Sandiego ED- "Way of the Gun"- 253,000 Firearms Are smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico

Sandiego ED- "Way of the Gun"- 253,000 Firearms Are smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico
http://catcher.sandiego.edu/items/peacestudies/way_of_the_gun.pdf

This source makes some relatively hefty claims, ranging from nearly 47% of U.S. gun stores being economically dependent on cartel trade and a higher than importation previously estimated trafficking rate of U.S. firearms to Mexico. It suggests that the data is not only accurate, but empirical, and would use this information to influence policy, including the banning of purchasing firearms in particular manners, endorsing the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, as well as increased regulation in general. Further implications suggest that the legal U.S. gun market is the predominant driver for violent crime in Mexico and potentially the rest of the world.

Cited by x, and the president of the United State's, the significance of the source and it's precedence to potentially establish policy is an important factor to consider. Thus, when determining the credibility of this source, we are not only determining it's merits and credibility in it's own right, but future legislation.

The source comes from a study done by 4 Sandiego University professors; Topher McDougal, David A. Shirk, Robert Muggah, and John H. Patterson. The claim is that 1 million firearms have been smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico over the last 10 years, or approximately 253,000 a year (although simple mathematics reveals this assessment ot be closer to 100,000 a year). The United Nation's estimates about 20,000 firearms are smuggled from the U.S. into Mexico annually. While at first glance such a source may seem better than that of 4 professors, it is also additionally important to note that information in the source is not based on legitimate trafficking data, but rather estimates produced from a "unique GIS graphic information system". The initial problem with such a source is that it is not endorsed nor created by any major government agency or trafficking organization, nor by any major reputable crime monitoring organization. While it would be easy to dismiss their findings on this basis alone, it is prudent to intricately assess the arguments and mathematics given by the organization to truly determine it's value, or address it's potential merits. Does it provide some seemingly valid or logical basis for their reasoning?

It's important to note that, even according to the source, and the United Nations, Mexico has about 15.5 million illegal and unregistered firearms in circulation, with an additional 2.5 million registered firearms, or an approximate total of 18 million firearms. If the U.S. truly contributed 1 million firearms to Mexico's total firearm trade over the last 10 years, the U.S. contributions would constitute approximately 5.5% of all the firearms in Mexico. While tragic that the U.S. should help contribute to any potential crime problem, this more or less suggests that legal U.S. channels are over-all relatively small portions of the total firearm population used by the total populace of Mexico, responsible for around 1/20th of the total firearms, instead of a majority or anything figure resembling the bulk of firearms. More realistic estimates provided by the United Nation's place this at less than .5% of total illicit firearms in Mexico.


The Central Arguments
Their study finds that:

• "A significant proportion of U.S. firearm dealers are dependent on Mexican demand: 46.7% (95% c.I.: 39.4 - 52.7%) of  u.s. FFLs during 2010-2012 depended for their economic existence on some amount of demand from the u.s.-Mexico  firearms trade to stay in business. this percentage has steadily risen from 37.4% (95% c.I.: 28.2 - 45.0%) in 1993;

• A sizeable and growing percentage of US firearms sales are destined for Mexico: 2.2% (between 0.9% and 3.7%)  of u.s. domestic arms sales are attributable to the u.s.-Mexico traffic. this percentage is up from roughly 1.75%  (between 0.66% and 3.15%) in 1993;

• The volume of firearms crossing the U.S.-Mexican border is higher than previously assumed: 253,000 firearms (between 106,700 and 426,729) were purchased annually to be trafficked over 2010-2012. this number is starkly higher than the 88,000 firearms (between 35,597 and 152,142) trafficked in 1997-1999, during the federal assault Weapons Ban (aWB);

• The value of firearms sales destined for Mexico are significant and growing appreciably: the trade represented annual revenues of $127.2 million (range: $53.7 - $214.6 million) for the u.s. firearms industry during 2010-2012 - nearly four times higher than during 1997-1999, when the trade ran to just $32.0 million (range: $13.0 - $55.4 million);

• The U.S. and Mexican authorities are seizing a comparatively small number of firearms at the border: Based on seizure reports for 2009, u.s. and Mexico authorities in recent years have been seizing just 14.7% (between 8.7% and 35.0%) of total arms bought with the intention of trafficking them. specifically, Mexican authorities have seized roughly 12.7% of the total annual trade whilst the united states has intercepted around 2.0%.

