CDZ The Gun Supply Chain: People who should not have been allowed near a gun, much less to buy one

[320 Years of History]

Nobody wants to eliminate one's ability to exercise their 2nd Amendment right. Sane folks who want to see gun-caused deaths ended or reduced in number and frequency have been very clear about that. One thing folks in that camp want to do is curtail the instances of seemingly "okay to own a gun" folks exercising that right and then abusing it by shooting another individual, or threatening them with being shot.

​

A material percentage of the guns used in criminal activity are purchased legally, purchased by people who, prior to abusing their gun (gun right), demonstrated no justifiable reason why they should not have been denied the ability to exercise their 2nd Amendment right.

• "By definition, stolen guns are available to criminals. The FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) stolen gun file contains over 2 million reports; 60% are reports of stolen handguns."
  
• "Stolen guns account for only about 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes."
• "In 2014, ATF traced the source of over 170,000 guns used in crimes in the U.S. And well over a quarter of them -- 28 percent -- were used to commit crimes in a state other than the one they were purchased in."
  
  
  
  
  
  
• "The picture is somewhat different here. West Virginia becomes the biggest exporter of crime guns at the per-capita level, with 52 crime guns per every 100,000 residents. Alaska and Mississippi also rank highly, as do a number of states in the south and mountain west. States with stricter gun laws, like New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California, on the other hand, export relatively few crime guns on a per-capita basis."
  
  
  
  
  
• [T]he majority of crime guns in ATF's data -- 72 percent of them -- were purchased in-state.
  
• it is rare for the people who provide these guns to the eventual shooters to face any legal consequences.

Now one cannot in good conscience and sound mind argue in favor of less strict controls on the gun trade using the assertion that (1) a material share of gun buyers exhibit the responsibility required to deserve to exercise their 2nd Amendment right, and (2) at the same time cite the fact most or many guns used nefariously are stolen. Those two facts, assuming they are both true, just don't fit together.

Donald Wayne Bricker, Jr., who pled guilty to shooting his ex-girlfriend, provides an archetypal example of one sort of individual whom I have in mind and who should never have been able to acquire so much as water gun, let alone one that could be used to morally shoot someone.

Donald Wayne Bricker Jr., [a convicted sex offender,] was denied bail after prosecutors told the judge that the gun that Bricker used to allegedly shoot and kill Mariam Folashade Adebayo in the parking lot of the Target store in Germantown had arrived in the mail to his home only that morning. [Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Deborah W.]Feinstein told the court that Bricker had previously purchased 100 rounds of ammunition for the antique and practiced firing it at least once before going to meet Adebayo in the parking lot on Monday evening.

[Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Deborah W.] Feinstein further outlined that violent nature of Bricker telling the court that the gun which Bricker is said to have used had arrived in the mail at his residence in Hagerstown on the morning of the day of the murder. She said that because Bricker, a convicted sex offender and could not legally purchase a firearm, use a loophole in the law to order a replica antique “black powder” gun online and had it delivered through the mail. The purchase of antique firearms and replicas of antique guns is not regulated.​

The above data makes clear that identifying effective and equitable means for dramatically reducing the availability of guns to folks who have nefarious intentions for their use is well worth pursuing. But just how does the supply chain for guns work? How does one interdict transactions and processes in that supply chain that enable current and would be nefarious gun users/abusers from getting hold of a firearm?

According to Dr. Phillip Cook, a professor of public policy at Duke University:

While criminals typically do not buy their guns at a store, all but a tiny fraction of the guns in circulation in the United States are first sold at retail by a gun dealer—including the guns that eventually end up in the hands of criminals. That first retail sale was most likely legal, in that the clerk followed federal and state requirements for documentation, a background check and record-keeping. While there are scofflaw dealers who sometimes make under-the-counter deals, that is by no means the norm.

If a gun ends up in criminal use, it is usually after several more transactions. The average age of guns taken from Chicago gangs is over 11 years. The gun at that point has been diverted from legal commerce. In this respect, the supply chain for guns is similar to the supply chain for other products that have a large legal market but are subject to diversion. In the case of guns, diversion from licit possession and exchange can occur in a variety of ways: theft, purchase at a gun show by an interstate trafficker, private sales where no questions are asked, straw purchases by girlfriends and so forth.

What appears to be true is that there are few big operators in this domain. The typical trafficker or underground broker is not making a living that way, but rather just making a few dollars on the side. The supply chain for guns used in crime bears little relationship to the supply chain for heroin or cocaine and is much more akin to the supply chain for cigarettes and beer that are diverted to underage teenagers.

There have been few attempts to estimate the scope or scale of the underground market, in part because it is not at all clear what types of transactions should be included in that market. But for the sake of having some order-of-magnitude estimate, suppose we just focus on the number of transactions each year that supply the guns actually used in robbery or assault.

