Poor Ol' Mexico

‘Gun family’ head gets 18 years for trafficking weapons into New York

Quick (upper right) was head of a six person “gun family”

Guns dot com

A Brooklyn judge handed down sentencing Thursday in the case of a man who sold 151 guns brought from Georgia to an undercover New York cop on a street corner.

According to a release from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, Michael Quick, who maintained addresses in both New York and Georgia, made 13 trips in an eight month period between September 2013 and April 2014, shuttling guns, some stolen, northward.

This garnered Quick a conviction following a plea bargain earlier this month to one count of first-degree criminal sale of a firearm and one count of first-degree criminal possession of a weapon, to which Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun sentenced the man to 18 years in state prison and five years of post-release supervision.

As noted by Chun’s office, Quick was the nexus of an enterprise that focused on acquiring guns in Georgia from multiple sources then transporting them to Brooklyn where, in each instance, the lots were sold to the undercover buyer on the corner of Foster Avenue and East 96th Street in the working-class Canarsie residential neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Arrested in April 2014, Quick and his wife along with four associates, all relatives, were booked on a 558-count indictment on a mix of firearms and conspiracy charges.

Police Battle Spike In City Violence After Years Of Decline

Huffington Post

Police departments across the country that have spent years boasting about plummeting crime numbers are now scrambling to confront something many agencies have not seen in decades: more bloodshed.

Houston, St. Louis, New Orleans and Baltimore have all seen significant spikes in the number of homicides this year. The totals are up in other cities, too, including New York and Chicago.

"We're in scary territory," said Peter Scharf, a professor at Louisiana State University who tracks homicides in New Orleans.

In Los Angeles, the number of slayings dropped slightly, but the number of shooting victims jumped more than 18 percent. And in Milwaukee, a homicide on Wednesday put the total for the year at 84 — just two fewer than happened in all of 2014.

It's too soon to assess whether the surge in killing marks the start of a trend after years of declines. But concern is growing that the increase could reflect a confluence of recent shifts, including deepening distrust of police that leads people to settle disputes themselves, officers who are afraid of being second-guessed and court rulings that make it easier than ever to own a gun. Tighter budgets that result in cuts to law-enforcement agencies could also play a role.

Some of the explanations vary from city to city. In Baltimore, the April death of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered a fatal spinal-cord injury while in police custody triggered rioting. After six officers were charged in Gray's death, the number of arrests plummeted — a drop that raised questions about whether angry or fearful officers were slowing down their activity on the streets.

Activist Lawsuit Claims Suburbs to Blame for Soaring Chicago Gun Violence

Modvive

An anti-violence coalition including activist priest Father Pfleger has taken the unusual step to file a lawsuit against three Chicago suburbs for weak gun store oversight, that they claim is a main source of guns ending up in Chicago crime scenes.

“These three villages are not taking the minimal steps that they need to to stop the flow of guns into Chicago,” Michael Persoon, attorney, said.

“I’m here this morning as part of this lawsuit, because I’m tired of seeing the bloodbath taking place in our city’s streets. We all understand the realities,” Father Pfleger said. “Riverdale, Lyons, and Lincolnwood; you have failed to enforce best practices on your own. We pray that this lawsuit will now force your hand, because it’s time to shut off the gun flow onto the streets of Chicago.”

The lawsuit makes the claim that African American communities in Chicago are facing disproportionate hardship and therefore are having their civil rights violated under the Illinois Civil Rights Act. This civil rights violation is occurring, the suit claims, because Riverdale, Lyons and Lincolnwood do not have enough oversight when it comes to licensing and regulating gun shops that has allowed criminals to easily keep the flow of guns streaming onto the Chicago’s gang riddled streets.

“Those illegal firearms are flowing into a pocket of communities violating the civil rights of the individuals who reside there, who are afraid to go near their windows or let their children play in the park, much less their own yards,” said Kathleen Sances, a member of the Coalition for Safe Chicago Communities, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The daring lawsuit joins two ministers, two mothers whose children were the victims of gun violence, and the Coalition for Safe Chicago Communities activist group. The group claims basis for the suit from a Chicago Police Department study that showed that between 2009 and 2013, guns sold in the stores in Riverdale and Lyons were used in 20 percent of Chicago’s violent crimes leading to 3,000 guns being recovered at these Chicago crime scenes.