Conclusions

Given these empirical findings, we conclude that ongoing government efforts to regulate firearms trade and trafficking across the U.S. Mexico Border are largely ineffective. Not withstanding improvements in the efficacy of Mexican authorities in seizing illicit firearms between 2008-2009, they are still meager in relation to the overall volume of weapons likely crossing the border. The scale of the trade demonstrates that the United States is an important contributor to the global supply of firearms in illicit markets. It also draws attention to the particular function of domestic firearms regulation and the concomitant responsibilities of U.S. authorities. Taken together, smarter policies are required to combat firearms trafficking, including; (1) the public discourse of disaggregated gun sales; (2) background checks geared toward identifying straw purchasers;  (3) the prohibition of cash transactions in firearms sales in border states; and (4) the creation of a Mexican database of seized firearms.

Assessing the Validity of the Proclamations 
According to the source, which has produced an estimate, not based on real trafficking information, it suggests that since there is a high demand for firearms in the U.S., and the prices are relatively low, it must imply heavy illegal purchases; in fact, it suggest that the only way a large chunk of American gun stores stay in business, approximately 47% (nearly half) is by demand from Mexican Cartels. The assertion is that these successful and profitable businesses are only capable of not only such profits, but even staying in business at all, by illicit firearms sale. This estimate of course does not directly address the total trafficking level; it simply suggests that due to successful business ventures in this particular areas, the only reasonable implication is the resulting high profits must have been from crime, despite no true empirical evidence that the increase in demand was legitimately substantiated by cartel activity. Potential explanations could be the result of random fluctuations (a figure representing 100,000 sales out of 8-16 million firearms sales annually, or at or around 1% of firearm purchases), culture, or the misestimated lack of local demand for firearms. Furthermore, it states that nearly 47% of FFL dealers would go out of business without cartels to purchase weapons; it is worth noting immediately that the ATF claims approximately 50% of traceable firearms recovered from the use in criminal activity can be linked to just .4% of dealers, likely suggesting that most dealers are not responsible for the vast majority of illegal firearms being purchased by criminal elements, let alone specifically the cartels. The concept that nearly half of the firearms dealers would go out of business for approximately 1% or less of the trade by .4% of dealers is likely over estimating the impact of the figures or essentially the numbers, assuming the initial figure of 100,000 firearms a year being smuggled by the U.S. into Mexico is even accurate.

Simply to address the logic of the premise, rather than the numbers, initially, it's easy to reveal that the fundamental principle of which the entire premise is based on is obviously flawed. It essentially assumes all successful businesses must be committing crimes, claiming that the razor thin prices and high demand could only be created by the presence of Cartels (which ironically, by their accounts, still makes up less than 1% of the firearms trade), a logical fallacy involving the implications of causation and correlation. It further goes on to state that only large amounts of illegal guns sales could substantiate the low prices of the firearms, which it never actually proves in relation to other country's or in the base cost of the gun to FFL dealers, in comparison. Intuitively, common sense would otherwise suggest that selling firearms to criminals would constitute a considerable risk; indeed, actions which are actively monitored by the U.S. government and the ATF, for the sale of highly regulated and traceable items possessing mandatory legal obligations just for purchase, including background checks, and severe penalties for even simple violations, one might have expected the logic of said said dealers to in actuality raise the price of their firearms when encountering such a risk, instead of lower them. The dealers selling them at lower prices would allow for the apparent ease of criminal activity on the side of the cartel member for no real benefit to the FFL dealer. The added risk of crime, and the traceable nature of the firearms leading back to the dealer would likely indicate that most of these businesses engaging in such illegal activities would request further compensation for the added difficulties in releasing the firearms in the risky, illegal manners. Regardless of the accuracy of their potential logic in it's own right, the numbers seem to diffuse the notion of the immediate premise, in any case.