There are about 500,000 violent crimes committed with a gun each year. If the average number of times that an offender commits a robbery or assault with a particular gun is twice, then (assuming patterns of criminal gun use remain constant) the total number of transactions of concern is 250,000 per year.

Actually no one knows the average number of times a specific gun is used by an offender who uses it at least once. If it is more than twice, then there are even fewer relevant transactions. That compares with total sales volume by licensed dealers, which is upwards of 20 million per year.

All in the family

So how do gang members, violent criminals, underage youths and other dangerous people get their guns?

A consistent answer emerges from the inmate surveys and from ethnographic studies. Whether guns that end up being used in crime are purchased, swapped, borrowed, shared or stolen, the most likely source is someone known to the offender, an acquaintance or family member. That Farook’s friend and neighbor was the source of two of his guns is quite typical, despite the unique circumstances otherwise.

Also important are “street” sources, such as gang members and drug dealers, which may also entail a prior relationship. Thus, social networks are playing an important role in facilitating transactions, and an individual (such as a gang member) who tends to hang out with people who have guns will find it relatively easy to obtain one.

Effective policing of the underground gun market could help to separate guns from everyday violent crime. Currently it is rare for those who provide guns to offenders to face any legal consequences, and changing that situation will require additional resources directed to a proactive enforcement directed at penetrating the social networks of gun offenders. Needless to say, that effort is not cheap or easy and requires that both the police and the courts have the necessary authority and give this sort of gun enforcement high priority.

It appears that the extraordinarily intense investigation of the San Bernardino shootings has succeeded in identifying the individual in Farook’s social network who provided him with the assault weapons. The fact that Enrique Marquez is likely to pay a price may help discourage such perverse neighborliness in the future.​

Based on the above information, two things are quite clear to me:

• The supply chain individuals, those who have no business obtaining a firearm, may use to obtain a firearm need to be eliminated, or at least broken at the point whereby those persons obtain their access to guns.
• Something needs to be done to make more facile prosecutors' efforts to bring to justice "okay to buy guns" folks who abet gun abusers in their quest to obtain firearms.

The task of identifying effective approaches to achieving those two objective rests not just with gun control devotees, but also with gun rights advocates. Folks on both sides of the matter, as Americans, have an obligation to collaborate to identify and implement solutions that reduce the quantity of gun killings and injuries. In light of that, what specific tactics does the gun lobby propose to accomplish the two objectives noted just above?

We know that you progressives do indeed wish to eliminate the 2nd Amendment. We KNOW this to be true. The rest of your post is propaganda and means nothing. If you truly wished to reduce "gun" crime, you would enforce the laws already on the books, and when somebody does commit a crime with a gun you would send them to prison forever. But no, instead you make sure that violent offenders are always released back out so that they can continue to victimize people so that you can get your gun control laws into place.

Look, as goes the supply chain for guns, I asked one question. Are you willing to offer an answer to it that proposes implementable solution approaches for ensuring that "the wrong people" don't get hold of guns or not?

If you aren't willing and/or able, please stop quoting my posts. I won't receive an alert telling me you replied to my post; thus I won't even know you've posted in the thread and that will be fine with me given that I can't put you on ignore.

 

[2aguy]

Nobody wants to eliminate one's ability to exercise their 2nd Amendment right. Sane folks who want to see gun-caused deaths ended or reduced in number and frequency have been very clear about that. One thing folks in that camp want to do is curtail the instances of seemingly "okay to own a gun" folks exercising that right and then abusing it by shooting another individual, or threatening them with being shot.

​

A material percentage of the guns used in criminal activity are purchased legally, purchased by people who, prior to abusing their gun (gun right), demonstrated no justifiable reason why they should not have been denied the ability to exercise their 2nd Amendment right.

• "By definition, stolen guns are available to criminals. The FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) stolen gun file contains over 2 million reports; 60% are reports of stolen handguns."
  
• "Stolen guns account for only about 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes."
• "In 2014, ATF traced the source of over 170,000 guns used in crimes in the U.S. And well over a quarter of them -- 28 percent -- were used to commit crimes in a state other than the one they were purchased in."
  
  
  
  
  
  
• "The picture is somewhat different here. West Virginia becomes the biggest exporter of crime guns at the per-capita level, with 52 crime guns per every 100,000 residents. Alaska and Mississippi also rank highly, as do a number of states in the south and mountain west. States with stricter gun laws, like New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California, on the other hand, export relatively few crime guns on a per-capita basis."
  
  
  
  
  
• [T]he majority of crime guns in ATF's data -- 72 percent of them -- were purchased in-state.
  
• it is rare for the people who provide these guns to the eventual shooters to face any legal consequences.

