Gun Control Advocates Misfire With Statistics

Innumeracy is to math as illiteracy is to reading. John Lott points to a story co-written by his son, Maxim Lott and William La Jeunesse about the innumeracy of politicians and the media alike in getting the story about US firearms in Mexico all wrong!

You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

Seems like they all got the same talking point! And they all got it wrong!

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

Did you catch that? "...over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S". Why is it too much to ask our elected officials and members of the media to understand what percentage of the firearms total were traced before asking what percentage of those came from the US?

As Mark Twain once famously said, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics."

Lott and La Jeunesse break down the numbers:

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

So, instead of 90% of guns traced to the US, it's 83% NOT traceable to the US.

Close enough for government work!

Cross Posted at Say Anything