Another one of of the primary arguments within the article is the suggestion that border states have a high rate of FFL dealerships because of the cartel presence. "The accessibility of firearms in the border region is facilitated by the existence of an estimated 6,700 FFLs in the  border region, which represent more than 12.5% of all registered gun dealers in the country". There are two major flaws in these assessment; the first chiefly being that the numbers are simply wrong about the increased presence of FFL dealers per capita in border state's, and the second being that this must be proof of an increased cartel presence. There are actually less FFL dealers per capita in the four border state's with Mexico than there are in the rest of the U.S. There are, according to their own sources and the ATF, 6,647 FFL (that is, legal firearms dealers) in the Mexican border region, involving four states, California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, and about 53,000 retail dealers across the entire United States. This equates to, roughly, 12.5% of all the dealers in the U.S., according to their source (or 6,647 out of 53,000). There are 38 million people in California, 26 million in Texas, 6.5 million in Arizona, and 2.1 million in New Mexico; this represents approximately 72.6 million people. The total U.S. population is 313.9 million. By this figure, the border state population comprises approximately 23.1% of the total population. Uut of 23.1% of the population, 12.5% of the FFL dealers, the information used by their own numbers, are actually present in the border state's, about 2 times less than the average population. To argue this implies an abundance of FFL dealers is seemingly ludicrous, or simply the result of a gross mathematical error. There are about half as many dealers in border states than in the rest of the U.S., and even with this being true a higher concentration of FFL dealers would not necessitate the presence of cartels (a generally accepted logical fallacy involving the implications of causation and correlation).

The second issue is obviously that "Our study has taken a first step toward assessing the magnitude of firearms trafficking from the united states to Mexico. We have suggested that the traffic represents a major source of revenue for U.S. domestic firearms retailers, without which, roughly 47% of FFLs would cease to exist."- The argument by these four professors is that 47% of dealers would cease to exist without the still unproven presence of the cartels. As stated above, the initial problem with this figure is that, even according to their own source, only approximately 12.5% of retail FFL's exist in border state's, where, regardless of the presence in terms of percentage of the population, could not possibly represent 47% of retail stores. Claiming border state's  By it's own sources, there are are some 8-16 million firearms sales annually in the U.S. since 2002-2012; constituting  If we are to compare the 100,000 a year firearms figure by their estimate, this implies that, on average, these firearms make up only approximately an 1/80th to 1/160th total firearms sales. This means that, a very, very marginal source, according to their own statistics, is being sold each each year, maximum, to cartels; a figure at or less than 1% of total firearms sales. It's difficult to see how they arrived at the conclusion that 1 million firearms being sold over the last 10 years would put 47% of domestic dealers out of business, when at least 80-160 million firearms have been sold in that timeframe. It's, even by their own likely inflated numbers, a marginal source of profits, and even if these are going to the cartels, stopping the flow would not even put 1% of FFL dealers out of business, if any due to a 1% drop in profits likely being survivable. Put another way, they claim that illicit sales made up approximately "127.2  million" dollars worth of trade in the U.S.; even if this is true (which it likely is an overestimate), there are approximately 14-32 billion dollars worth of firearms sold in the U.S. every year. [1] This constituents an even lower figure of 1/250 to 1/125 dollars' worth of firearms being sold to Cartels. It is difficult to see how they could believe this would put any FFL dealer out of business, let alone 47%.



The Insistence that the U.S.'s presence of Firearms is largely responsible for Mexico's crime problems
While any contribution the U.S. has to Mexico's crime problem is tragic, the small levels do show that the U.S. is largely successful at their job at preventing their firearms from falling into the hands of foreign criminals. The article repeatedly suggests that Mexico's strict gun laws and low presence of legal firearms must necessitate the importation of firearms from a foreign country, and implicates that the U.S. is responsible for the high crime rate.

