Forgetting the first rule of holes, the White House is standing by President Obama’s citation of a bogus statistic on Mexican crime guns. The President said that 90% of guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States. That isn’t remotely true, the real statistic is either 36% or 17% depending on whose analysis you use. Either way, the 90% refers only to guns that are successfully traced, a sample that is heavily biased toward American guns.
The White House says that’s what he meant all along:
“By recovered he means traceable, guns traced back to the United States,” [NSC Spokesman Denis] McDonough said. “These are ATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) numbers. These are the guns submitted to the ATF for tracing. That’s what we mean by recovered.”
Oh, so “recovered” doesn’t mean “recovered”; it means “traceable.” Thanks for clearing that up; otherwise people might have assumed you were speaking English.
