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Bill Menezes and Colorado Media Matters still can’t get facts straight on alleged U.S. – Mexico “Assault Weapons” smuggling

by Captain Arapahoe | 3:03 am, March 9, 2009 | 3 Comments

One-bit mega-hack Bill Menezes (yes, he gets paid one-eigth of a million dollars to be professionally outraged) and/or his legion of paid minions (Bill, I hope you’re at least paying them minimum wage with Tim Gill’s money, and not just exploiting unpaid interns – leave that to the poor underfunded Independence Institute) still can’t get the facts straight on the alleged “U.S.-Mexico Connection” supposedly smuggling a “flood” of “assault weapons” to Mexican drug cartels.

BM accused the Independence Institute’s Jon Caldara of supporting a “false claim that assault weapons Mexican drug cartels use are not coming from the United States.”  As evidence, he cites “widespread news reports” that “officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives” (BATFE) assert to the contrary that the U.S. IS the main source of these weapons.

Caldara demonstrated in his response that when it comes to “assault weapons” Menezes doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  I’ll go Jon one further: BM is deliberately attempting to mislead his audience (does that qualify as a “Big Lie?” – you be the judge).

Let’s start off with the “widespread news reports” that supposedly contradict Caldara’s assertion that the U.S. is NOT the source of the bulk of true “assault rifle” – that is, select-fire (semi- or fully automatic fire capable) weapons the drug cartels use to gain fire superiority.  Menezes (or at least his paid staff) was able to find (following a no-doubt exhaustive search) only three news reports spread out over three years (Washington Post Oct 2007, Los Angeles Times Aug 2008, and New York Times Feb 2009) to support his position.

Furthermore, those news reports are riddled with factual errors.  The Washington Post article refers to “AK-47 assault rifles …  which can fire at a rate of 600 rounds per minute.” As Caldara correctly pointed out, it is virtually inconceivable (and yes, I know what that word means) that such fully-automatic weapons would have come from U.S. civilian sources such as gun shop or gun show sales – self-serving proclamations from both Mexican and U.S. government officials to the contrary.

The LA Times at least demonstrated the journalistic integrity to correct some of the inaccuracies in its published article on the subject:

FOR THE RECORD:  Weapons Smuggling: An Article in Section A on August 10 about guns being smuggled into Mexico and used by narcotics traffickers said that “high-powered automatic weapons and ammunition are flowing virtually unchecked from border states into Mexico.”  The guns purchased in the U.S. are semiautomatic or conventional firearms.”

Good to know that journalist ethics are not ENTIRELY dead on the “left coast.”  Integrity – you should try it some time, Bill.

The last of the three news reports cited was actually a case study in how the system worked – detailing the results of an investigation into a single “bad apple” gun dealer who (allegedly) singlehandedly and knowingly “sold more than 700 weapons of the kind currently sought by drug dealers in Mexico” – of which “investigators estimate at least 600 were smuggled to Mexico”  and thus accounting for approximately 25% of the “2,400 weapons seized in Mexico” – not all of which were “assault weapons” – traced back to U.S. sources.  Hardly a “flood of guns now surging into Mexico” from the United States.

Menezes does include another citation – hoping that the reader will misconstrue it as news – but the article was a guest commentary by two advocates for passage of a particular treaty, and NOT (contrary to Menezes’ characterization) a news report.  Guess that’s just a “little lie“, right, Bill?

Finally, Menezes attempts to pull out the “big guns” (pardon the pun) by citing a Department of Justice report on “illegal exports of military and dual-use technology” in a comment on a Caldara blog post.  The report actually details efforts by an intergovernmental task force primarily focused on stopping the spread of precursors to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), ballistic missile, space, or other high-impact military technology, but does sweep up some of the “small fry.”  Here BM is so sloppy that he doesn’t even get the issuing agency right – it’s DOJ, not ATF, Bill.   Or are you going to blame that lapse on one of your staff lackeys?  Try paying ‘em more – maybe you can take a pay cut in solidarity with your class brothers.  Spread the wealth?

Anyway, despite an apparently damaging quotation (“a significant portion of the cases … involved illegal exports to Mexico … primarily involved illegal exports of firearms”) in the body of the press release, the supporting documentation provided by DOJ - in the form of a fact sheet listing 100 major cases – cites NOT ONE CASE of weapons smuggling – “assault” or otherwise –  to Mexico.  In fact, the ONLY case cited involving Mexico at all was the conviction of three individuals for smuggling a total of 80,000 rounds of ammunition – not a  terribly significant amount (heck, I’ve probably bought that much for personal use myself).  Those individuals were prosecuted more for customs infractions and tax evasion than due to  the threat of ammunition in such quantities.  On the other hand, the DOJ fact sheet DID cite three cases of illegal weapons smuggling into Canada – no doubt arming the fearsome Canadian drug cartels we’ve been hearing so much about.  Time to Blame Canada?

So in summation: Menezes demonstrates his ignorance on firearms (“assault weapons”), attempts to mislead his audience by building 3 reports into “widespread” evidence, miscasts commentary as a news report, and concludes by citing the wrong agency which provides no documentation or evidence to back his claims.  Yep, that’s a fine piece of investigative journalism, all right.  Boy, those Colorado Media Matters folks are worth every penny Tim Gill spends on ‘em…

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Comments

  1.   Colorado Jones
      March 9th, 2009 @ 9:26 am

    Cap’n, don’t be too hard on Billy Menezes. He’s a leftist who wants the government to control EVERYTHING. I wouldn’t be surprised if he feels only the government should have scary looking rifles. Billy’s probably one of those progressives who wets his pants anytime someone even talks about a semiauto rifle with pistol grip, collapsible stock, flash suppressor, and bayonet lug… So unless you’re prepared to send him a fresh pair of shorts every time you write a new post, maybe you should keep your conversations focused on firearms that don’t scare him. Firearms like this one:

    null

  2.   Captain Arapahoe
      March 9th, 2009 @ 10:36 am

    Yeah, I’ve seen the “Hello Kitty” AR-15 before.
    However, I prefer the “action shot”:

  3.   CapitalistBitch
      March 10th, 2009 @ 6:49 pm

    Day-umn!

    Talk about a clean kill. Way to go, Capt. Arapahoe.

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