For this to be true, one would question why the U.S. does not have as high a crime rate as Mexico. Indeed, x to x. If the presence of legal firearms are the problem, and the U.S. has an abundance of firearms while Mexico does not, why does the U.S. not then have more crime? While the article repeatedly suggests that increased regulation would necessarily result in lower crime, and suggests Mexico is benefiting from this, one would then begin to question why Mexico's crime rate was so high in comparison? While it would be difficult to determine if the U.S.'s gun presence or Mexico's low gun presence was predominately responsible for the crime rates, it is likely that far more prevalent factors, including relative wealth levels, law enforcement effectiveness, general development, culture, and the presence of organized crime is a more more important indicator to crime rates than firearm ownership ever could be. It is still however, ironic, that the article seeks to blame the neighbor for high crime rates as a result of opposing policies, when said country in fact has a lower crime rate all together (thus suggesting that U.S. domestic production contributes heavily to crime, but ironically, not domestically).



The 87% Myth- Debunked the Government Accountability Office
Finally, it quotes other sources which have been repeatedly proven wrong. These figures are not just illogical, but flat out wrong. While it claims the quote the GAO, or Government Accountability Office, the GAO has disagreed with this assessment on numerous occasions, which has additionally been cited by many figures, including X and Obama.

"ATF efforts to trace firearms provided  in Mexico have consistently found that an overwhelming proportion of firearms - as high as 90% - came to Mexico from the united states (serrano, 2008).12 For example, a 2007 ATF trace of firearms confiscated in Mexico found that  1,805 (73.5%) of 2,455 firearms came from three of the four u.s. border states: arizona, california, and texas (Marks, 2006). Likewise, a government accountability Office (gaO) report found that of 4,000 weapons traced by ATF (from an  original sample of 7,200 serial numbers sent from Mexico), some 3,480 (87%) could be traced to us dealers (Mcgreal,  2011). the accessibility of firearms in the border region is facilitated by the existence of an estimated 6,700 FFLs in the  border region, which represent more than 12.5% of all registered gun dealers in the country."

What it fails to mention is that this a proportion of, traceable, firearms, and not total firearms; it is therefore misleading to suggest that an overwhelming portion of "firearms", in essence, all firearms recovered, are coming from the U.S. The rest were, untraceable, and could not be traced, legally, to any country, let alone the U.S. Since the vast majority of firearms in the world are unregistered, such as in Mexico, where 15.5 million firearms are estimated to be unregistered while only 2.5 million are, it is not unreasonable to assume that the vast majority of firearms would not be legal U.S. matches simply due to their lack of adoption of U.S. tracing standards (although new Mexican firearms have adopted these standards). Although it has been suggested that "87% of guns recovered in Mexico are of U.S. origin"[[url=http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-709]1[/url]][[url=http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-02-11/opinions/35444284_1_gun-problem-traceable-guns-firearms]2[/url]], according to the GAO and the Department of Homeland security, this figure can be misleading. Apparently, some people have been misinterpreting it, perhaps deliberately. According to the GAO report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States. Therefore the 3,480 figure only represents a total of 11.5% of the total 30,000 guns recovered, indicating that the other 90% or so weren't even traceable, meaning that could not have been of legal U.S. origins, as they don't comply to the serial tracking laws, which include chemically retrievable serial coding that is nearly impossible to remove without destroying the firearm. Even serial number obliteration has methods of recovery, allowing for tracing to occur on firearms without completely destroyed serial numbers (complete destruction of the serial number would require removing or destroying essential parts of the firearms necessary for the weapon to operate). [[url=www.gao.gov/new.items/d09709.pdf]1[/url]][[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War#Gun_origins]2[/url]][[url=http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110209-mexicos-gun-supply-and-90-percent-myth]3[/url]]