Now one cannot in good conscience and sound mind argue in favor of less strict controls on the gun trade using the assertion that (1) a material share of gun buyers exhibit the responsibility required to deserve to exercise their 2nd Amendment right, and (2) at the same time cite the fact most or many guns used nefariously are stolen. Those two facts, assuming they are both true, just don't fit together.

Donald Wayne Bricker, Jr., who pled guilty to shooting his ex-girlfriend, provides an archetypal example of one sort of individual whom I have in mind and who should never have been able to acquire so much as water gun, let alone one that could be used to morally shoot someone.

Donald Wayne Bricker Jr., [a convicted sex offender,] was denied bail after prosecutors told the judge that the gun that Bricker used to allegedly shoot and kill Mariam Folashade Adebayo in the parking lot of the Target store in Germantown had arrived in the mail to his home only that morning. [Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Deborah W.]Feinstein told the court that Bricker had previously purchased 100 rounds of ammunition for the antique and practiced firing it at least once before going to meet Adebayo in the parking lot on Monday evening.

[Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Deborah W.] Feinstein further outlined that violent nature of Bricker telling the court that the gun which Bricker is said to have used had arrived in the mail at his residence in Hagerstown on the morning of the day of the murder. She said that because Bricker, a convicted sex offender and could not legally purchase a firearm, use a loophole in the law to order a replica antique “black powder” gun online and had it delivered through the mail. The purchase of antique firearms and replicas of antique guns is not regulated.​

The above data makes clear that identifying effective and equitable means for dramatically reducing the availability of guns to folks who have nefarious intentions for their use is well worth pursuing. But just how does the supply chain for guns work? How does one interdict transactions and processes in that supply chain that enable current and would be nefarious gun users/abusers from getting hold of a firearm?

According to Dr. Phillip Cook, a professor of public policy at Duke University:

While criminals typically do not buy their guns at a store, all but a tiny fraction of the guns in circulation in the United States are first sold at retail by a gun dealer—including the guns that eventually end up in the hands of criminals. That first retail sale was most likely legal, in that the clerk followed federal and state requirements for documentation, a background check and record-keeping. While there are scofflaw dealers who sometimes make under-the-counter deals, that is by no means the norm.

If a gun ends up in criminal use, it is usually after several more transactions. The average age of guns taken from Chicago gangs is over 11 years. The gun at that point has been diverted from legal commerce. In this respect, the supply chain for guns is similar to the supply chain for other products that have a large legal market but are subject to diversion. In the case of guns, diversion from licit possession and exchange can occur in a variety of ways: theft, purchase at a gun show by an interstate trafficker, private sales where no questions are asked, straw purchases by girlfriends and so forth.

What appears to be true is that there are few big operators in this domain. The typical trafficker or underground broker is not making a living that way, but rather just making a few dollars on the side. The supply chain for guns used in crime bears little relationship to the supply chain for heroin or cocaine and is much more akin to the supply chain for cigarettes and beer that are diverted to underage teenagers.

There have been few attempts to estimate the scope or scale of the underground market, in part because it is not at all clear what types of transactions should be included in that market. But for the sake of having some order-of-magnitude estimate, suppose we just focus on the number of transactions each year that supply the guns actually used in robbery or assault.

There are about 500,000 violent crimes committed with a gun each year. If the average number of times that an offender commits a robbery or assault with a particular gun is twice, then (assuming patterns of criminal gun use remain constant) the total number of transactions of concern is 250,000 per year.

Actually no one knows the average number of times a specific gun is used by an offender who uses it at least once. If it is more than twice, then there are even fewer relevant transactions. That compares with total sales volume by licensed dealers, which is upwards of 20 million per year.

All in the family

So how do gang members, violent criminals, underage youths and other dangerous people get their guns?

A consistent answer emerges from the inmate surveys and from ethnographic studies. Whether guns that end up being used in crime are purchased, swapped, borrowed, shared or stolen, the most likely source is someone known to the offender, an acquaintance or family member. That Farook’s friend and neighbor was the source of two of his guns is quite typical, despite the unique circumstances otherwise.

Also important are “street” sources, such as gang members and drug dealers, which may also entail a prior relationship. Thus, social networks are playing an important role in facilitating transactions, and an individual (such as a gang member) who tends to hang out with people who have guns will find it relatively easy to obtain one.

Effective policing of the underground gun market could help to separate guns from everyday violent crime. Currently it is rare for those who provide guns to offenders to face any legal consequences, and changing that situation will require additional resources directed to a proactive enforcement directed at penetrating the social networks of gun offenders. Needless to say, that effort is not cheap or easy and requires that both the police and the courts have the necessary authority and give this sort of gun enforcement high priority.

