Brian Ross and ABC News are lying -- again. Bob Owens calls them on it.

The focus of the story, according to ABC News, is that U.S. dealers of civilian firearms are to blame for Mexico's drug cartels and their violence problems... so why do they highlight an M60 general purpose machine gun, a weapons still in use in Mexico's military, but impossible to find in the open U.S. civilian market?

From that visual deception, we'll transition to outright lie number one in the text, an attempt to smear the Bush Administration:

Assault weapons made in China and Eastern Europe, resembling the AK-47, have become widely and cheaply available in the U.S. since Congress and the Bush administration refused to extend a ban on such weapons in 2004.

AK-pattern rifles were legal to own or import during the entire life of the 1994-2004 "Crime Bill," something that Ross knows for a fact... or should. This claim is a blatant falsehood.

The only effect of the law was to outlaw the importation or manufacture of certain specific firearms by name, and cosmetic features found on other firearms, without banning their manufacture, important, or purchase once these features were removed or replaced. The result was that the same functioning firearms were imported the day after the "ban" went into effect without a bayonet lug or flashhider, and with a thumbhole stock instead of a pistol grip. Functionally, the weapons were identical, with no reduction in firepower, magazine capacity, controlability, or or lethality. The "Crime Bill" outlawed virtually nothing, and was merely a fig-leaf for anti-gun politicians.

As for Bush, he was in favor of extending the ban. ABC News failed to get that fact correct, either, even though checking it would have taken less than ten seconds on Google.

But the story sounds so much better when America is to blame!