Further more, In 2009, Mexico reported that they held 305,424 confiscated firearms [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_firearms_into_Mexico][1][/url][[url=http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDMQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wilsoncenter.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FChapter%25206-%2520U.S.%2520Firearms%2520Trafficking%2520to%2520Mexico%2C%2520New%2520Data%2520and%2520Insights%2520Illuminate%2520Key%2520Trends%2520and%2520Challenges.pdf&ei=3skMUrXsBITY2gXw4YCIDA&usg=AFQjCNG8ekuMuSOkIdQHJ22f-zeVWvURCw&sig2=iXWTGeEIK31V-bWFw8Xi-Q&bvm=bv.50723672,d.b2I]2[/url]], but submitted data of only 69,808 recovered firearms to the ATF for tracing between 2007 and 2009. This is roughly a 23% sample of total gun population. The ATF requests "to only submit weapons for tracing that have a likelihood of tracing back to the U.S .... instead of simply wasting resources on tracing firearms that will not trigger a U.S. source." As a result, it's likely that the vast majority of the 305,424 firearms were not of American origin, reducing the figure even more. Operating off this principle, then only roughly 1.1% of total firearms recovered in Mexico were traceable to the U.S. [[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_firearms_into_Mexico]4[/url]]

Put another way, while the 87% figure is almost true, it is 87% of 55% of 24% of 10% of all weapons, or roughly 1.1% of all weapons recovered in Mexico, and not 87% of all crime weapons recovered in Mexico. The concept that the GAO report constitutes "87% of all firearms" is clearly misleading. There are substantially more than 3,480 firearms recovered in Mexico or in existence in Mexico. This is clearly far less than "90%", or 87% of said firearms. This is simply a lack of understanding true numbers and assertions by reputable organizations. The vast majority of these firearms were not traceable at all, since they were unregistered, and never produced by a legal manufacturer since tracing laws have been enacted; in many country's, they still don't have any or very stringent tracing laws. These firearms are generally preferred, because they are in abundance in conflicts in the world, such as in use by terrorists and other other paramilitary groups, African warlords, and numerous criminal cartels. Many of them are believed to come from China, North Korea, and various pre-soviet bloc country's.



















Preliminary Findings
Our study finds that:
• A significant proportion of U.S. firearm dealers are dependent on Mexican demand: 46.7% (95% c.I.: 39.4 - 52.7%) of  u.s. FFLs during 2010-2012 depended for their economic existence on some amount of demand from the u.s.-Mexico  firearms trade to stay in business. this percentage has steadily risen from 37.4% (95% c.I.: 28.2 - 45.0%) in 1993;

• A sizeable and growing percentage of US firearms sales are destined for Mexico: 2.2% (between 0.9% and 3.7%)  of u.s. domestic arms sales are attributable to the u.s.-Mexico traffic. this percentage is up from roughly 1.75%  (between 0.66% and 3.15%) in 1993;

• The volume of firearms crossing the U.S.-Mexican border is higher than previously assumed: 253,000 firearms
(between 106,700 and 426,729) were purchased annually to be trafficked over 2010-2012. this number is starkly
higher than the 88,000 firearms (between 35,597 and 152,142) trafficked in 1997-1999, during the federal assault
Weapons Ban (aWB);
• The value of firearms sales destined for Mexico are significant and growing appreciably: the trade represented annual
revenues of $127.2 million (range: $53.7 - $214.6 million) for the u.s. firearms industry during 2010-2012 - nearly
four times higher than during 1997-1999, when the trade ran to just $32.0 million (range: $13.0 - $55.4 million);
• The U.S. and Mexican authorities are seizing a comparatively small number of firearms at the border: Based on
seizure reports for 2009, u.s. and Mexico authorities in recent years have been seizing just 14.7% (between 8.7%
and 35.0%) of total arms bought with the intention of trafficking them. specifically, Mexican authorities have seized
roughly 12.7% of the total annual trade whilst the united states has intercepted around 2.0%.













given these empirical findings, we conclude that ongoing government efforts to regulate firearms trade and trafficking
across the u.s.-Mexico border are largely ineffective.














  by utilized by multiple organizations on different accounts, most notably various news and media sights, with the intent to perpetuate the idea that the U.S. is predominately responsible for the Cartel's armaments and by proxy the violent crime in Mexico, providing a sizable, if not the predominant portion of the firearms used to illicit crime. Not only does the source claim that the U.S. contributes to the problem, but that civilian legal gun ownership in the U.S. is the predominant cause of violent crime all together.