One of the plaintiffs is Annette Nance-Holt a mother whose son Blair was killed in 2007 on a Chicago bus while he was attempting to protect a friend when a gang member boarded the bus and started firing.

“Our communities are being flooded with guns,” she said. “We have to do something… to take a stand to help get these guns off the street.”

Chicago Violence

Think Progress

As of Monday morning, nine people had been shot to death and another 32 wounded in Chicago since the Friday that began Memorial Day weekend.

One of the youngest victims was Jacele Johnson, a four-year-old girl, who was shot while sitting in a car parked outside of a prom celebration in West Englewood as someone drove by firing. Two other children were also shot in the same incident: a 17-year-old boy who was hit in the chest and had a graze wound to the neck, and a 15-year-old girl who suffered a graze wound on her forehead, both of whom were in stable condition. Jacele was taken to a hospital and underwent surgery, and she was upgraded to serious condition Sunday morning. 

The first fatality was a 34-year-old man who was shot in the chest and shoulder while sitting on the front porch of his home in Wicker Park. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. The youngest death was a 15-year-old boy in Bronzeville who was shot along with another 14-year-old struck in the foot in an alley. Other fatalities included a 20-year-old man with multiple gunshot wounds; a 24-year-old man shot in the head; a man between 20 and 30 shot in the face; a 29-year-old woman shot in the chest and leg by a group who were denied entry to a house party; a 35-year-old man shot in the stomach; and a 28-year-old man shot in the head and shoulder.

Critics of gun law reforms argue that the high levels of gun violence in Chicago are proof that regulation doesn’t work, given that the city has relatively strict gun laws. But lax laws surrounding the area, both in the state of Illinois and nearby states, allow guns to flow into the city, which make up the vast majority of those seized by law enforcement. Research has found that localities in states that have weak gun laws tend to suffer higher rates of gun violence than those in states with stricter ones. Overall, more gun ownership has been found to lead to more murders.

Gun Trafficking from SC to NJ

Local news reports

Chicago Sings The Delta Blues As Guns Flow North

Local news reports

Who's to Blame for Chicago's Bloody 4th of July Weekend?

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy


Huffington Post

After a violent holiday weekend during which 11 people were killed and more than 60 others were wounded in shootings -- two of the deaths and five of the woundings at the hands of police officers -- Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said Monday that the city's gun sentencing laws aren't strict enough to help police stem city violence.

"It all comes down to these guns: there's too many guns coming in and too little punishment going out," McCarthy said in a Monday press conference.

In a news release, McCarthy noted police have seized over 3,300 illegal firearms so far this year, but said many gun offenders quickly return to the street because sentences for those caught carrying illegally are too lax.

"Our efforts will continue unabated until all Chicagoans gain the same sense of security, but better laws are needed to reduce the proliferation of illegal guns in our communities," Chicago's top cop continued.

It's simple.  As McCarthy said, the problem is the "proliferation of illegal guns" which all come from lawful gun owners who fail to secure them properly in the home or allow them to flow into the criminal world in other ways.

Indiana Couple Charged in 6-Year-old Shooting

Local news reports

Police said a 6-year-old boy’s parents were arrested after lying about an accidental shooting in Muncie.

According to Lt Steve Cox with the Muncie Police Department, on Thursday night, officers were called to IU Ball Memorial Hospital on the report that a 6-year-old boy was shot.

The boy’s parents, Lamotta Roundtree, 34, and Elisha Wolfe, 35, told officers that their 15-year-old niece, who was babysitting their son, found a gun in the alley behind their house. They said the girl picked up the gun and it went off, shooting the boy in the groin.

Officers later determined that the 15-year-old girl found the gun inside of the home. Roundtree is a convicted felon who couldn’t have a gun in his home, according to Cox.

