More on the South Carolina to New York Gun Smuggling

More Gun Smuggling - South Carolina to New York

Mickey Collins (left) and Dario Wynerman.




 The New York Post reports

An ex-con who’ll be old enough to collect Social Security next month was among 13 suspects busted for running two East Harlem gun-smuggling rings that sold mainly to teenage buyers, authorities said yesterday.

Infamous gun runner Mitchell “Mickey’’ Collins, 64, was the main target of a sting operation dubbed “Mickey Mouse Trap,’’ said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

Collins and three cohorts eventually peddled 88 guns to the undercover, including an AK-47 that fetched $1,600 and a .32-caliber Smith and Wesson that went for $400, Kelly said.

One accomplice, Sampson Taylor, 34, would allegedly take a bus to South Carolina, stock up on firepower from pawn shops and gun dealers, and transport the illicit arsenal back to the city, where the weapons sold for a 100 percent profit. 

A total of 10 came from South Carolina, and one was purchased in Virginia, prosecutors said.

Why do the gun-rights advocates always try to ridicule the fact that guns are smuggled from lax-gun-law states to places like New York? Doesn't it make sense?

I think the reason they try to make fun of this or downplay it in one way or another is because they see how bad it is for their cause. This touches on the exact point at which guns pass for the law-abiding to the criminals. In places like South Carolina that happens too easily.

If measures were taken to stop that, the legitimate gun owners would be slightly inconvenienced. This is what the can't accept.

What's your opinion?  Has there ever been a more self-centered advocacy group than the gun-rights crowd?

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

Eddie Espinoza, former Mayor of Columbus NM Gets 51 Months for Gun Smuggling

ex-mayor and convicted gun smuggler Eddie Espinoza



 Reuters reports

The ousted mayor of a small New Mexico border town who helped run nearly 200 firearms to a violent Mexican drug cartel was sentenced on Thursday to 51 months in prison, authorities said.

Simple regulations like reporting multiple sales and registering newly bought firearms to the person who buys them could put an end to this kind of thing. Yet, the gun-rights crowd oppose such initiatives.

That makes them complicit.  That's why they're partly responsible for  the damage that is done.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

US Guns Flowing into Canada

The Times Union reports

From 2007 through 2011, Canada submitted 6,574 guns to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for tracing — a fraction of the 99,000 guns Mexico asked ATF to trace.

Virtually all of the guns recovered in Canada were traced to U.S. sources, with just over half linked to a retail purchase in the U.S. By contrast, ATF data showed just over two-thirds of guns from Mexico were traced to U.S. sources — a U.S. manufacturer or importer — and just under one-third were linked to a U.S. retail purchase.

"Virtually all," what do you think about that?

Ian Garland, Owner of Chaparral Guns Tries to Wiggle Out of His Deal

Las Cruces Sun-News reports

Almost five months after 14 border residents entered into plea agreements in a case charging them with trafficking firearms to Mexican cartels, the owner of the gun store alleged to have sold the weapons is attempting to withdraw his guilty plea.

His guilty plea was in exchange of only a five-year sentence. He was facing much more. Maybe now he thinks he can do even better for himself.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

Gun Smuggling, But Not Where You Think

via The National Post

Weapons dealer Abu Wael has traded guns in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley since the last days of his country’s civil war, nearly a quarter of a century ago.

This has been his busiest year ever.

Unrest in neighbouring Syria has sent demand for weapons soaring, doubling prices for Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons and helping supply the increasingly well armed insurrection challenging President Bashar al-Assad.

Prices for Kalashnikovs have risen 75% to as much as $2,000 each, while M16s doubled to $2,500, reflecting the surge in demand for arms. The biggest jump was in the price of rocket-propelled grenades, which together with a launcher now cost $2,500 compared with $400 before, when demand was minimal.

“I buy weapons from Lebanese people and sell them to traders who in turn pass them on to Syrian merchants,” said 63-year-old Abu Wael, who declined to give his full name.

Business is booming all over. What do you think?

Farago in the Washington Times

That's the Washington Times not to be confused with the Washington Post.

It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the church. The Times is known for presenting socially and politically conservative views.

Robert Farago, of course, is the leader of that merry band of gun-rights warriors called the Armed Intelligentsia of TTAG.

