brilliant.

It will never fly. No way, no how.

But it's brilliant nonetheless.

[longtooth]

Absotively posilutely double BRILLIENT.

You are right though skiprr. Never fly.

[lrb111]

lrb111, do you have some facts or something to back that up? I'm in an email back-n-forth with the writer of the Statesman article and would love to email that information to him (I've already challenged him to do a more thorough report that explores all the OTHER possible ways Mexican cartels are obtaining guns.

Sadly, no I don't. I'm not in a position to dig this stuff out.
But think just a little here. They traced the serial #s here. No one will say where they came from or where they were supposed to have gone. I'm sure partially because they are tracking criminal action in some cases, but not all. It's long been known that police and military have been selling their issued weapons, defecting, etc.

I did see a piece last night that kind of scoped things to the present, but it's still not enough. There are to many things that should be easily answered, that cannot be from the information given. There a lot of links to follow.
http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Righ ... ow-on-guns" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mexico cartel weapons cache stymies tracing:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... 06-ON.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Righ ... artel-lies" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe there's some concrete in there, somewhere.

[lrb111]

Ok, I tried a little. I took these quotes directly from this article. It's just a little attempt at showing the truth.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... 06-ON.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The vault nestled in a Mexican military base is the government's largest stash of weapons - some 88,537 of them - seized from brutal drug gangs.

In all, the military has 305,424 confiscated weapons locked in vaults, just a fraction of those used by criminals in Mexico, where an offensive by drug cartels against the military has killed more than 10,750 people since December 2006. But each weapon is a clue to how the cartels are getting arms, and possibly to the traffickers that brought them here.

The Mexican government has handed over information to U.S. authorities to trace 12,073 weapons seized in 2008 crimes - particularly on guns from large seizures or notorious crimes.

About a third of the guns submitted for tracing in 2007 were sold by licensed U.S. dealers.

Ok, They hand picked 12,073 to trace. A third of those were provable as legal sales,, about 4000.

Onto the larger picture. About 4000 of over 300,000, have been tracked to legal sales by gun dealers.

The other 8,000 from face to face sale, either after a straw purchase or theft.

The math, 1.3% from traceable Legal sales. 2.3% from "other" origins in the US.

Hardly 90% US origination. But a great sounding lie from Mexican officials, BATFE, and the rest of the anti-gun crowd.

As an aside, At the end of the article the "source" Monsivais, makes the statements,

"There are weapons that have a lot of firepower and great penetration, like the .50-caliber Barrett ... which can penetrate armored vehicles, body armor, and that normally only militaries use," Monsivais said.

Thirty percent of AK-47 assault rifles seized have been modified to become fully automatic. He said about three of every 1,000 AR-15 assault rifles have been modified to take .50-caliber bullets, the kind of high-powered ammunition designed for sniper rifles.

"In my experience, I had never seen a modified AR-15 rifle," Monsivais said. "It's something new, and it is to a certain extent worrisome that they can have and use this type of weapon."

That there are .50 Bmg among the weapons, probably true.

30% of AKs being converted also probably true. They have even arrested persons for doing the conversions.

3 out of a 1000 AR-15s converted to .50, probably near accurate. BUT, the lie is a leading assumption that they are being converted to .50 cal sniper rifles. That is just an idiotic assumption.

They are OEM .50 Beowulf. and from the http://www.50beowulf.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; site, it is a close quarters battle weapon.

"The .50 Beowulf® was designed to generate devastating stopping power at short to moderate ranges."

The ballistics on the Beowulf show the rounds drop 4 and a half feet at 300 yards. Hardly a sniper rifle. More like a 12 gauge slug.
http://www.alexanderarms.com/beowulf_ballistics.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;