iOS app Android app More  Josh Sugarmann  Josh Sugarmann
Posted: April 15, 2009 03:07 PM  Sorry NRA -- Mexican Gun
Traffickers Buy American  What's Your Reaction?  In a recent
"commentary" posted on, National Rifle Association Executive
Vice President Wayne LaPierre dismissed statements from U.S. and
Mexican government officials that, based on firearms tracing
data from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives (ATF), Mexico's drug cartels obtain 90 percent or
more of their firearms from the United States.  In making his
argument, LaPierre preaches to the choir in the apocalyptic
tones familiar to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with
the gun group's rhetoric: "gun abolitionists claim Mexican gun
laws are so strict that our 'weak laws' (read: freedoms) are to
blame for 'fueling the violence' in Mexico."  He then offers a
series of unverifiable statements that define the term "argument
by assertion." LaPierre's goal? To draw an opaque curtain across
facts that have been repeatedly