It appears that the extraordinarily intense investigation of the San Bernardino shootings has succeeded in identifying the individual in Farook’s social network who provided him with the assault weapons. The fact that Enrique Marquez is likely to pay a price may help discourage such perverse neighborliness in the future.​

Based on the above information, two things are quite clear to me:

• The supply chain individuals, those who have no business obtaining a firearm, may use to obtain a firearm need to be eliminated, or at least broken at the point whereby those persons obtain their access to guns.
• Something needs to be done to make more facile prosecutors' efforts to bring to justice "okay to buy guns" folks who abet gun abusers in their quest to obtain firearms.

The task of identifying effective approaches to achieving those two objective rests not just with gun control devotees, but also with gun rights advocates. Folks on both sides of the matter, as Americans, have an obligation to collaborate to identify and implement solutions that reduce the quantity of gun killings and injuries. In light of that, what specific tactics does the gun lobby propose to accomplish the two objectives noted just above?

We know that you progressives do indeed wish to eliminate the 2nd Amendment. We KNOW this to be true. The rest of your post is propaganda and means nothing. If you truly wished to reduce "gun" crime, you would enforce the laws already on the books, and when somebody does commit a crime with a gun you would send them to prison forever. But no, instead you make sure that violent offenders are always released back out so that they can continue to victimize people so that you can get your gun control laws into place.

Look, as goes the supply chain for guns, I asked one question. Are you willing to offer an answer to it that proposes implementable solution approaches for ensuring that "the wrong people" don't get hold of guns or not?

If you aren't willing and/or able, please stop quoting my posts. I won't receive an alert telling me you replied to my post; thus I won't even know you've posted in the thread and that will be fine with me given that I can't put you on ignore.

Yes....if someone uses a gun to commit a crime...put them in jail for 30 years...the only way to ensure they don't use a gun to kill...and even then, they can get the gun of a guard during a riot or from a law abiding gun owner if they escape....

If you catch a felon with a gun....which they cannot legally buy, own or carry.....put them in jail for 30 years....again, they will not use a gun again to shoot people....except for the gun of a guard or possibly if they escape.

Find a way to do mental health checks in current NICS without infringing on the rights of normal, law abiding people and we can include that in background checks at guns stores.....

And there you go....the realistic way to stop the wrong people from getting guns....

What is your plan?

 

[westwall]

Nobody wants to eliminate one's ability to exercise their 2nd Amendment right. Sane folks who want to see gun-caused deaths ended or reduced in number and frequency have been very clear about that. One thing folks in that camp want to do is curtail the instances of seemingly "okay to own a gun" folks exercising that right and then abusing it by shooting another individual, or threatening them with being shot.

​

A material percentage of the guns used in criminal activity are purchased legally, purchased by people who, prior to abusing their gun (gun right), demonstrated no justifiable reason why they should not have been denied the ability to exercise their 2nd Amendment right.

• "By definition, stolen guns are available to criminals. The FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) stolen gun file contains over 2 million reports; 60% are reports of stolen handguns."
  
• "Stolen guns account for only about 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes."
• "In 2014, ATF traced the source of over 170,000 guns used in crimes in the U.S. And well over a quarter of them -- 28 percent -- were used to commit crimes in a state other than the one they were purchased in."
  
  
  
  
  
  
• "The picture is somewhat different here. West Virginia becomes the biggest exporter of crime guns at the per-capita level, with 52 crime guns per every 100,000 residents. Alaska and Mississippi also rank highly, as do a number of states in the south and mountain west. States with stricter gun laws, like New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California, on the other hand, export relatively few crime guns on a per-capita basis."
  
  
  
  
  
• [T]he majority of crime guns in ATF's data -- 72 percent of them -- were purchased in-state.
  
• it is rare for the people who provide these guns to the eventual shooters to face any legal consequences.

Now one cannot in good conscience and sound mind argue in favor of less strict controls on the gun trade using the assertion that (1) a material share of gun buyers exhibit the responsibility required to deserve to exercise their 2nd Amendment right, and (2) at the same time cite the fact most or many guns used nefariously are stolen. Those two facts, assuming they are both true, just don't fit together.

Donald Wayne Bricker, Jr., who pled guilty to shooting his ex-girlfriend, provides an archetypal example of one sort of individual whom I have in mind and who should never have been able to acquire so much as water gun, let alone one that could be used to morally shoot someone.

Donald Wayne Bricker Jr., [a convicted sex offender,] was denied bail after prosecutors told the judge that the gun that Bricker used to allegedly shoot and kill Mariam Folashade Adebayo in the parking lot of the Target store in Germantown had arrived in the mail to his home only that morning. [Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Deborah W.]Feinstein told the court that Bricker had previously purchased 100 rounds of ammunition for the antique and practiced firing it at least once before going to meet Adebayo in the parking lot on Monday evening.

[Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Deborah W.] Feinstein further outlined that violent nature of Bricker telling the court that the gun which Bricker is said to have used had arrived in the mail at his residence in Hagerstown on the morning of the day of the murder. She said that because Bricker, a convicted sex offender and could not legally purchase a firearm, use a loophole in the law to order a replica antique “black powder” gun online and had it delivered through the mail. The purchase of antique firearms and replicas of antique guns is not regulated.​

The above data makes clear that identifying effective and equitable means for dramatically reducing the availability of guns to folks who have nefarious intentions for their use is well worth pursuing. But just how does the supply chain for guns work? How does one interdict transactions and processes in that supply chain that enable current and would be nefarious gun users/abusers from getting hold of a firearm?

According to Dr. Phillip Cook, a professor of public policy at Duke University:

While criminals typically do not buy their guns at a store, all but a tiny fraction of the guns in circulation in the United States are first sold at retail by a gun dealer—including the guns that eventually end up in the hands of criminals. That first retail sale was most likely legal, in that the clerk followed federal and state requirements for documentation, a background check and record-keeping. While there are scofflaw dealers who sometimes make under-the-counter deals, that is by no means the norm.

If a gun ends up in criminal use, it is usually after several more transactions. The average age of guns taken from Chicago gangs is over 11 years. The gun at that point has been diverted from legal commerce. In this respect, the supply chain for guns is similar to the supply chain for other products that have a large legal market but are subject to diversion. In the case of guns, diversion from licit possession and exchange can occur in a variety of ways: theft, purchase at a gun show by an interstate trafficker, private sales where no questions are asked, straw purchases by girlfriends and so forth.

What appears to be true is that there are few big operators in this domain. The typical trafficker or underground broker is not making a living that way, but rather just making a few dollars on the side. The supply chain for guns used in crime bears little relationship to the supply chain for heroin or cocaine and is much more akin to the supply chain for cigarettes and beer that are diverted to underage teenagers.

There have been few attempts to estimate the scope or scale of the underground market, in part because it is not at all clear what types of transactions should be included in that market. But for the sake of having some order-of-magnitude estimate, suppose we just focus on the number of transactions each year that supply the guns actually used in robbery or assault.

There are about 500,000 violent crimes committed with a gun each year. If the average number of times that an offender commits a robbery or assault with a particular gun is twice, then (assuming patterns of criminal gun use remain constant) the total number of transactions of concern is 250,000 per year.

Actually no one knows the average number of times a specific gun is used by an offender who uses it at least once. If it is more than twice, then there are even fewer relevant transactions. That compares with total sales volume by licensed dealers, which is upwards of 20 million per year.

All in the family

So how do gang members, violent criminals, underage youths and other dangerous people get their guns?

A consistent answer emerges from the inmate surveys and from ethnographic studies. Whether guns that end up being used in crime are purchased, swapped, borrowed, shared or stolen, the most likely source is someone known to the offender, an acquaintance or family member. That Farook’s friend and neighbor was the source of two of his guns is quite typical, despite the unique circumstances otherwise.

Also important are “street” sources, such as gang members and drug dealers, which may also entail a prior relationship. Thus, social networks are playing an important role in facilitating transactions, and an individual (such as a gang member) who tends to hang out with people who have guns will find it relatively easy to obtain one.

Effective policing of the underground gun market could help to separate guns from everyday violent crime. Currently it is rare for those who provide guns to offenders to face any legal consequences, and changing that situation will require additional resources directed to a proactive enforcement directed at penetrating the social networks of gun offenders. Needless to say, that effort is not cheap or easy and requires that both the police and the courts have the necessary authority and give this sort of gun enforcement high priority.

It appears that the extraordinarily intense investigation of the San Bernardino shootings has succeeded in identifying the individual in Farook’s social network who provided him with the assault weapons. The fact that Enrique Marquez is likely to pay a price may help discourage such perverse neighborliness in the future.​

Based on the above information, two things are quite clear to me:

• The supply chain individuals, those who have no business obtaining a firearm, may use to obtain a firearm need to be eliminated, or at least broken at the point whereby those persons obtain their access to guns.
• Something needs to be done to make more facile prosecutors' efforts to bring to justice "okay to buy guns" folks who abet gun abusers in their quest to obtain firearms.

The task of identifying effective approaches to achieving those two objective rests not just with gun control devotees, but also with gun rights advocates. Folks on both sides of the matter, as Americans, have an obligation to collaborate to identify and implement solutions that reduce the quantity of gun killings and injuries. In light of that, what specific tactics does the gun lobby propose to accomplish the two objectives noted just above?

We know that you progressives do indeed wish to eliminate the 2nd Amendment. We KNOW this to be true. The rest of your post is propaganda and means nothing. If you truly wished to reduce "gun" crime, you would enforce the laws already on the books, and when somebody does commit a crime with a gun you would send them to prison forever. But no, instead you make sure that violent offenders are always released back out so that they can continue to victimize people so that you can get your gun control laws into place.

