Newsweek Push Anti-gun Agenda with Phony Gun Trace Numbers

Yes to guns AR rifle black ar15 gun rights iStock-Yevhenii Dubinko-898227674.jpg
Yes to guns AR rifle black ar15 gun rights iStock-Yevhenii Dubinko-898227674.jpg

In an article published by Newsweek on August 7, 2024, Dan Gooding AND Billal Rahman make some incendiary claims. From the article:

Immigration into the United States is being partly driven by gun violence — which itself is fueled by firearms bought in the U.S. and illegally transported back to Mexico by organized crime networks.

Over 200,000 firearms found in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico between 2015 and 2022 were linked back to the U.S., recent data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) shows.

The 200,000 number seemed interesting. This correspondent went to the ATF website to look at the original data from the ATF on traces.  The ATF website provides links for traces of Central America and Mexico. The data is given by year for Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama. Only seven years of data is given for Nicaragua. For Mexico, the data is linked to five-year aggregates, but the total for each year is given. It is not hard to dig out how many firearms were shown to have come from the United States each year. The data is divided into various categories. A major division is U.S. Sourced Firearms and Undetermined Source Country for Firearms.

Using the ATF data, the U.S. Sourced Firearms were totaled for 2015 through 2022. The results are as follows:

  • Belize – 285
  • Costa Rica – 65
  • El Salvador – 6,954
  • Guatemala – 5,913
  • Honduras – 1,989
  • Panama 1,921 
  • Nicaragua –  (only 7 years listed) 17

The total traced back to the United States for El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras for the eight years 2015-2022 was 14,856. The total for Mexico for the eight years 2015-2022 was 105,943.  Combine them, and the total is 120,799 traced back to the United States. This is a far cry from “over 200,000”.

The links to data in the article go to an advocacy site, stopusarmstomexico.org. From the site, this chart of numbers is found:

 

The problem is easy to discern. These are trace data numbers, not source origin data. The total from the USA is only 120,799. Another 72,413 are from unknown countries/sources. There may be other numbers included in the total traces which could make up the roughly 7,000 difference.

Total traces is not total traced to the United States. In El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the number of unknown origin is considerably higher than those of United States origin.  For those three countries, the unknown is 60% of the total. For Mexico, the unknown is 32% of the total.

Traces are not actual firearms available. It is impossible to know how many guns are diverted before they are traced, for example. This correspondent has heard many stories indicating many guns which are confiscated are seldom included in the official records.

The numbers do not matter to the argument put forward. They are used as a means of drawing attention. To people not familiar with gun ownership statistics in the United States and around the world, 100,000 or 200,000 seems like a large number.

Put the number in perspective. There are over 500 million privately owned firearms in the United States. Over eight years, about 120,799 were traced back to the United States from four countries South of the Mexican border, or about 15 thousand firearms traced back to the United States a year. About .003 percent of the US stock may be traced to a U.S. origin from four countries south of the border, while the U.S. private stock is increasing by over 15 million a year.

The U.S. private stock is increasing a thousand times faster than firearms are being confiscated and traced to the U.S. from the four countries south of the border.

The argument put forward by stoparmstomexico.org and Newsweek is essentially this: 

  1. Guns are bad.
  2. More guns, more bad.
  3. More bad South of the border, more people flee to the U.S.
  4. Therefore, the Second Amendment forces people to come to the U.S. 

Readers can spot the logical flaw.

If more guns are causing people to flee their countries, why are they fleeing to a country with thousands of times more guns than in their country?

A counterargument is that guns are not bad. The uneven distribution of guns causes the problems.  If only small factions of the people in countries South of the border, such as government agents or criminal gangs (it is sometimes difficult to discern between the two, such as in Haiti), there is an imbalance of power between the people and the government.

People flee the oppression that comes from such imbalances of power. Many people south of the border envy the freedom to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment.


About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

Dean Weingarten

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Montana454Casull

Newsweek is as credible as Tim Walz who claims he carried a assault weapon in battle , when he actually never deployed .

hoss

The problem with them coming here is they’ve turned our nation into a dung hole like the place they came from!

3l120

We supplies a lot of military and police firearms to these governments and I would assume that many went missing from armories and stations. Wonder if they are included in the totals?

Enemy of Democracy

The Mexican Government “Reports” that 13,000 police and 20,000 military arms went missing, during a similar time frame. Wonder how many were not reported???

Mac

Newsweek has proved time and time again that they are liberal and they follow the liberal play book. LIE, STEAL and CHEAT to win!

Ledesma

It’s too bad Newsweek isn’t interested in the number of Russian AK’s that were mass produced during the cold war and shipped all over the world. And for nations and guerrilla groups most likely to shoot Americans, the AK’s were often provided free!

Last edited 2 months ago by Ledesma
Colt

FakeNews Week. More like it.
Their motto ” Never letting facts get in the way”

Novice.but.learning

You’d think that after ‘Fast and Furious’ during the Obama [and VP Biden] years when the ATF (and other Federal agencies) allowed over 2000 guns (AK’s, .50 cal machine guns, and etc.) to go gunwalking to Mexico and south… would be on top of their game when strawman purchases and stolen guns moved in mass from the streets of the US to Latin America.

gregs

newsweek, is that a real thing?
seems as legit as the numbers stated.

StLPro2A

Maybe OBlunder and Holdover are still in business running guns south of the border, running migrants back north?? Second Amendment guns and vets can positively, absolutely SHUT DOWN the flow of illegal migrants northbound. Vets have been kitting up on the wrong soil. As with charity, Freedom begins at home VETS UP!!!

BK

Are the weapons our good o’l “fjb” gave to to taliban being included in those numbers? I’m sure they are selling our best weapons to their allies south of our border…just curious…probably not included in the above data, but wouldnt surprise me if “fjb” had a mandatory buy back program from the taliban and is selling them to the countries south….