Straw Purchases - YeeeeHAW!
The second amendment allows for redneck whites to open up gun depots in states allowing on demand background checks and firearms to criminals who use locals with clean records for the buys, and from there the guns head north to cities like DC, Philly, Baltimore and NYC. Once having arrived, they are sold to criminals in the drug trade, used for murders and promptly thrown down storm drains or gotten rid of some other way. If you’ve got the cash, there is a straw-purchase waiting for payoff, and each gun equals a body. Sometimes the perpetrator is stupid, and they hold onto it for sentimental value…seemingly unaware of the science out there already that can trace a bullet back to the precise gun that fired it.
But let’s not get bogged down in reality here, because the Pace Picante sauce folks out there have a problem with the mayor of NYC pointing fingers to his neighbors down south. Sure, folks in Virginia make a healthy profit off of murder in cities up north, but that’s “market forces” doing their thing more often than not. Truth is, if you handed a gun to every person in America, we’d be more safe. As it stands now, we’ve got plenty of guns, but we’re not safe…
Obviously we need more guns. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070319/gun-giveaway
March 20th, 2007 at 12:14 am
do you own a gun?
March 20th, 2007 at 5:33 am
When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. A simple reality twist. The ratio of armed bad guys to good guys always increases when law abiding citizens abide by the law and laws against gun ownership increase.
March 20th, 2007 at 5:49 am
http://www.saf.org/pub/rkba/general/FoundersQuotes.htm
March 20th, 2007 at 11:02 am
I’m not advocating for the outlaw of gun ownership, but rather stricter federal guidelines for sales. There’s no reason why a state like Virgina should be able to profit off of violent crime in cities elsewhere.
If one state out of ten has decided to basically ignore the abundance of meth amphetamine cooks operating within their borders, and the export of all that death affects the other 9 states, with law enforcement from all nine citing lax enforcement and an unwillingness to follow leads and crack down on the cooks, they’d have a point.
Interstate commerce takes a lot of one state’s death and congregates it in the larger cities, and the ongoing practice of straw-purchased firearms in Virginia adversely effects the safety and quality of life for residents in NYC and the other cities I mentioned.
It shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:10 am
And the 2nd amendment has NOTHING to do with what I’m saying here! I’m not talking about the lawful purchase of guns for personal protection.
A trick the NRA and Republicans have used on our society in the politics of the gun industry is to associate EVERY mention against it as somehow a debate over the merits of the US Constitution. It’s a straw man argument that causes initial reactions to ANYTHING relating to guns as an affront to the document.
I’m talking about the SALE of firearms, that in some states like Virginia, are detrimental to the country as a whole with the exception of gun dealers and manufacturers. The state enjoys the revenue, and for that reason they’ll look the other way for the sake of making a buck for as long as they can.
I think it’s selfish and destructive to ignore the impact of all this. And for anyone who simply defers to the second amendment for any and all matters relating to guns, let me point out that you’re not being intellectually honest.
And for James’ question…I don’t own a firearm, but I also don’t live in an area that’s prone to home invasion or robbery. If I were living in an area that was dangerous, I might consider it.
March 20th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Al. Not that this straw purchases isnt happening but I do believe that the majority of guns in use by criminals have been obtained by drug addicts. A gun is far easier to run off with then a large screen TV or micro wave.I live in a state that passed the Make My Day law that I am safe in my home and if someone tries to break in that is the worst move of their short stupid life.It helps keep the honest person honest knowing if he crosses the line it may be his last line.
To add this question to you since I have read quite a few anti jihad sites who have covered the shooting in Georgia by the X GI of a Muslim poster boy.Do you think the GI had justifiable cause in shooting the Muslim jihadist?
March 20th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
The Second Amendment specifies “arms”, not guns.
In the context of the time, that would be six foot long muzzle loading smooth bore flintlocks. [Please note the absence of any reference to cannon.]
I have nothing at all against every person being allowed to own as many of those as desired.
.
March 20th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
David,
Along with tomahawks, rocks, and blow darts.
The decision to kill or not kill another human being isn’t made in a heated moment of confrontation.
It’s made the day you buy a hand gun.