Look, as goes the supply chain for guns, I asked one question. Are you willing to offer an answer to it that proposes implementable solution approaches for ensuring that "the wrong people" don't get hold of guns or not?

If you aren't willing and/or able, please stop quoting my posts. I won't receive an alert telling me you replied to my post; thus I won't even know you've posted in the thread and that will be fine with me given that I can't put you on ignore.

The supply line of guns is a propaganda piece. France has shown that the only effect that gun bans have is to disarm the population at large, and make the cost of guns for the bad guys go up a bit. That's it. France has had a single mass shooting that killed more people than all of those in the USA combined over the last 15 years. That is a fact.

I understand that you only want to address your talking points, but your talking points are nonsensical. You ignore every other aspect of criminal behavior which actually drives violent crime.

How about you address the actual real cause of crime.

 

[westwall]

Nobody wants to eliminate one's ability to exercise their 2nd Amendment right. Sane folks who want to see gun-caused deaths ended or reduced in number and frequency have been very clear about that. One thing folks in that camp want to do is curtail the instances of seemingly "okay to own a gun" folks exercising that right and then abusing it by shooting another individual, or threatening them with being shot.

​

A material percentage of the guns used in criminal activity are purchased legally, purchased by people who, prior to abusing their gun (gun right), demonstrated no justifiable reason why they should not have been denied the ability to exercise their 2nd Amendment right.

• "By definition, stolen guns are available to criminals. The FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) stolen gun file contains over 2 million reports; 60% are reports of stolen handguns."
  
• "Stolen guns account for only about 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes."
• "In 2014, ATF traced the source of over 170,000 guns used in crimes in the U.S. And well over a quarter of them -- 28 percent -- were used to commit crimes in a state other than the one they were purchased in."
  
  
  
  
  
  
• "The picture is somewhat different here. West Virginia becomes the biggest exporter of crime guns at the per-capita level, with 52 crime guns per every 100,000 residents. Alaska and Mississippi also rank highly, as do a number of states in the south and mountain west. States with stricter gun laws, like New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California, on the other hand, export relatively few crime guns on a per-capita basis."
  
  
  
  
  
• [T]he majority of crime guns in ATF's data -- 72 percent of them -- were purchased in-state.
  
• it is rare for the people who provide these guns to the eventual shooters to face any legal consequences.

Now one cannot in good conscience and sound mind argue in favor of less strict controls on the gun trade using the assertion that (1) a material share of gun buyers exhibit the responsibility required to deserve to exercise their 2nd Amendment right, and (2) at the same time cite the fact most or many guns used nefariously are stolen. Those two facts, assuming they are both true, just don't fit together.

Donald Wayne Bricker, Jr., who pled guilty to shooting his ex-girlfriend, provides an archetypal example of one sort of individual whom I have in mind and who should never have been able to acquire so much as water gun, let alone one that could be used to morally shoot someone.

Donald Wayne Bricker Jr., [a convicted sex offender,] was denied bail after prosecutors told the judge that the gun that Bricker used to allegedly shoot and kill Mariam Folashade Adebayo in the parking lot of the Target store in Germantown had arrived in the mail to his home only that morning. [Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Deborah W.]Feinstein told the court that Bricker had previously purchased 100 rounds of ammunition for the antique and practiced firing it at least once before going to meet Adebayo in the parking lot on Monday evening.

[Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Deborah W.] Feinstein further outlined that violent nature of Bricker telling the court that the gun which Bricker is said to have used had arrived in the mail at his residence in Hagerstown on the morning of the day of the murder. She said that because Bricker, a convicted sex offender and could not legally purchase a firearm, use a loophole in the law to order a replica antique “black powder” gun online and had it delivered through the mail. The purchase of antique firearms and replicas of antique guns is not regulated.​

The above data makes clear that identifying effective and equitable means for dramatically reducing the availability of guns to folks who have nefarious intentions for their use is well worth pursuing. But just how does the supply chain for guns work? How does one interdict transactions and processes in that supply chain that enable current and would be nefarious gun users/abusers from getting hold of a firearm?

According to Dr. Phillip Cook, a professor of public policy at Duke University:

While criminals typically do not buy their guns at a store, all but a tiny fraction of the guns in circulation in the United States are first sold at retail by a gun dealer—including the guns that eventually end up in the hands of criminals. That first retail sale was most likely legal, in that the clerk followed federal and state requirements for documentation, a background check and record-keeping. While there are scofflaw dealers who sometimes make under-the-counter deals, that is by no means the norm.

If a gun ends up in criminal use, it is usually after several more transactions. The average age of guns taken from Chicago gangs is over 11 years. The gun at that point has been diverted from legal commerce. In this respect, the supply chain for guns is similar to the supply chain for other products that have a large legal market but are subject to diversion. In the case of guns, diversion from licit possession and exchange can occur in a variety of ways: theft, purchase at a gun show by an interstate trafficker, private sales where no questions are asked, straw purchases by girlfriends and so forth.

