Saturday, April 24, 2010

Stolen Guns in Brooklyn

The New York Daily News reports on the cop who removed 150 guns from the streets of Brooklyn.

He's a task force of one.

A brave undercover cop single-handedly took more than 150 illegal guns off Brooklyn's streets in a risky yearlong probe that also busted a brigade of dealers.

The unidentified cop was so talented at playing his role that traffickers often fought each other for his business, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Thursday.

"This undercover officer was particularly skillful and he appeared to have money. And other people tried to undercut the original seller [and] cut their own deals," Kelly said.

"There's no honor among thieves. The undercover officer did an amazing job."

During "Operation Phoenix," the lone officer, who cannot be identified for safety reasons, broke up a virtual pipeline of arms into Brooklyn - buying 153 weapons in 105 transactions at an average cost of $900 each.


It looks like business is good. The article says most of the guns are stolen; it didn't seem at attribute them to straw purchases in other states. That's interesting.

Is it any wonder why I blame gun owners for this mess? It shouldn't be. The one part of it, the one where the NRA and gun lobby and individual gun rights advocates all work overtime to keep the laws as lax and unenforceable as they are, and this leading to a tremendous gun flow into the criminal hands, seems clear and obvious to me. But, this reason, the easily stolen guns from lawful owners which go directly to criminals in Brooklyn and elsewhere, seems even more direct and obvious.

The old, "I'm not responsible for the crimes of others," is a flimsy excuse at best. Gun owners should be responsible for securing their weapons properly. When so many guns are stolen so easily, honest and reasonable people ask themselves what's going on. Are the gun owners doing everything they should to prevent it? What I ask is, are some of these gun owners so irresponsible in the way they secure their weapons that they shouldn't have them in the first place?

What's your opinion? Do you agree with the shoulder-shrugging gun owners who insist this is not their problem? Do you think when someone makes theft of a dangerous weapon easy they do not share in the responsibility for that theft?

Please leave a comment.

4 comments:

  1. New York brings this on themselves. The only way to make sure someone is not stealing your gun while you are out is to keep it with you and New York has gone to great lengths to make it a crime to carry a gun with you.

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  2. Mikeb says:

    Do you agree with the shoulder-shrugging gun owners who insist this is not their problem? Do you think when someone makes theft of a dangerous weapon easy they do not share in the responsibility for that theft?

    In order to keep things simple enough for even a forcible citizen disarmament advocate to understand, I'll keep the answer brief: "Um, yeah."

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  3. FWM says, "The only way to make sure someone is not stealing your gun while you..."

    Well that's certainly the way to ensure it's not stolen, but there are a number of other actions that can make it less likely. Oftentimes they are not done and those are the cases I'm talking about.

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  4. Since we're extrapolating, the GCA of '68 is also responsible for the black market supplied by gun thefts, since nonviolent felons, immigrants, dishonorably discharged vets, etc. could no longer order guns from catalogs or walk out of their local hardware store with a new firearm.

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