If Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells reporters on a flight to Mexico City that 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States, it must be accurate, right?

If CBS newsman Bob Schieffer refers to the same percentage while interviewing President Obama, it has to be correct, right?

And if Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., says 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," then 90 percent of the guns must come from America, right?

On top of all that, if William Hoover from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, tells the House of Representatives "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," that ought to settle the issue, right?

Well, think again. On April 2, William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott of FOX News stated, “It's just not true.” They said that only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the United States. They added that an ATF spokeswoman confirmed this by saying that over 90 percent of the guns that Mexico traces originated in the United States. Many aren’t sent to the United States for tracing because their markings show they didn’t come from the U.S. market.

Let’s look at the numbers. La Jeunesse and Lott stated that, in 2007 and 2008, the Mexican government reported recovering 29,000 guns at crime scenes. ATF Special Agent William Newell said that Mexico submitted only 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Almost 6,000 were traced successfully, and 5,114 were determined to come from the United States.

To put the numbers into perspective, of the 29,000 guns found at crime scenes, 5,114, or 17.6 percent were actually traced to the United States. That’s a far cry from the 90 percent figure that has been tossed around.

Where did all the other weapons originate? La Jeunesse and Lott documented an international armory, beginning with “fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.” Other sources on their list:

• Russian criminal groups such as Poldolskaya and Solntsevskaya
• The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in league with the Tijuana cartel 
• Asia
• Deserters from the Mexican Army
• Guatemala 

Why this insistence on 90 percent versus 17.6 percent? Chris Cox of the National Rifle Association blames the media and anti-gun politicians, saying “The numbers are intentionally used to weaken the Second Amendment.” In line with La Jeunesse and Lott, he mentioned weapons found in Mexico that did not come from the United States, such as Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns, and weapons from Mexican army deserters.

Although a look at the numbers discloses that they can be used to mislead Americans, the hard figure of 5,114 weapons traced to the United States in a two-year period remains a serious factor. But if the United States and Mexico are going to partner in this war that’s spilling over our borders, let’s keep American left-wing gun-control spin out of it. After all, law-abiding Americans living in the border states need their own guns now, more than ever before.

Courtesy: Military Matters in Review by Fred Edwards. Visit http://www.milmat.net for more Crosshairs.