The problems contained with the source are numerous, but to begin, let's directly assess and challenge it's assertions. The source comes from a study done by 4 Sandiego University professors; Topher McDougal, David A. Shirk, Robert Muggah, and John H. Patterson. They claim that 1 million firearms have been smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico over the last 10 years, or 253,000 a year (although simple mathematics reveals this assessment ot be closer to 100,000 a year, even on their own assessment). The United Nation's estimates about 20,000 firearms are smuggled from the U.S. into Mexico annually, and it has substantially better sources than the University of San Diego's professors, which actually have no sources on tracking the trafficking, as it's an estimate, based on various assertions. The obvious primarily, initial issue with this source is that that it's not endorsed by any major government agency or trafficking organization. While this helps to diminish the credibility, it is prudent to actually assess the arguments and mathematics given by the organization. Does it have some valid basis for their reasoning?

It's important to note that, even according to the source, and the United Nations, Mexico has about 15.5 million illegal and unregistered firearms in circulation, with an additional 2.5 million registered firearms. This equates to approximately 18 million firearms. Even if the U.S. contributed 1 million firearms to Mexico's illicit firearms pool over the last 10 years, which is the estimate according  this source, that would constitute 5.5% of all the firearms in Mexico, more or less suggesting that the legal U.S. channels are over-all relatively small portions of the total firearm population used by criminals.

According to the source, which has produced an estimate, not based on real trafficking information, it suggests that since there is a high demand for firearms in the U.S., and the prices are relatively low, it must imply illegal ownership; that the only way these stores stay in business is demand from cartels. The assertion is that these successful and profitable businesses are only capable of such feats by illicit firearms sale. While one would not necessarily think that successful business transactions necessarily imply crime, the source appears to do so. Furthermore, it states that nearly 47% of FFL dealers would go out of business without cartels to purchase weapons; it is worth nothing that the ATF claims 50% of traceable firearms recovered from the use in criminal activity can be linked to just .4% of dealers, likely suggesting that most dealers are not responsible for the vast majority of illegal firearms being purchased by criminal elements, let alone specifically the cartels. Simply to address the logic of the premise, rather than the numbers, initially, it's possible to reveal that the notion is obviously flawed in that it assumes all successful businesses must be committing crimes. It further goes on to state that only the high crime could substantiate such low prices, which it never proves in relation to other country's or in the base cost of the gun to FFL dealers. Intuitively, common sense would tell me that selling firearms to criminals would be a considerable risk; indeed, when taking such a risk, which is actively monitored by the U.S. government, for traceable firearm purchases possessing mandatory legal obligations including background checks, one would expect that such a dealer would raise the price of the criminal. The added risk of crime, and the traceable nature of the firearms leading back to the dealer would likely indicate that most of these businesses engaging in such illegal activities would request further compensation for the added difficulties in releasing the firearms. However, despite this, the numbers seem to diffuse the notion of it's immediate premise.

One of the primary arguments within the article is the suggestion that border states have a high rate of FFL dealerships because of the cartel presence. There are two major flaws in these assessment; the first chiefly being that the numbers are wrong about the increased presence of FFL dealers, and the second being that this must be proof of an increased cartel presence. There are less FFL dealers per capita in the four border state's with Mexico than there are in the rest of the U.S. There are, according to their own sources, 6,647 FFL (that is, legal firearms dealers) in the border region with California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, and about 53,000 retail dealers across the entire United States. This equates to, roughly, 12.5% of all dealers, according to their source (or 6,647 out of 53,000). There are 38 million people in California, 26 million in Texas, 6.5 million in Arizona, and 2.1 million in New Mexico. This represents approximately 72.6 million people, out of 313.9 million people in the U.S., or 23.1% of the total population. So out of 23.1% of the population, 12.5% of the FFL dealers are actually present in the border state's, about 2 times less than the average population. To argue this implies an abundance of FFL dealers is seemingly ludicrous. There are about half as many dealers in border states than in the rest of the U.S., and even a higher concentration of FFL dealers would not necessitate the presence of cartels (and issue involving causation and correlation).

