Sunday, April 24, 2011

The Kooky World of Gun Flow

via The Detroit Free Press


The gist of the story is this. The Detroit Police department switched from Glocks to Smith and Wessons. The old Glocks became the property of Smith and Wesson in Indianapolis, I suppose it was like trading in your old car. One of the Glocks was found on a dead criminal in Tulsa.

In that famous gesture of throwing up the hands and proclaiming, "It's not our fault," The Detroit Police Department points to Smith and Wesson.

In a statement, Detroit police said the Glock was previously assigned to the department, but was turned in to the Firearms Inventory Unit on Oct. 27, 2010 as part of the weapon transition from Glocks to Smith and Wesson firearms.

According to an April 30, 2009 news release issued by Smith and Wesson, DPD placed an order for 5,000 pistols and 350 tactical rifles.
“All of the turned in department Glocks became the property of the Smith and Wesson Company as part of the weapons transition,” the statement said. “This company is located in Indianapolis, Ind. The DPD stamp and serial number on firearms were not removed because it is against the law to deface a firearm.”
Do you think someone should ask Smith and Wesson to explain? Robert Farago does that kind of investigative reporting sometime, doesn't he? Maybe he'd like to pick up the story.

The sad reality is all too clear, though. The so called draconian gun laws in the US are practically useless. We need proper gun control.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

7 comments:

  1. Mikeb302000:

    Sorry if this is a double post. The toobzgodz said the first one didn't go through.

    I gotta wonder why, if the Glocks weren't "good enoough" for the DPD and had to replaced by the S&W weapons, why S&W would not just want to have a big ol' Glockroast in one of their own or a supplier's foundry. It is hard for me to fault the DPD for a weapon that they were not in control of finding its way into a badperpnon-NRAkillaz's hands*.

    In other news, today we celebrate the 2011th (or so) anniversary of JESUS rising from the dead. Notably absent from that celebration are the many thousands of saintly chrisitans, notorious criminals, legitimate businesspersons, students who shoulda-woulda-coulda been armed but weren't 'cuz of liebral, draconian firearms confiscation laws and assorted loser scumbags (including lots of suicides--ah, fuck them, the worlds a better place without those whiny wimps) who have NOT risen from the dead after three days--or considerably longer periods of time--in the tomb.

    I know I'm thrilled and I didn't even get no damned chocolate bunny.

    Hey, sidenote: Is panetone as shitty in Italy as it is here. It's supposed to be this wonderful egg-rich bread (like babka or brioche) and, yet, every time I've ever had it, the shit tasted like yellow styrofoam. Just wonderin'!


    * I do question the priorities of a city gummint in a very broke city, Detroit, MI, when they spend some millions of dollaz for new weppins in an already cashpoor budget.

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  2. The logical action of S&W would be to resell the Glocks. Presumably they have the legal status to do so properly.

    So, the question that occurs to me is - did they dispose of these through legal sales, or didn't they?

    Whatever they did, there should presumably be records of the transactions which could supply those answers.

    If the sale was t oa legal buyer, per the NCIS check, or a legal dealer who made a legal sale.....then this might just be one more person who bought a gun and then failed to properly safe guard it.

    Before we criticize anyone we need to know the trail of this weapon, and who it indicates should be the responsible individual - and then hold him (or her) accountable, with reasonable and appripriate consequences.

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  3. Doggone is probably right. S&W took the Glocks in on trade, inspected them then sold them to one or two distributors who then sold a lot to a wholesaler, who in turn sold them to retailers, with the ultimate buyer going through NICS in a gun shop.

    S&W does not sell new or used guns directly to the consumer.

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  4. S&W resold the Glocks just like Glock resold the old S&W revolvers it displaced when the PD made that switch years ago. This has been going on for as long as PD's have been issuing weapons to their officers.


    Why even suggest that S&W melt down potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of hardware shows absolutely no business sense.

    When a PD traded in Crown Vics For Dodge Chargers, dodge didn't send the cars to the crusher, they sold them off. Same deal here.

    If you don't like it don't come home.

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  5. I wasn't pointing blame at the Detroit police or the Smith and Wesson folks as much as just illustrating "The Kooky World of Gun Flow."

    I agree with Anonymous that these guns probably ended back into the same system which is responsible for so much gun flow already. This particular gun may have been straw purchased or stolen, just like all the other guns in criminal hands.

    Panetone can be good if you buy certain brands and it's still fresh. But I've certainly had a few that tasted like styrophoam.

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  6. Guns are a commodity, just like used laptops or used cars, they get bought and sold nationwide. I have former police police guns from Lincoln NE and Orlando, I just don't get the point of the post. So what, they got bought and sold. The sun came up this morning and the Yankees still suck. There is no story here.

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  7. "there is no story here.". SOP for the gunpologists when something pretty shitty happens because the gunz ain't being handled properly.

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