What appears to be true is that there are few big operators in this domain. The typical trafficker or underground broker is not making a living that way, but rather just making a few dollars on the side. The supply chain for guns used in crime bears little relationship to the supply chain for heroin or cocaine and is much more akin to the supply chain for cigarettes and beer that are diverted to underage teenagers.

There have been few attempts to estimate the scope or scale of the underground market, in part because it is not at all clear what types of transactions should be included in that market. But for the sake of having some order-of-magnitude estimate, suppose we just focus on the number of transactions each year that supply the guns actually used in robbery or assault.

There are about 500,000 violent crimes committed with a gun each year. If the average number of times that an offender commits a robbery or assault with a particular gun is twice, then (assuming patterns of criminal gun use remain constant) the total number of transactions of concern is 250,000 per year.

Actually no one knows the average number of times a specific gun is used by an offender who uses it at least once. If it is more than twice, then there are even fewer relevant transactions. That compares with total sales volume by licensed dealers, which is upwards of 20 million per year.

All in the family

So how do gang members, violent criminals, underage youths and other dangerous people get their guns?

A consistent answer emerges from the inmate surveys and from ethnographic studies. Whether guns that end up being used in crime are purchased, swapped, borrowed, shared or stolen, the most likely source is someone known to the offender, an acquaintance or family member. That Farook’s friend and neighbor was the source of two of his guns is quite typical, despite the unique circumstances otherwise.

Also important are “street” sources, such as gang members and drug dealers, which may also entail a prior relationship. Thus, social networks are playing an important role in facilitating transactions, and an individual (such as a gang member) who tends to hang out with people who have guns will find it relatively easy to obtain one.

Effective policing of the underground gun market could help to separate guns from everyday violent crime. Currently it is rare for those who provide guns to offenders to face any legal consequences, and changing that situation will require additional resources directed to a proactive enforcement directed at penetrating the social networks of gun offenders. Needless to say, that effort is not cheap or easy and requires that both the police and the courts have the necessary authority and give this sort of gun enforcement high priority.

It appears that the extraordinarily intense investigation of the San Bernardino shootings has succeeded in identifying the individual in Farook’s social network who provided him with the assault weapons. The fact that Enrique Marquez is likely to pay a price may help discourage such perverse neighborliness in the future.​

Based on the above information, two things are quite clear to me:

• The supply chain individuals, those who have no business obtaining a firearm, may use to obtain a firearm need to be eliminated, or at least broken at the point whereby those persons obtain their access to guns.
• Something needs to be done to make more facile prosecutors' efforts to bring to justice "okay to buy guns" folks who abet gun abusers in their quest to obtain firearms.

The task of identifying effective approaches to achieving those two objective rests not just with gun control devotees, but also with gun rights advocates. Folks on both sides of the matter, as Americans, have an obligation to collaborate to identify and implement solutions that reduce the quantity of gun killings and injuries. In light of that, what specific tactics does the gun lobby propose to accomplish the two objectives noted just above?

We know that you progressives do indeed wish to eliminate the 2nd Amendment. We KNOW this to be true. The rest of your post is propaganda and means nothing. If you truly wished to reduce "gun" crime, you would enforce the laws already on the books, and when somebody does commit a crime with a gun you would send them to prison forever. But no, instead you make sure that violent offenders are always released back out so that they can continue to victimize people so that you can get your gun control laws into place.

Notice how nothing he posts would actually do anything about actual criminals who use guns for crime.....?

The laws they want to enact never do. Crime control is not their goal. Disarming the public is. That way the one percenters can turn us all into the slaves they want us to be. Or simply kill us as being a burden on them. Progressives are about control. The control that they have over everyone else. They are a truly evil group.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

And again you are wrong. The Bill of Rights only exists within the boundaries of judicial review. SCOTUS says "you can't yell fire in a theater" guess what? You can't yell fire in a theater.

The illegal usurpation of this power notwithstanding, courts and judges do not have any legitimate authority to override the Constitution. The Constitution is the highest law in this nation.

 

[Fair&Balanced]

And again you are wrong. The Bill of Rights only exists within the boundaries of judicial review. SCOTUS says "you can't yell fire in a theater" guess what? You can't yell fire in a theater.

The illegal usurpation of this power notwithstanding, courts and judges do not have any legitimate authority to override the Constitution. The Constitution is the highest law in this nation.

SCOTUS OF COURSE has the authority to interpret the COTUS. Now , you may have an argument about the original legitimacy of such a power, but at this point that is a moot point,

And further, the methods I suggest for "gun control" are merely gun owner control. Not gun control . And further, I suspect that you agree that Voter ID laws are good and necessary, and the fact is that Voter ID laws are exactly no different than Background checks for purchasing firearms.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Look, as goes the supply chain for guns, I asked one question. Are you willing to offer an answer to it that proposes implementable solution approaches for ensuring that "the wrong people" don't get hold of guns or not?