Mad Dog
March 21st, 2007 at 1:13 am
Rifles and pistols. Generally speaking any “arm” carried by a man and whatever would be necessary to keep “the people” at par with any standing army, which the founding fathers didn’t like. And the caliber of law abiding American who still decides to own such weaponry freely and legally doesn’t give a damn about whether liberals “have a problem” or not.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Well, if a crack head enters your home and gets a bullet in their skull for it, it’s a cause and effect I’m comfortable with. Whether the crack head is a veteran or a Muslim is irrelevant. I’m not familiar with the story you’re referring to.
Mike, you’re wrong though about the source of illegal handguns in cities. Where did you hear or read that robberies were the source of the majority of guns used by criminals? Keep in mind that the citizen used to make the straw purchase will claim that the gun was stolen from their home or car once it turns up as evidence in a crime.
It’s all in the game. I’ve been researching this for a couple years now, and the gun sellers in those cities generally guarantee the piece is clean (no felonies tied to it), and can do so because it was purchased by one of their associates down in Virginia.
If you’re a resident of that state, you can walk into a gun dealer’s place and walk out with one. The background check is instantaneous and there is no wait period. What you do is round up a handful of residents w/ clean records (young women will agree to do this in exchange for cash or small amounts of dope), and have them pick up one each.
The price gets doubled, even tripled or more when it is finally driven up and sold to someone in the drug game. Because the supply is steady, this method being so foolproof, once a murder has been committed with a gun, it can be tossed over a bridge, down a storm drain, whatever - and another clean one is available if not already purchased beforehand.
Not only does this feed into the lethality of the drug trade in cities, but it makes it virtually impossible for police to build a case without testimony. The drug gangs handle this by creating a level of fear within the community in regards to “snitching”. If you testify against someone like this, you and your family are as good as dead.
So it’s two-fold, with the availability of clean guns and the impossible circumstances that communities are faced with, as to aid a police investigation or prosecution of someone who is know is guilty is tantamount to committing suicide.
Those two conditions feed off of one another every day. I imagine the horror of a family forced to live in a neighborhood like that, send their kids off to schools that are underfunded, having to live like that to begin with…and then to top it all off, the authority on the street isn’t the government, but rather the organized crime syndicate that will corrupt your children and shoot you dead if the notion of ever fighting back comes to mind.
It is not a scenario that politicians or the gun lobby will speak about on a regular basis. Truth is, the people are black and poor, so there’s no will to address it honestly.
Someone (not you, but who you read or heard to form your opinion on the source of firearms used in street crime) obviously feels the need to minimize the role that straw purchases play in all this, so the theft angle gets played up. What that person will not be willing to do though, is count up the amount of unsolved homicides relating to gunshots and why it far exceeds the amount of robberies reported where handguns were stolen.
When these robberies are reported, in a lot of cases it is only to cover the fact that the alleged victim played a part in a straw purchase. The police have no laws on the books to punish someone who failed to properly secure their firearm, and so the story is what they have to go on. No fine, no citation, certainly no indictment.
The system is broken. It being broken is what allows gun manufacturers to continue making money off of the terrorism and death that mark every day of thousands of lives in these 3rd world communities. Rich white men, who bankroll rich white political campaigns, and on it goes year after year.
I’m very passionate about this issue in particular, because I feel that it encapsulates the deepest shortcomings of our society. Tied in with the Sudan discussion, to me it seems foolish to assume our people have the will to step up and do the right thing for them, when we can’t even be honest about our system does the same thing on a lesser scale to our own.
Katrina was supposed to wake us up to a lot of this inequality, but it never did. All we do collectively is blame the people themselves, and the politicians in those areas and look away. We do the same thing in Gary (Indiana), Baltimore, Atlanta, Los Angeles, DC…
March 21st, 2007 at 12:36 pm
And keep in mind also, that these southern states acquiesce to the will of the gun lobby in denying the implementation of a national database that tracks guns from the manufacturer to the sale to the owner to the crime. Without this tool, law enforcement just has a gun and no way to trace back how it ended up in the hand of someone who used it in a crime.
When politicians stonewall on something as simple as that, it takes our nation’s legitimacy down a notch. Because crimes deserve to be solved…our neighbors deserve justice. As of right now, they receive none, and those standing in the way holding up the second amendment are partly responsible for it.
