Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Leave the gun; take the cannoli



Traditional criminal wisdom says you should never keep the murder weapon with you after the job. The same goes for guns used in crimes other than murder, I suppose. Many are left for the police to collect, others are permanently disposed of in sewers or rivers or the ocean. They must add up, which means that in addition to the "flow" that I'm always talking about from the good guys to the bad guys, there's another one which is out of circulation completely.

How does this impact on the statistics? Does it mean that a large number of new guns must be produced each year just to make up for the loss to attrition?

What do you think?

30 comments:

  1. Mike,


    You have any evidence to support your contention that "many" guns are left for the police to collect?

    I'm not buying it. An armed robber isn't going to leave a firearm behind...that is his threat.

    A gang banger doing a drive by doesn't drop their firearms in the river...the keep it because it is their protection from retaliation.

    Sorry but you are talking out of an orifice that isn't your mouth.

    Try supporting your contention with something other then wishes, dreams and unicorn farts...how about some evidence?

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  2. In Boston 70% of all murders go unsolved (most are stabbings, but we have a fair amount of gun crime in this very restrivtive state).

    The criminals not only keep the guns, but lend them to other people (citation posted before and ignored, I won't waste my time digging it back up, if there's anybody who wants to see it I'll repost on request).

    Also you're comparing a Mafia assassination with a gang-land gun murder? I don't think even a dishonest troll like you can do that.

    Still if a criminal needs to get rid of a gun, police gun "buy backs" offer all the imunity that the gun can never be used in a court of law.

    Amazing how MikeB supports programs that help criminals get away with murder.

    Look at those hands, Mike, Note the blood on them.

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  3. Traditional criminal wisdom says

    well, if you say you're intimately familiar with traditional criminal wisdom and doctrine, who am i to call you ignorant?

    say, mike... did you learn this wisdom in an American prison, or an Italian one?

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  4. but we have a fair amount of gun crime in this very restrivtive state

    So much for state gun laws, eh, Weerd? Unless there is a Federal gun law, guns will cross state lines easily.

    Not only that, but guns from the U.S. are flowing into Mexico faster than hot peppers.

    Is that OK?

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  5. odd then how states with comparatively lax gun laws do not, as a rule, have even worse gun crime than the states into which the guns are supposedly "flowing", isn't it, muddy?

    you'd think if access to guns was really the determining factor, then Montana, Idaho, and the Dakotas would be crime-ridden hellholes far worse than Massachusetts or New Jersey. strangely, not the case.

    i live in a relatively free state (Michigan) and crime here is correlated far more with population density than with anything else. Detroit is a hellhole. been getting better the more it's emptied out, though, and Flint is starting to show signs of having actually hit rock bottom --- nasty wags quip that's because Flint's run out of people to murder... yet the rest of the state is doing just fine, even though our gun laws are uniform everywhere in MI. why is that?

    right across the river from Detroit we find Windsor, with Canadian (federal level!) gun laws considerably stricter than Michigan's. you'd think there'd be "flow" as like unto a fire hose, wouldn't you? but Windsor is well known to be comparatively peaceful and quiet. hey, maybe access to guns isn't the determining factor after all?

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  6. Stop using facts against Muddy, Nomen! You'll upset him and the nurse will have to change his adult diapers!

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  7. Muddy,

    Unless there is a Federal gun law, guns will cross state lines easily


    What a novel CONCEPT, Federal Firearm laws...why didn't anyone ever think of that before???

    ATF P 5300.4 - Federal Firearms Regulations Reference Guide 2005
    I. Message from the Director
    II. Editor's Note
    III. Laws and Regulations
    A. Gun Control Act
    1. 18 U.S.C. Chapter 44
    2. 27 CFR Part 478
    B. National Firearms Act

    1. 26 U.S.C. Chapter 53
    2. 27 CFR Part 479
    C. Arms Export Control Act

    1. 22 U.S.C. Chapter 2778
    2. 27 CFR Part 447

    D. 28 CFR Part 25
    (National Instant Criminal Bakcground Check System Regulations)
    E. (Nonmailable Firearms) 18 U.S.C. Section 1715
    IV. Additional Information
    A. Rulings, Procedures, and Industry Circulars
    B. General Information
    C. Questions and Answers
    D, Key Information

    1. ATF Points of Contact
    2. ATF Industry Operations Field Offices
    3. Non-ATF Points of Contact
    4. State Attorney Generals
    E. NICS Forms, Flyers and Brochures
    1. NICS Enrollment Form
    2. A NICS Delay
    3. What is a "business day" for NICS Purposes?
    4. Reference Guide
    5. NICS E-Check
    6. Gun Buyer's Resolution Guide
    7. Guide for Appealing a Firearm Transfer Denial

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  8. Muddy,

    Another "untruth" being told by someone (Mike says I hurt people's little feelings by calling them liars).