There's only one place on the internet that exceeds Robert's zeal in attacking the ATF.  That's the Sipsey Street Irregulars. Mike V. has practically turned his blog into a dedicated propaganda machine, even some of his fanboys have complained.

Farago uses his usual linguistic gifts to make his points, "the Nixonian cover-up," "the simmering scandal," "ATF’s ideological corruption," "moral abyss," "bloated bureaucracy," and so on and so on.

He had this to say too:

Displaying its ongoing antipathy to the right to keep and bear arms, the ATF has just pushed through an executive order creating an unconstitutional long-gun registry. The agency says the new regulations will help it catch smugglers trying to secrete American weapons into Mexico - the same crime it enabled and encouraged under Operation Fast and Furious.

By "unconstitutional long-gun registry," is he referring to the law requiring that multiple sales of guns like AR-15s be reported? Wouldn't such a law be one of the best ways to identify gun smugglers and straw purchasers? Wouldn't investigating people who buy more than one of those items make sense?

Well, apparently not to Robert Farago and his friends. To them, misrepresenting these attempts as "creating an unconstitutional long-gun registry, is part of their strategy to resist common sense gun control regulations.

What's your opinion? Is Robert Farago one eloquent son-of-a-gun, or what? Do you think he does a bit of spinning though, is he guilty of manipulating?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Gun Smuggling US to UK - Why We Need Gun Registration

from Laci

via The Telegraph

British police believe Steven Greenoe, 37, a former US Marine who lives in Shrewsbury, bought the weapons including Glock 9mm pistols, legally in gun shops in North Carolina and then put them in his hold luggage.

The alleged smuggling operation was discovered after weapons seized from criminals in the North West of England were traced back to America. One of them was found to have been used in a drive-by shooting in Manchester.

Mr Greenoe was stopped at an airport in Raleigh, North Carolina in July as he attempted to board a flight to Manchester via New York. He had 16 weapons and ammunition magazines in his luggage.

Do you see how gun registration would prevent things like this? Let me explain. Let's say every gun legally bought had to be registered to a licensed gun owners. After three months and every year thereafter he'd have to renew the registration by presenting the gun and documents to the local police of a FFL dealer. Punishment for non-compliance would be swift and severe, the first part of which would be permanent loss of gun rights.

What do you think? Wouldn't that help the problem of gun flow from the lawful gun-owning world into the criminal black market?

Please leave a comment.

More on the Gun flow from Virginia to New Jersey

nj.com reports

We've heard about this case before. Now we get some more info from Mr. Beasley.

The leader of a gunrunning crew responsible for putting at least 50 weapons into the hands of city gangsters -- including the gun that killed 13-year-old Tamrah Leonard at a city block party in 2009 -- pleaded guilty yesterday.

Beasley admitted before Superior Court Judge Pedro Jimenez that he purchased guns in his childhood state of Virginia and sold them to drug dealers and gang members in Trenton.

He was certainly an enterprising young man.  In the report last year it said he liked to deal in revolvers becuase they didn't leave spent cartridges all over the place.  That's smart.

"Seventy-five percent of the crime guns in New Jersey come from out of state, and Virginia is the second biggest source state," state Director of Criminal Justice Stephen J. Taylor said. "Trayle Beasley is precisely the type of defendant we are seeking to take off the street through our efforts to fight illicit gun trafficking."

Don't you just love it when they talk percentages like that? I do.

What's your opinion? Do you think the gun laws are too lax in Virginia? I do.

Please leave a comment.

Rene Jaquez, Academy Award Nominee

Also nominated are all those gun bloggers who are trying to say this is a big deal.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

More on the Gun Smuggling

The Los Angeles Times reports on a big bust of a smuggling operation which worked from Arizona to Mexico.

In a case aimed at stemming the flow of U.S. weapons to the Mexican drug war, federal authorities indicted 20 men Tuesday on charges of buying an estimated 700 weapons in Arizona and conspiring to transfer them across the border, chiefly to the Sinaloa drug cartel.

The case involves the relatively common use of "straw purchasers," legal residents of the state who buy the weapons from licensed gun dealers and certify that they are for their own use, but end up selling the guns to the drug cartels.