Police arrested Roundtree and Wolfe on Thursday night on the following charges:

• Aiding or inducing criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon
• Child neglect
• Obstruction of justice

More on the Gun Flow into New York

Further to our post of the other day, there's this:

Some of our regulars think it's a big conspiracy.  You know, when they're counting the guns they just hide the ones that come from NY.

Or, perhaps it makes good sense that a state with strict gun control laws does not supply its own guns used in crime.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Jamaica Reprimands the U.S.

The Jamaica Observer

MONTEGO BAY, St James — PASTOR of the Granville Seventh-day Adventist Church, Charles Brevitt, has called on the United States Government to contain the trafficking of illegal guns into the island with the same fervour with which they are insisting that the Jamaican Government control the lottery scam and the illegal narcotics trade.

"They are allowing guns to leave up there (US) and come down here. We feel that reciprocity ought to be the order of the day. We will control scamming, they must control guns," the tough-talking clergyman charged.

"We don't make guns in Jamaica, we don't have any gun factory in the Caribbean, so in the same way that the Americans are literally holding a gun to our heads to control scammers and to control drug dealers, we must ask them to help us to control the flow of guns into our country."

Last week, at the US Senate Special Committee on Ageing's hearing into the lottery scam, senators called for the extradition of Jamaican lottery scammers.

They argued that enough was not being done by the Jamaican Government to stamp out the illegal practice.

Denver Mom Shoots Her Three Kids and Commits Suicide

The Denver Post reports

Mayra Perez's relatives learned Thursday what they had already feared: The northeast Denver woman shot her three children and then herself. What they might never know is why.

Denver police confirmed that Perez, 23, killed two of her children, critically wounded a third and then killed herself. Two-year-old Isabel Perez remains in a deep coma.

I suppose she was another lawful gun owner gone berserk. This is such a frequent occurance that we placed it on the list of ways guns move from lawful ownership to the criminal world. Yet, our pro-gun friends go to great lengths to "prove" that the vast majority of gun misuse is among gang members and drug dealers. I don't buy it.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

The TRACE Act to Combat the Flow of Illegal Guns

Lake View Patch

U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (IL-05) will reintroduce the Trafficking Reduction and Criminal Enforcement (TRACE) Act, which cracks down on the illegal gun market by improving gun tracking data.  The bill also repeals the Tiahrt Amendments, which hamper law enforcement’s pursuit of criminals who buy and sell illegal guns.

“The TRACE Act is the type of commonsense gun control reform we need to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people,” said Rep. Quigley. “Our law enforcement officials face a sea of illegal weapons flooding our streets, but the TRACE Act will close the loopholes that allow criminals to obtain illicit guns and choke off the supply to traffickers.”

“For nearly a decade, the Tiahrt restrictions have hampered our nation’s law enforcement officials and kept the public in the dark about gun traffickers. By removing these dangerous restrictions, this bill goes a long way toward restoring access to critical gun data that can help protect our communities,” said Mark Glaze, Director of the bipartisan coalition Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

“I want to thank Congressman Quigley for his continued efforts in the fight to end gun violence in America, and I urge lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to follow his lead,” Glaze continued.

"Congressman Quigley is to be commended for his leadership on this issue," said Dan Gross, President of the Brady Campaign. "Now more than ever, we need leaders like Congressman Quigley who can stand up and help us to fight for the comprehensive proposals put forth by the White House.  There is no one solution to this epidemic of violence but the TRACE Act is an important piece of that effort.  We applaud the Congressman for introducing it now."

While criminals often obtain guns on the black market, those guns generally originate from licensed dealers.

Let's repeat that last idea. Almost all guns in criminal hands started out the legal property of someone. It's not important if criminals buy guns on the black market from other criminals, what's important is how those guns moved from lawful ownership to criminal.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Cop's Gun Found in Denver Airport Bathroom

The Houston Chronicle reports

The loaded .45-caliber Glock handgun left in a crowded Denver International Airport restroom belonged to a Drug Enforcement Administration agent based in Houston, according to records obtained Tuesday.

The gun, with one round in the chamber and 10 in the magazine, was found by a traveler last week on the back of a toilet seat beyond Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, according to a Denver police report.