    Not only that, but guns from the U.S. are flowing into Mexico faster than hot peppers.

    From the L.A. Times....not your normal right wing propaganda machine.

    The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico's drug wars. Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.

    Grenades and anti-tank rockets are not available over the counter at American gun stores....so what you said was an UNTRUTH.

    Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semiauto- matic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

    MOST OF THESE ARE BEING SMUGGLED FROM CENTRAL AMERICAN COUNTRIES....not the USA...another UNTRUTH.

    These groups appear to be taking advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders, especially between Mexico and Guatemala.

    Why try to buy a couple dozen semi automatics here in America when there is a GLOBAL BLACK market available.

    How many weapons have been smuggled into Mexico from Central America is not known, and the military-grade munitions are still a small fraction of the larger arsenal in the hands of narcotics traffickers. Mexican officials continue to push Washington to stem the well-documented flow of conventional weapons from the United States, as Congress holds hearings on the role those smuggled guns play in arming Mexican drug cartels

    Well documented by WHOM, Mexico will not provide the serial numbers of the firearms they say...note - no evidence, just what they say is coming from America. Kinda hard to document something when there is NO evidence, eh?

    The enhanced weaponry represents a wide sampling from the international arms bazaar, with grenades and launchers produced by U.S., South Korean, Israeli, Spanish or former Soviet bloc manufacturers. Many had been sold legally to governments, including Mexico's, and then were diverted onto the black market. Some may be sold directly to the traffickers by corrupt elements of national armies, authorities and experts say.

    So, should we believe there is a vast conspiracy of firearm dealers near the border to provide firearms....or maybe the drug trade is buying from other sources mostly.

    Amid the recent spate of attacks in Michoacan, federal police on Feb. 20 announced the discovery of 66 fragmentation grenades in the fake bottom of a truck intercepted in southern Mexico, just over the border from Guatemala.

    OOOPPPSSSS, not America....another UNTRUTH.

    Grenades used in three attacks in Monterrey and Texas were linked to a single Monterrey warehouse, packed with explosives and high-caliber guns, reportedly belonging to the Gulf cartel. Mexican authorities raided the warehouse in October and seized the cache, which contained South Korean-manufactured grenades similar to the American M67 fragmentation grenade.

    South Korea? What part of America is that in again? Oh, It's Not!



    So, what is the next UNTRUTH you want to try to pass off?

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  9. i think, to the element that uses them, the smart criminals use guns as disposable, and a liability...

    a smart crook will use it, and lose it.. quickly.

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  10. A smart crook will get an education and a job before he gets killed in his teens by other crooks, the Police, or when he tries to roll a guy like Me, Bob, MikeW, or Heaven help him, Thomas.

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  11. I thought all the smart crooks went into politics or government service.

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  12. Okay Mike,

    You tend to dismiss my information, maybe this will be a little harder for you to dismiss.

    New findings from FBI about cop attackers and their weapons

    “Violent Encounters: A Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation’s Law Enforcement Officers.” The study is the third in a series of long investigations into fatal and nonfatal attacks on POs by the FBI team of Dr. Anthony Pinizzotto, clinical forensic psychologist, and Ed Davis, criminal investigative instructor, both with the Bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit, and Charles Miller III, coordinator of the LEOs Killed and Assaulted program.

    So, is that authoritative enough for you?


    From a pool of more than 800 incidents, the researchers selected 40, involving 43 offenders (13 of them admitted gangbangers-drug traffickers) and 50 officers, for in-depth exploration. They visited crime scenes and extensively interviewed surviving officers and attackers alike, most of the latter in prison.

    So, they actually talked to those poor misguided abused people you so cherish and try to excuse.

    Predominately handguns were used in the assaults on officers and all but one were obtained illegally, usually in street transactions or in thefts. In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study was obtained from gun shows.

    We've known this, we've told you that handguns are the predominate choice of criminals. We've also told you that most of them don't buy firearms at gun shows, either from private sellers or licensed dealers.....THERE IS NO GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE and passing a law to prevent private sales wouldn't change a thing.

    What was available “was the overriding factor in weapon choice,” the report says. Only 1 offender hand-picked a particular gun “because he felt it would do the most damage to a human being.”