We have an answer for that. I don't know what they're waiting for.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Gun Flow - NC to NY

The New York Daily News reports:

A Bloods gang member served as a personal shopper for gun buyers, taking text-message orders from Brooklyn and Manhattan and driving to North Carolina to fill them, prosecutors said.

Kyle Leonard, 25, sold the firepower - including an assault rifle - out of the trunk of his car, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said Tuesday.

Leonard was nailed by NYPD undercover cops who managed an introduction, texted orders to his cell phone and bought $17,500 worth of arms from him in a year.

"This is somebody who contributed to the carnage on our streets," Hynes said in announcing the indictment.

It must be a lot easier to get guns in North Carolina than in New York, dont't you think?

"Something ought to be done to tighten up the way guns are sold, particularly in the South," said the DA, who noted 111 people, including 34 teens, were shot to death in the borough this year.

Yes, we agree, Mr. DA.

What-s your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Ex-Marines Smuggling Guns

As a former marine myself, posting on the Marine Corps Birthday, it pains me to admit that these guys were doing some nickel-and-dime action compared to Navy SEAL Nicholas Bickle who brought guns in directly from Afghanistan, lots of guns.

But there you have it. Even the way the marines procured their weapons was nothing compared to the high drama of the SEAL operation.

In Gitschlag's case, investigators were still trying to determine where the guns came from, but several were purchased at gun shows in Arizona, ATF spokesman Chris Hoffman said.

What's your opinion? If these enterprising ex-marines were driving over to Arizona to by guns for resale to L.A. gangs, do you think others are doing it too?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

The Navy Seal Loophole

Florida Gun Smugglers Sentenced

The sentences seemed extremely heavy at first, but after reading the article, there was more going on here than a few guns going south.

The charges stem from a long-term investigation involving multiple trips by the defendants between Florida, Alabama, and Texas to transport cocaine, methamphetamine, and drug proceeds.  During the course of the conspiracy, members of the conspiracy also endeavored to obtain and smuggle to Mexico as many as 800 fully automatic AK-47 machine guns for use in the drug war between rival drug cartels fighting for control of profitable drug routes into the U.S. 

Fully automatic? Wow. Where do you think they came from? I thought your average FFL guy couldn't sell them. Or can he?

What's your opinion? Are the sentences too severe?  Or is this the way to address the problem?  What about the source of those 800 guns?

Please leave a comment.

Illegal Guns in Canada

YorkRegion.com reports on the illegal handguns that have been taken off the streets in their area of Canada.

The Uzi submachine gun can spew hundreds of rounds per minute. The Glock handgun, capable of firing up to 33 bullets from a single magazine. The tiny Beretta pistol with silencer delivers noiseless death.

These lethal weapons and others were recently and illegally in the hands of criminals. Wednesday, the seized weapons were neatly and safely displayed as part of a police services board presentation on illegal firearms and weapons in our neighbourhoods.

The cache represents some of the 68 hand guns seized in 2007, the 41 last year and the 56 to date this year.

As for illegal long guns, such as rifles and shotguns, police took 188 of them off York streets last year.

This year, the tally is 196.

There's nothing like a little sensationalism when talking about guns I always say. I like that "noiseless death." But the point is well taken, guns are being removed from the streets.

The Canadians feel it's popular culture that glamorizes guns, entertainers, rappers and the like. This combined with the lucrative business of gun running, makes for a serious problem.

A legal standard 9mm pistol sells for approximately $500.

On the street, the same unlicensed weapon fetches up to eight times the price.

Do you think they're exaggerating? If those numbers are true, it's no wonder there's a thriving gun smuggling underworld. And where do you suppose those guns are smuggled from?

Of the 3.65 million firearms produced in the United States in 2008, hundreds are smuggled into Canada each year.

Of the 253,000 handguns and more than two million rifles and shotguns legally registered in Ontario, 16,000 of the former and 70,000 of the latter are in York Region.

Instead of "hundreds," wouldn't you think it's more like thousands or tens of thousands. Why not just call it 90% and get it over with?

Here's a shocker:

Firearms kill more within the 15 to 24 demographic than cancer, drowning and falls combined.

What's your opinion? I can see that cancer might not kill too many in that age bracket, but I always thought falls and drownings did. Does this sound like a credible statistic to you?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.