"He states he had used the restroom and had accidently left the handgun there," notes the police report. "At the request of (an FBI agent) the credentials were verified and the handgun was released back to him and he resumed his travels."

When guns are found, especially in airports, the incidents tend to make news. But many more are quietly lost under an array of circumstances.

The Department of Homeland Security had 179 firearms go missing from 2006 through 2008 - in places like cars, restaurants and restrooms - because officers did not properly secure them.

I'm going out on a limb here and saying that if trained law officers do this, civilian gun owners do too. The pro-gun crowd like to say they are safer and more responsible than cops, but I don't buy it.

Whatever reports we have about this kind of thing, you can bet it's just the tip of the iceberg. No one, not the DEA or a private individual, wants to admit this kind of mistake unless they are forced to.

Perhaps we have to consider another considerable source of guns which flow from the good guys to the bad guys.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

The Four Major Ways Criminals Get Guns

Everyone agrees criminals should not have guns. Yet, the reality seems to be that they have practically unlimited access to them. It would be better for everyone if somehow we could deny them access. But how?

First we need to identify the ways in which they currently do come into possession of weapons. We'll eliminate one common fallacy right away, that criminals get guns from other criminals.  This may be true as far as it goes, but it doesn't help us in our analysis.  We're interested in the original source of guns that are used in crime. If, for example, a gun is stolen during a burglary and passed from criminal to criminal before being used in a murder, that gun came from "Theft," which is one of our main categories.

The entire exercise is based on the presumption that nearly all guns start out as the lawful property of someone. The exceptions to this, home-made weapons and those imported from overseas, are insignificant in number.  Our interest is the exact point at which a gun passes from lawful ownership into criminal hands.

The four categories are these.

1. Straw purchases. Gun traffickers recruit people with clean records who, depending on the state in which they live, can buy numerous guns and turn them over immediately to their criminal bosses. Other straw purchasers are of the amateur kind, the one-off kind, but regardless of the type there is a solution.

2. Theft. Most of this is done in private homes one gun at a time, or if the thieves are lucky several guns. For this there is an obvious solution. Other theft is done at military armories, gun manufacturers and gun shops, all of which require some failure on the part of the lawful custodian of the weapons.

3. Private sales. This is the one often referred to as the "gun show loophole." The reality is that private sales of guns account for about 40% of all gun sales and do not require a background check.  The solution.


4. Lawful gun owners who turn bad. Many of these guys are what I call "hidden criminals."  These are the ones who engage in unlawful activity but have never sustained a disqualifying felony.  They buy and own guns legally just like your truly lawful gun owners.  Others are upstanding members of society right up until the point they lose it and either kill the wife with a gun or shoot up the work place.  We read about them every day. Some of them could be identified through drug testing, others by improved mental health background checks.

The four categories are listed in descending order, the most easily addressed to the most difficult. Straw purchasing could be practically eradicated with the solution I've outlined, while lawful gun owners who turn bad is much harder to address.

But, although gun-rights folks keep saying we have onerous gun control laws which infringe upon their rights, the truth is we have done very little to curtail the terrible problem of gun flow from the good guys to the bad guys.

This must change.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Jamaica Destroying Confiscated Guns

ABC reports

Roughly 2,000 firearms were melted down in a blazing furnace Tuesday as part of an effort designed to combat gun trafficking and corruption in Jamaica while reducing violent crime.

Police, government and U.N. officials destroyed pistols and revolvers by pitching them into a kiln glowing bright orange at a cement factory in the capital of Kingston. Most of the guns were decommissioned or seized in police operations over the years.

National Security Minister Peter Bunting, who has been in office for just over a month, said the destruction of the weapons is an important first step toward managing the sizable stockpiles of guns in Jamaica and reducing the risk of theft.

"The removal will help to reduce the risks of these weapons being possibly diverted back into the illicit trade," Bunting said at the Jamaica Constabulary Force armory.

It seems to me like this is attacking the problem for the wrong direction. If we want to make fewer guns available to criminals we need to focus on the gun manufacturers.  They are the ones flooding the marketplace with guns. This effort to confiscate and destroy guns is like blowing up an inflatable raft in the summertime that has a hole in it. The more air you pump in, the more leaks out.