    What was available was the overriding factor. Ban firearms and the criminals will still pick what is available, be it a cheap Jennings .22 caliber "saturday nite special".
    Get rid of all the firearms and the criminals will likely make ZIP Guns as they did in the past, all that will be done is to disarm the law abiding.

    Speaking of gun laws:
    Researcher Davis, in a presentation and discussion for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, noted that none of the attackers interviewed was “hindered by any law--federal, state or local--that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws.”

    Gee, that sounds familiar, could some of your commenters have said that before?

    Several of the offenders began regularly to carry weapons when they were 9 to 12 years old, although the average age was 17 when they first started packing “most of the time.” Gang members especially started young

    At what age can a person LEGALLY purchase a handgun? 21. So as young as 9 or 12 years old they are starting to carry firearms illegally. Guess it is the fault of the law abiding gun owners, eh?

    Or could it be the is some kernel of truth to the societal issues that is the major over whelming and over riding factor, not gun availability. They certainly seem to learn that behavior in their homes, their nieghborhoods.

    More than 40% of the offenders had been involved in actual shooting confrontations before they feloniously assaulted an officer. Ten of these “street combat veterans,” all from “inner-city, drug-trafficking environments,” had taken part in 5 or more “criminal firefight experiences” in their lifetime.

    Maybe locking up those violent offenders and keeping them in jail might make a difference. They are breaking laws, getting away with it or getting a slap on the wrist. Only to turn around and continue their violent behavior.

    Fix the justice system and the problem is resolved.
    Fix the societal issues and the problem is resolved.

    Remove or restrict firearms and the problems continue as always.


    Almost all carried when on the move and strong majorities did so when socializing, committing crimes or being at home. About one-third brought weapons with them to work. Interestingly, the offenders in this study more commonly admitted having guns under all these circumstances than did offenders interviewed in the researchers’ earlier 2 surveys, conducted in the 1980s and ’90s.

    Gee, criminals not obeying laws about carrying firearms, shame on them.
    But people like you want to restrict our rights to carry when the criminals are KNOWN to be armed and carrying on a regular basis.

    Tell me about reasonable restrictions again? How does that work?

    The offenders were of a different mind-set entirely. In fact, Davis said the study team “did not realize how cold blooded the younger generation of offender is. They have been exposed to killing after killing, they fully expect to get killed and they don’t hesitate to shoot anybody, including a police officer. They can go from riding down the street saying what a beautiful day it is to killing in the next instant.”

    Kinda ruins your victim mentality ideas doesn't it. These criminals are cold blooded, rational, sane and willing to kill for very little reason.


    So, does this crowd seem like the type to "leave the gun, take the cannoli"?

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  13. I mentioned it on another thread, I'm definitely backing off the theory of gun flow into Mexico. With the new reports that have come out, it seems clear to me that the volume of guns required in the drug wars cannot be had a few at a time, furnished by American gun dealers. That's not to say there aren't some questionable FFL guys down there along the border, but the bulk of the problem must be coming from elsewhere.

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  14. That is until some Obama lacky attempts to lie about it again. Then you'll be back on it.

    I mean can you name ONE gun right you've supported that you haven't flipped on?

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  15. Mike,


    Thanks for admitting you are wrong on the "flow of guns" into Mexico.

    Does it give you pause, make you stop and think you might be wrong on other issues?

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  16. That's not to say there aren't some questionable FFL guys down there along the border, but the bulk of the problem must be coming from elsewhere.

    Glad to hear you say that Mike, and I hope you stick to it. You are absolutely right though about the few FFL's who are selling illegally. If the evidence is there, then those shops need to be shut down.

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  17. "An Arizona judge threw out criminal charges on Wednesday against a gun dealer accused of knowingly selling weapons to smugglers shopping for Mexican drug cartels, after he ruled the prosecutor's evidence was flawed.

    Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Robert Gottsfield issued a directed verdict of not guilty in the trial of George Iknadosian, 47, the owner of X-Caliber guns in Phoenix."

    http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN18511074

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  18. Third, Thanks for that fantastic link. I'm very interested in the Iknadosian story. But, what's your take on it? You think he was the victim of over-zealous prosecutors? Or is he a dirty guy that got off on a technicality?

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  19. "There is no proof whatsoever that any prohibited possessor ended up with the firearms."

    Those were the words of the judge. Sounds like a basic reason for dismissal to me.

