UNITED NATIONS, June 14 -- Mexico's claim that 90% of guns enter its country from the United States was questioned at the UN on Monday. Inner City Press asked the managing director of the Small Arms Survey, Eric Berman, about what percentage of guns in Mexico come from the United States. Video here, from Minute 23:12.
Berman answered that contrary to Mexico's 80% to 90% figures, "there's a little problem in how the numbers are determined." He said the Mexican government has seized thousands of weapons, they selected a subset to send to the US... Another subset, those able to be determined by serial numbers, leads to a percentage 'from the US.' But the headline "skews the information."
Berman said they have "shared the information with the government of Mexico."
So Inner City Press asked Mexican spokespeople in Washington and at the UN. The request to DC based spokesman and former UN correspondent for Notimex Ricardo Alday was answered by the Mexican Mission's hard working Marco Morales, in the midst of an "informal consultation" with North and South Korea. Morales wrote:
Our estimates have been corroborated on various occasions by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, even at hearings at the US Congress.
The fact remains that more than 90% of small arms enter Mexico through our Northern border, regardless of whether they are US-made or manufactured elsewhere.
So there seems to be a stark dispute, between this Small Arms Survey and the numbers used by Mexico's government and Mission to the UN. How to resolve the discrepancy?
Writing in The New Yorker of May 31, William Finnegan ("Silver or Lead," Plata o Plomo) tried this nuance: "More than eighty percent of the weapons that have been seized in Mexico and that could be traced originated in the US."
But Berman of the Small Arms Survey said that was at least one more screen -- it was a percentage of (1) weapons seized in Mexico that (2) Mexico sent to the US for identification and that (3) could be traced. And Berman specifically disputed the 80% figure.
The Small Arms Survey was presented to UN member states on June 14. Apparently, Mexico wasn't there. Now what? Can each side simply use their own numbers? Whatever happened to that old saw of debating, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts? Watch this site.
