A billboard made from crushed firearms in Mexico near the U.S. border.
The New York Times
Interstate firearms trafficking thrives because each state regulates gun sales differently, and there is no federal limitation on the number of guns that an individual may purchase at any one time. California, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey have laws limiting consumers to one gun per month; Texas does not. In the 2011 operation in Arizona, one defendant bought six AK-47s from one gun store, and within the space of two weeks, he bought 17 from another store. Less than a month later, he bought 20 from the same store. Three months later, he went back and bought 10 more.
Tracking the sales of guns so straw buyers can be detected is impossible in the present political environment. “The National Rifle Association has so successfully opposed a comprehensive electronic database of gun sales that the A.T.F.’s congressional appropriation explicitly prohibits establishing one,” Katherine Eban wrote in Fortune in 2012.
The NRA exists for the sole purpose of keeping the weapons moving. MOVE THE MERCH! Dead children are just collateral damage.
ReplyDeleteTracking the sales of guns so straw buyers can be detected is impossible in the present political environment.
ReplyDeleteEvidently not, as the line right above this one said:
In the 2011 operation in Arizona, one defendant bought six AK-47s from one gun store, and within the space of two weeks, he bought 17 from another store. Less than a month later, he bought 20 from the same store. Three months later, he went back and bought 10 more.
That's pretty dumb. It's like saying that the customs people caught a cocaine smuggler with 100 keys and that proves the war on drugs is working.
DeleteOr are you doing your nit-picking pain-in-the-ass thing again and contesting the literal wording of the statement, taking "is impossible," to mean never ever happens?
They could have just said, "it's hard". But it's the pro-gun folks who are prone to exaggerate, right?
DeleteOh No! It's so nit-picky to suggest that one shouldn't say something is impossible if it's very possible and could be done more frequently than it currently is if the ATF didn't let the guys go to follow them to bigger fish.
DeleteYou guys are so right. The article made the terrible mistake of saying that detecting straw purchasing "is impossible in the present political environment." Instead they should have said it's very difficult or almost impossible.
DeleteTS, I don't think I ever said ONLY the pro-gun folks exaggerate.
Again, it's not "almost impossible." Fast and Furious and Bush's Wide Receiver both relied on the fact that these straw purchasers are pretty darn easy to identify--hence the incriminating videos and tracking of the guys walking out with stacks of boxes with AK's in them and the ability of the Bush people to put trackers in the guns being sold to the straw buyers.
DeleteThe people who would be affected by multiple purchase reporting already stick out like a sore thumb. The only ones who are very hard to spot are the ones buying one gun for one felon friend, and none of this would help catch them as they can easily slip through any system--even your proposal whereby they could buy a gun, then fake a break in, bust into a cheap safe, and report the gun stolen--their buddy just has to pay for the gun and a cheap safe--probably pay for several guns to distribute the cost of the safe, and re-sell the extras on the black market.
"The people who would be affected by multiple purchase reporting already stick out like a sore thumb."
DeleteHow do you figure that, since there is no central data base linking the purchases done at different FFLs?
Straw purchasing is already a crime. But arbitrarily limiting exercise of a right isn't the answer to any problem. Especially not to Mexico's problems.
ReplyDeleteAt least some of the straw buyers being discussed in that article were the ones arrested as the Fast and Furious program was falling apart.
ReplyDeleteAs for the idea that it's impossible to detect straw buyers, Fast and Furious and Bush's earlier Gunwalker program seem to belie this--the FFL's were pointing out that these were obvious straw purchasers and ATF was telling them to go ahead with the sales. The Bush program involved putting trackers into the firearms to be sold to the straw buyers, so they apparently knew who they were too.
Sorry, but we're not buying this idea that we NEED a database--especially when you try to sell it as a necessity by citing Fast and Furious straw buyers as supposed proof that we can't identify straw buyers without such a database.
I think what the article said is we need to look at multiple sales over short periods of time. But, as they said, this is very difficult to detect given the artificial strictures on records of gun sales.
DeleteThe article breathlessly claimed that it was impossible to track straw buyers, but we see from the examples they gave, and from others, that it is quite common to track them, quite possible, and that the problem is that the ATF has been treating them like street dealers--leaving the little fish be so that they can follow them up to the bigger fish. Something that hasn't worked out well at all.
DeleteIf the author in this piece wasn't so busy exaggerating and claiming that this was impossible, they could have honestly stated that it was not easy to catch all of them and pointed to their favored fix, presenting it from a stronger position than they did here. However, instead, we get a dishonest statement of the problem that reveals what an overreaction and overkill the suggested solution is.