    The Gov. has the burden of proof in criminal proceedings. That's how things work. Even if he DID get off on a "technicality" (purely assumed here for the sake of argument) I'm all for letting a few guilty guys go free in order to maintain the integrity of our legal system.

    This is even more true in firearms cases, where the ATF isn't exactly known to be ethical or for doing things by the book in court.

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  20. if the government makes a claim of criminal acts and then fails to show anything criminal has been done, that's hardly a "technicality".

    i suppose it might be staggering incompetence on the part of the prosecution, but that's no mere technicality either.

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  21. if the government makes a claim of criminal acts and then fails to show anything criminal has been done, that's hardly a "technicality".

    i suppose it might be staggering incompetence on the part of the prosecution, but that's no mere technicality either.

    oh, and a couple more links about this case:

    David Hardy is an Arizona lawyer with considerable experience in firearms law. he linked me to the ruling (PDF).

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  22. Mike,

    My take on it is the prosecution failed to prove that Iknadosian knew the straw buyers were actually straw buyers.

    Because the gun buyers all were eligible to acquire firearms, he said, their deception did not amount to a "material falsification." Consequently, Gottsfield ruled, the evidence did not show felonious conduct by Iknadosian.

    Unless Iknadosian knew the only reason those eligible buyers were buying was for illegal purposes then he didn't commit a crime.

    I read that over 700 AKs were purchased from him....I don't know how many that is per month, per year but I do know some stores can sell that many in a single month.

    This is one of the "distortions" used to make the problem worse. I'm a quality engineer, we often get complaints of 700, 900 or more parts but when compared to the amount of parts produced, often into the 100s of thousands you can see those bad parts are a very small portion.

    That is why I look to statistics like per capita rates.

    Sorry but the .gov didn't meet even the basic legal requirements in this case.

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  23. Now here's the fun part. There are the claims that 9K odd firearms were traced back to the US last year and that accounts for '90%' of crime guns in Mexico.

    It's also a fact that the Mexican Gov;t is NOT turning over all the firearms collected to the BATFE.

    There are claims the 2,000 firearms/day are entering Mexico from the US even though the BATFE itself disputes that number. That would equal over 700,000 guns/year.

    That's a recovery rate of less than 1.3%.

    Now let's say that they have a few guns traced back to X-Caliber. All of the original purchasers in the case were 'legal'. Meaning that they could legally own firearms and X-Caliber did nothing wrong.

    They have the paperwork.

    Why is the BATFE not following up? Why are they not finding out who those individuals sold the guns to? I mean come on. They spent millions of dollars going after a single dealer for improper abbreviations (Y instead of Yes). They must have the funds. Right?

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  24. Hardly a technicality, says Nomen. But my question still stands. Is he the victim of over-zealous prosecution or a dirty gun dealer who's beating the rap this time?

    Do law abiding gun owners have a stake in protecting law breakers? Are you afraid of the bad press? Does one bad apple spoil the whole barrel by reputation?

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  25. Mike,

    If you had a firearm to sell in a private transaction and I represented myself as being eligible to buy, presented PROOF to you that showed I was eligible to buy, even if I wasn't; would you have committed any crime?

    I guess you are ignoring my reply. I answered your question...the government's own information showed every single one of the purchasers were eligible to buy a firearm and NOT ONE SINGLE SHRED OF EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST HE KNEW OTHERWISE.

    Again, you are throwing honest people under the buy, insulting them and trying to sully their name ....all the while defending scum like Fritzl. Shame on you

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  26. my question still stands. Is he the victim of over-zealous prosecution or a dirty gun dealer who's beating the rap this time?

    without access to the evidence, how are we to have the faintest clue?

    but mr. Hardy made a good point; Iknadosian was prosecuted by the state of Arizona, not the federal ATF. yet if he's guilty as alleged, this is exactly the kind of case the ATF was created to prosecute. why that discrepancy?

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  27. So I guess you think people should be thrown in jail even if the government can't prove their guilt huh Mike?

    Hmmm, no respect for the 2nd Amendment and obviously little respect for the rest of our rights.

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  28. Mike,

    Another unanswered question:

    Care to answer the question?

    If you had a firearm to sell in a private transaction and I represented myself as being eligible to buy, presented PROOF to you that showed I was eligible to buy, even if I wasn't; would you have committed any crime?

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  29. Simple question Mike.

    Do you think people should be thrown in jail even if the government can't prove their guilt?

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  30. To Bob S. and Mike W., my two answers are no and no. Have you trapped me in some elaborate interrogation technique? I missed it if you have.

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