The second issue is obviously that "Our study has taken a first step toward assessing the magnitude of firearms trafficking from the united states to Mexico. We have suggested that the traffic represents a major source of revenue for u.s. domestic firearms retailers, without which, roughly 47% of FFLs would cease to exist."- The obvious problem with this figure is that, even according to their own source, only approximately 12.5% of retail FFL's exist in border state's, where, regardless of the presence in terms of percentage of the population, could not possibly represent 47% of retail stores. By it's own sources, there are are some 8-16 million firearms sales annually in the U.S. since 2002-2012. If we are to look at 2002 figures, this implies that, on average, 100,000 a year, makes up, maybe, 1/80th to 1/160th of total firearms sales. This means that, a very, very marginal source, according to their own statistics, is being sold each each year, maximum, to cartels; a figure at out around 1%. It's difficult to see how they arrived at the conclusion that 1 million firearms being sold over the last 10 years would put 47% of domestic dealers out of business, when at least 80-160 million firearms have been sold in that timeframe. It's a marginal source of profits, and even if these are going to the cartels, stopping the flow would not even put 1% of FFL dealers out of business, if any due to a 1% drop in profits likely be survivable.



The 87% Myth- Debunked the Government Accountability Office
Finally, it quotes other sources which have been proven wrong. These figures are not just illogical, but flat out wrong. While it claims the quote the GAO, or Government Accountability Office, the GAO has disagreed with this assessment on numerous occasions, which has additionally been cited by many figures, including X and Obama.

"ATF efforts to trace firearms provided  in Mexico have consistently found that an overwhelming proportion of firearms - as high as 90% - came to Mexico from the united states (serrano, 2008).12 For example, a 2007 ATF trace of firearms confiscated in Mexico found that  1,805 (73.5%) of 2,455 firearms came from three of the four u.s. border states: arizona, california, and texas (Marks, 2006). Likewise, a government accountability Office (gaO) report found that of 4,000 weapons traced by ATF (from an  original sample of 7,200 serial numbers sent from Mexico), some 3,480 (87%) could be traced to us dealers (Mcgreal,  2011). the accessibility of firearms in the border region is facilitated by the existence of an estimated 6,700 FFLs in the  border region, which represent more than 12.5% of all registered gun dealers in the country."

What it fails to mention is that this a proportion of, traceable, firearms. The rest were, untraceable, and could not be traced, legally, to any country, let alone the U.S. Since the vast majority of firearms in the world are unregistered, such as in Mexico, where 15.5 million firearms are estimated to be unregistered while only 2.5 million are, it is not unreasonable to assume that the vast majority of firearms will not be legal U.S. matches simply due to their lack of adoption of tracing standards. Although it has been suggested that "87% of guns recovered in Mexico are of U.S. origin"[[url=http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-709]1[/url]][[url=http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-02-11/opinions/35444284_1_gun-problem-traceable-guns-firearms]2[/url]], according to the GAO and the Department of Homeland security, this figure can be misleading. Apparently, some people have been misinterpreting it, perhaps deliberately. According to the GAO report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States. Therefore the 3,480 figure only represents a total of 11.5% of the total 30,000 guns recovered, indicating that the other 90% or so weren't even traceable, meaning that could not have been of legal U.S. origins, as they don't comply to the serial tracking laws, which include chemically retrievable serial coding that is nearly impossible to remove without destroying the firearm. Even serial number obliteration has methods of recovery, allowing for tracing to occur on firearms without completely destroyed serial numbers (complete destruction of the serial number would require removing or destroying essential parts of the firearms necessary for the weapon to operate). [[url=www.gao.gov/new.items/d09709.pdf]1[/url]][[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War#Gun_origins]2[/url]][[url=http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110209-mexicos-gun-supply-and-90-percent-myth]3[/url]]

