Ismaaiyl Brinsley, The Brooklyn Cop Shooter - Where'd He Get the Gun

Ismaaiyl Brinsley

Al Jazeera

While authorities search for details in the shooting deaths of two Brooklyn police officers at the hands of Ismaaiyl Brinsley, just hours after he shot his ex-girlfriend in the stomach, they do know that Brinsley did not initially purchase the murder weapon.

Police say Brinsley used a semiautomatic Taurus handgun, bought in 1996 at a pawn shop in Atlanta by someone else, to kill the two officers before turning the gun on himself.

Authorities don’t yet know how the gun got into Brinsley’s hands. But federal law prohibits gun sales to convicted felons. Brinsley would have been barred from legally purchasing a firearm since he had already served two years in prison for firing a stolen gun in Georgia and had been arrested more than a dozen times, though mostly for petty crimes, according to The New York Times. 

But that Brinsley did not directly buy the murder weapon from a shop is not surprising, say criminologists.

Through something known as the “private sale loophole,” he could have purchased the firearm in the private market at a gun show or out of someone’s trunk. Private dealers don’t have to conduct background checks on prospective buyers the way licensed firearms dealers are required to do by federal law. Additionally, guns get stolen, are passed from person to person or bought by so-called “straw purchasers,” those who buy on behalf of felons.

On Armslist, The Craigslist For Guns, 1 in 30 Buyers Already Has A Criminal Record

Fast Company

Forget the so-called "gun-show loophole. To buy a gun without a background check, all you have to do is go online, where websites connect gun buyers and sellers in “private sales” exempt from scrutiny.

Gun control advocates have previously speculated that these kinds of markets are ripe for exploitation, but a new investigation from Mayors Against Illegal Guns provides the best evidence yet. Out of a sample of prospective buyers on Armslist.com, “the ‘Craigslist’ for guns,” one in 30 had a criminal record that would have prohibited them from buying a gun if they hadn't been exempt from the background check.

The report argues this narrow slice is actually a conservative estimate. It considered only criminal records in the buyer's jurisdiction and didn’t check other factors that can make purchasing a gun illegal, like serious mental illness or drug abuse. It also seems intuitively more likely that someone seeking to flout the law would remain anonymous or use the contact information of a friend. The fact that so many would choose instead to post identifying information online is what Bloomberg said most surprised him.

“They just must feel that there’s no enforcement, and there’s not going to be any enforcement,” he said. “And it’s a sad commentary.”

Conservative estimate is right.  The true number is probably 15 out of 30.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

Gun Seller in Killing of Plymouth Officer Fox Sentenced to 20-66 years

Michael Henry, the straw purchaser of the gun used to kill Plymouth police Officer Brad Fox, is led into the courtroom for his sentencing in Montgomery County Courthouse Thursday, Aug. 15, 2013. Photo by Gene Walsh

Local news reports

During an emotion-filled hearing punctuated by tears and grief from the widow and comrades of slain Plymouth police Officer Bradley Fox, a Philadelphia man learned his fate for providing a gun to the Lower Merion man who used it to kill Fox.

Michael Joseph Henry, 31, of the 900 block of North 41st Street, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court on Thursday to 20to66 years in a state correctional facility for selling nine guns, including a Beretta pistol, to convicted felon Andrew Charles Thomas, who used the Beretta to fatally shoot Fox last Sept. 13.

“This defendant is supplying guns to someone who is suicidal and who he thinks is paranoid and he’s arming him to the teeth. I find that to be an aggravating factor,” said Judge Joseph A. Smyth, explaining his reasons for imposing some maximum penalties against Henry. “He placed these guns into the underground market which is usually frequented by criminals.”

Henry, prosecutors said, made “straw purchases” of nine firearms, seven pistols and two rifles, at gun stores in West Norriton, Montgomery County, and East Pikeland, Chester County, between April and July 2012. Henry then illegally transferred the nine weapons, in exchange for $500 each, to Thomas, 44, of Grasmere Road, Lower Merion.

More on the Claim that 40% of Gun Sales are Without Background Checks

 The Blaze

At a recent Senate hearing, Baltimore County Police Chief James Johnson went so far as to say, “Allowing 40 percent of those acquiring guns to bypass background checks is like allowing 40 percent of airline passengers to board a plane without going through airport security.”

What gun control proponents never say, though, is that this oft-repeated statistic is based on stale data that was grossly exaggerated even when it was fresh.

As The Washington Post has pointed out, this 40 percent figure comes from a 1997 report by the National Institute of Justice, a research agency within the Department of Justice, and was based on a telephone survey sample of just 251 people who acquired firearms in 1993 and 1994. This was years before the NICS system went into effect. Of the 251 participants, 35.7 percent said that they didn’t or “probably” didn’t obtain their gun from a licensed firearms dealer. Because the margin of error was +/– 6 percentage points, it was rounded up to 40 percent, although it could just as easily and legitimately have been rounded down below 30 percent.

As we said last time this popped up in the news, you could call it 30% or even 20% and the argument for background checks is the same.

This is the issue which separates the honest and reasonable people from the fanatics. Wayne La Pierre has left his minions without a proper response on this one.  All he says is "criminals won't obey," which is one of the stupidest arguments around.

This is the litmus test for true gun rights fanaticism-

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Wisconsin Spa Shooting Brings Call for New Gun Laws

The Boston Herald reports

Two Wisconsin lawmakers are pushing legislation to tighten the enforcement of gun rules in domestic violence cases, prompted by a fatal shooting rampage at a suburban Milwaukee spa.

Radcliffe Haughton, 45, bought a handgun just two days after his beleaguered wife obtained a restraining order against him. He used that weapon to kill her and two other women Sunday at the salon where she worked, before fatally shooting himself.

Sen. Lena Taylor said the shooting highlights the need for better enforcement of laws that require restraining order recipients to surrender their weapons.

"Across Wisconsin there are inconsistent standards, or sometimes none at all, for the collection of weapons owned by domestic abusers," the Milwaukee Democrat said Monday as she and Rep. Penny Bernard Schaber pushed for the bill.

Radcliffe Haughton’s wife, Zina, secured the four-year restraining order against him on Thursday, at which point he was ordered to hand over all of his firearms to a county sheriff. It’s unclear whether he turned in any weapons.

Around 11 a.m. Sunday, Radcliffe Haughton opened fire at the Azana Day Spa in Brookfield. He had bought the .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun he used in the attack from a private owner on Saturday, according to police in Brown Deer, the Milwaukee suburb where Haughton lived. The seller did nothing illegal; private individuals are not required to conduct background checks or enforce a 48-hour waiting period as licensed gun dealers are under state law.

Taylor’s legislation calls for individuals who are subject to a restraining order to be forced to surrender their firearms within 48 hours or face arrest. The bill failed in 2010 largely due to opposition from the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups.

It seems to me they need to do more than enforce the restrictions on domestic abusers. They need to eliminate the private sales of guns without background checks.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.