When a can of tuna bought in a supermarket can be tracked back through the distributor all the way back to the manufacturer, but a gun cannot, it’s the height of selfishness to deny that changes are needed.
Thick-headed voters mention the second amendment in supporting politicians who prevent things like tracking systems from being established, and the majority of them are completely tone-deaf to any kind of discussion on the topic, having been hyptnotized by the simplicity of being able to say the same thing without having to think about it.
March 21st, 2007 at 10:00 pm
This is a recurring theme both in Massachusetts as it was in the Soviet Union: Blame all your problems on your neighbors. Because it’s much easier than to look at the fallacy of your own bungling big government socialist mishaps.
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:59 am
Al
I can’t refute your assertions directly, and we may have a “straw man” issue in every state. However why would law abiding citizens have to go to a different state to buy a gun unless they were prevented from doing so in Massachusetts? Are you sure you’re a staunch defender of the 2nd Ammendment?
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:34 am
Bill
Good point!
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:47 pm
I’m a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, but mainly the comma after “militia”.
That’s the part that says “FOR THE PURPOSE OF A WELL ORDERED MILITIA,” . . .
Not, “SO CRIMINALS CAN SHOOT THOUSANDS OF ROUNDS OF AMMO AT COPS,” . . .
Guns are for militia, period.
March 24th, 2007 at 1:09 am
You guys are missing the point entirely. The criminals who end up with these guns don’t actually drive down to a southern state and purchase it themselves! The legal purchase, transport and illegal sale in a northern city is a black market operation.
I can buy a gun in Massachusetts. A drug dealer doesn’t want their name registered to a gun because of their line of work. If they have to put work in with it (translation: kill someone) and only have time to wipe it for prints, not put it somewhere it’ll never be found…if the cops find it, they’ll have the entire case wrapped up.
The whole point is to have a gun that is registered to someone else in another state, so it can’t be traced back to whoever used it in a murder.
April 21st, 2007 at 11:01 pm
[…] Something I posted here at Control Congress on straw purchases: (19MAR07)…But let’s not get bogged down in reality here, because the Pace Picante sauce folks out there have a problem with the mayor of NYC pointing fingers to his neighbors down south. Sure, folks in Virginia make a healthy profit off of murder in cities up north, but that’s “market forces” doing their thing more often than not. Truth is, if you handed a gun to every person in America, we’d be more safe. As it stands now, we’ve got plenty of guns, but we’re not safe… […]
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:05 pm
[…] Arm Fratboys -or- Curb Straw Purchases? So here we go again - I posted the following at Control Congress on 3/19/07: Straw Purchases - The second amendment allows for rednecks to open up gun depots in states allowing on demand background checks and firearms to criminals who use locals with clean records for the buys, and from there the guns head north to cities like DC, Philly, Baltimore and NYC. Once having arrived, they are sold to criminals in the drug trade, used for murders and promptly thrown down storm drains or gotten rid of some other way. If you’ve got the cash, there is a straw-purchase waiting for payoff…but let’s not get bogged down in reality here, because the Pace Picante sauce folks out there have a problem with the mayor of NYC pointing fingers at his neighbors down south. Sure, folks in Virginia make a healthy profit off of murder in cities up north, but that’s “market forces” doing their thing more often than not. Truth is, if you handed a gun to every person in America, we’d be more safe. As it stands now, we’ve got plenty of guns, but we’re not safe… […]
April 26th, 2007 at 12:49 am
[…] So here we go again - I posted the following at Control Congress on 3/19/07: Straw Purchases - The second amendment allows for rednecks to open up gun depots in states allowing on demand background checks and firearms to criminals who use locals with clean records for the buys, and from there the guns head north to cities like DC, Philly, Baltimore and NYC. Once having arrived, they are sold to criminals in the drug trade, used for murders and promptly thrown down storm drains or gotten rid of some other way. If you’ve got the cash, there is a straw-purchase waiting for payoff…but let’s not get bogged down in reality here, because the Pace Picante sauce folks out there have a problem with the mayor of NYC pointing fingers at his neighbors down south. Sure, folks in Virginia make a healthy profit off of murder in cities up north, but that’s “market forces” doing their thing more often than not. Truth is, if you handed a gun to every person in America, we’d be more safe. As it stands now, we’ve got plenty of guns, but we’re not safe… […]