I had the same objection to the police departments who wanted to sell off their confiscated guns. Although they make pains to sell the guns to qualified people, some of them are sure to end up back in the wrong hands, just like they did the first time around.

The gun manufacturers are the problem. The gun lobby that protects them and the gun-rights activists who support them are the problem.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Guns to Mexico - The Legal Ones

Background Checks for All Gun Sales

via NPR

Patricia Maisch, one of the people who helped halt the Tucson shooting , holds up a photograph of victim John Roll, a federal judge, while testifying before a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday. Maisch testified in support of legislation that would strengthen federal power over the states' handling of background checks.

Supporters of the legislation want to keep guns out of the hands of more criminals, domestic abusers and people who are mentally ill. They say that might have made a difference last January, when a gunman in Tucson, Ariz., killed six people and wounded 13 others, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Jared Loughner, who has been charged in the shooting, is being treated after he was found not mentally competent to stand trial.

Is the reluctance on the part of pro-gun folks to come on board with this due to the fact that in order to make universal background checks effective, registration and licensing would be the logical next steps?

Requiring background checks on every sale would greatly improve the current situation because many lawful gun owners unknowingly and innocently allow their guns to flow into the criminal world. This would cease.  Being law-abiding folks, these gun sellers would comply with the law and require background checks before selling.

Some gun sellers, whom I like to call "hidden criminals" are staying within the letter of the law, but for personal gain or apathy, they're knowingly allowing guns to go to criminals. These activities may not be prevented by a law requiring background checks but such a law will force these hidden criminals to come out in the open. Under the new law, anyone selling a gun without a background check is engaging in criminal activity.

So, although much improvement can be expexted from this background check law itself, only when it's combined with registration and licensing will it have maximum effectiveness. Straw purchasing will be eradicated and gun flow into the black market will be drastically curtailed.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Gun Flow Between States

(click to make bigger)

Miller-McCune.com reports on the findings of Brown University economist Brian Knight.

You may recognize this phenomenon if you’ve ever driven across the border from a state that doesn’t allow the sale of fireworks into one that does. Knight has also done research into state lotteries, where eye-popping jackpots in one state have been shown to cut into ticket sales in neighboring areas.

Of course, the stakes for gun sales are higher than they are for Roman candles or lotto tickets, but so too is the demand for states to be able to locally determine their own gun laws. Knight says his research suggests there would be significant benefits from establishing more uniform federal gun policy.

We didn't really need Ivy League Economists or smart journalists like Emily Badger who writes for Miller-McCune to tell us the obvious. But, Their affirmation is appreciated.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Fast and Furious Made Simple

via Slinking towards Retirement

Again, there’s no question that Fast and Furious represents a serious failure of federal law enforcement, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone if those responsible for that failure were less than eager to inform superiors in Washington about their mistakes. However, the inspector general’s investigation and the investigation by Issa’s committee should help lay out exactly what happened.

However, there’s something deeper going on here as well, and it’s reflected in the comments from LaPierre and others.

The flow of firearms across the U.S. border is a serious challenge. So far, some 65,000 guns confiscated in Mexico by authorities have been traced back to gun purchases made here in the United States. One single individual tracked during the Fast and Furious investigation bought more than 700 weapons for transfer to the Mexican cartels, in some cases purchasing 20 or more AK-47-type assault weapons in a single purchase.

However, when the Obama administration proposed a new regulation that would require border-state gun shops to notify officials if a single individual attempted to buy large numbers of guns, the NRA protested bitterly.

“This is just a shallow excuse to engage in a sweeping firearms registration scheme,” LaPierre wrote on the NRA’s website. At the NRA’s insistence, the House passed a resolution opposing that regulation, and the NRA has since filed suit against the rule.

Some of the pro-gun sites have dedicated themselves to making more of this than there is. I knew it was coming a while ago when Wayne La Pierre pretended to be emotional about the situation. That's all it takes for his minions to take up the cause and run with it.

This is all about ATF-hate, gun-control-hate and Obama-hate. That's all.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.