Further more, In 2009, Mexico reported that they held 305,424 confiscated firearms [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_firearms_into_Mexico][1][/url][[url=http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDMQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wilsoncenter.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FChapter%25206-%2520U.S.%2520Firearms%2520Trafficking%2520to%2520Mexico%2C%2520New%2520Data%2520and%2520Insights%2520Illuminate%2520Key%2520Trends%2520and%2520Challenges.pdf&ei=3skMUrXsBITY2gXw4YCIDA&usg=AFQjCNG8ekuMuSOkIdQHJ22f-zeVWvURCw&sig2=iXWTGeEIK31V-bWFw8Xi-Q&bvm=bv.50723672,d.b2I]2[/url]], but submitted data of only 69,808 recovered firearms to the ATF for tracing between 2007 and 2009. This is roughly a 23% sample of total gun population. The ATF requests "to only submit weapons for tracing that have a likelihood of tracing back to the U.S .... instead of simply wasting resources on tracing firearms that will not trigger a U.S. source." As a result, it's likely that the vast majority of the 305,424 firearms were not of American origin, reducing the figure even more. Operating off this principle, then only roughly 1.1% of total firearms recovered in Mexico were traceable to the U.S. [[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_firearms_into_Mexico]4[/url]]

Put another way, while the 87% figure is almost true, it is 87% of 55% of 24% of 10% of all weapons, or roughly 1.1% of all weapons recovered in Mexico, and not 87% of all crime weapons recovered in Mexico. The concept that the GAO report constitutes "87% of all firearms" is clearly misleading. There are substantially more than 3,480 firearms recovered in Mexico or in existence in Mexico. This is clearly far less than "90%", or 87% of said firearms. This is simply a lack of understanding true numbers and assertions by reputable organizations. The vast majority of these firearms were not traceable at all, since they were unregistered, and never produced by a legal manufacturer since tracing laws have been enacted; in many country's, they still don't have any or very stringent tracing laws. These firearms are generally preferred, because they are in abundance in conflicts in the world, such as in use by terrorists and other other paramilitary groups, African warlords, and numerous criminal cartels. Many of them are believed to come from China, North Korea, and various pre-soviet bloc country's.



















Preliminary Findings
Our study finds that:
• A significant proportion of U.S. firearm dealers are dependent on Mexican demand: 46.7% (95% c.I.: 39.4 - 52.7%) of  u.s. FFLs during 2010-2012 depended for their economic existence on some amount of demand from the u.s.-Mexico  firearms trade to stay in business. this percentage has steadily risen from 37.4% (95% c.I.: 28.2 - 45.0%) in 1993;

• A sizeable and growing percentage of US firearms sales are destined for Mexico: 2.2% (between 0.9% and 3.7%)  of u.s. domestic arms sales are attributable to the u.s.-Mexico traffic. this percentage is up from roughly 1.75%  (between 0.66% and 3.15%) in 1993;

• The volume of firearms crossing the U.S.-Mexican border is higher than previously assumed: 253,000 firearms
(between 106,700 and 426,729) were purchased annually to be trafficked over 2010-2012. this number is starkly
higher than the 88,000 firearms (between 35,597 and 152,142) trafficked in 1997-1999, during the federal assault
Weapons Ban (aWB);
• The value of firearms sales destined for Mexico are significant and growing appreciably: the trade represented annual
revenues of $127.2 million (range: $53.7 - $214.6 million) for the u.s. firearms industry during 2010-2012 - nearly
four times higher than during 1997-1999, when the trade ran to just $32.0 million (range: $13.0 - $55.4 million);
• The U.S. and Mexican authorities are seizing a comparatively small number of firearms at the border: Based on
seizure reports for 2009, u.s. and Mexico authorities in recent years have been seizing just 14.7% (between 8.7%
and 35.0%) of total arms bought with the intention of trafficking them. specifically, Mexican authorities have seized
roughly 12.7% of the total annual trade whilst the united states has intercepted around 2.0%.













given these empirical findings, we conclude that ongoing government efforts to regulate firearms trade and trafficking
across the u.s.-Mexico border are largely ineffective.