The answer is simple and obvious, and when we used to do it, it worked just fine; but those of you on the left wrong oppose it for exactly the same reason that you attack the Second Amendment, which is that you are willfully on the side of criminals, and against that of law-abiding citizens.

The answer is that when someone is satisfactorily proven, through due process of law, to be so criminally dangerous that he cannot be allowed to be part of free society; to permanently remove him from free society, to other put him to death, or else keep him in prison for life with no chance of parole or other release.

If those of you on the left wrong really were interested in fighting crime, then you would support this, and you would oppose all efforts to interfere with the free exercise of the rights affirmed in the Second Amendment.

That you oppose appropriate sentences for hard criminals, and you oppose the people's right to keep and bear arms, makes it very clear whose side you are on, and it is not the side of law-abiding citizens.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

SCOTUS OF COURSE has the authority to interpret the COTUS. Now , you may have an argument about the original legitimacy of such a power, but at this point that is a moot point,

No, they do not have that authority. This is a power that they illegally usurped.

This certainly should be obvious when they “interpret” the Constitution to mean something that directly and irreconcilably contradicts what it clearly says.

 

[Fair&Balanced]

SCOTUS OF COURSE has the authority to interpret the COTUS. Now , you may have an argument about the original legitimacy of such a power, but at this point that is a moot point,

No, they do not have that authority. This is a power that they illegally usurped.

This certainly should be obvious when they “interpret” the Constitution to mean something that directly and irreconcilably contradicts what it clearly says.

Just because you disagree with a particular ruling does not mean you are correct and SCOTUS is wrong in what is meant by the COTUS.

For example, do you argue that released felons should be able to purchase firearms? Don't give me any babble about "they should be in prison" that is beyond the scope of the question. Simple yes or no question. Do you believe felons who have served their sentence should be allowed to legally purchase firearms?

 

[Bob Blaylock]

And further, the methods I suggest for "gun control" are merely gun owner control. Not gun control .

Did you really mean to admit that? It's not like it;'s any secret, but it's a rather uprising admission, that those of you on the left [n]wrong[/b] want to control the people. You want government to be the master over the people, and not the servant to the people. And, of course, the greatest threat and obstacle to the sort of tyrannical control that those on your side want is a populace that is capable of resisting, with deadly violence, if necessary. THAT is one of the primary reasons that your side supports “gun control”.

And further, I suspect that you agree that Voter ID laws are good and necessary, and the fact is that Voter ID laws are exactly no different than Background checks for purchasing firearms.

And it's also no secret why your side is opposed to protecting the integrity of the electoral process against vote fraud. Yours is the side that hopes to benefit from such fraud. Allowing illegal votes to be cast and counted violates the rights of every legitimate voter to have his vote carry the proper weight.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

For example, do you argue that released felons should be able to purchase firearms? Don't give me any babble about "they should be in prison" that is beyond the scope of the question. Simple yes or no question. Do you believe felons who have served their sentence should be allowed to legally purchase firearms?

We can argue about whether pigs would be able to fly, if they had wings, but that's beside the point.

Dangerous, convicted criminals, need to be kept out of the free population. They need to be kept in prison, or else put to death. Your side opposes this, because you are on the side of the criminals, and against that of law-abiding citizens. And you support “gun control” for the same reason.

No, I am not going to let you get away with using the consequences of one of your side's defective policy positions as an excuse for another defective policy position.

But to answer your question, yes, absolutely. A person with a criminal past, who has served his sentence, and “paid his debt to society”, does not owe society any more loss of his own rights. Yes, he absolutely has as much right to keep and bear arms, as affirmed by the Second Amendment, as every other free citizen, and government has no authority to violate this right.

If allowing him this right is dangerous, then the error is not in allowing a free man this right; but rather in having giving him a sentence that was not appropriate for his established level of criminality. If he's that dangerous, then he never should have been set free.

 

[Fair&Balanced]

For example, do you argue that released felons should be able to purchase firearms? Don't give me any babble about "they should be in prison" that is beyond the scope of the question. Simple yes or no question. Do you believe felons who have served their sentence should be allowed to legally purchase firearms?

We can argue about whether pigs would be able to fly, if they had wings, but that's beside the point.

Dangerous, convicted criminals, need to be kept out of the free population. They need to be kept in prison, or else put to death. Your side opposes this, because you are on the side of the criminals, and against that of law-abiding citizens. And you support “gun control” for the same reason.

No, I am not going to let you get away with using the consequences of one of your side's defective policy positions as an excuse for another defective policy position.

But to answer your question, yes, absolutely. A person with a criminal past, who has served his sentence, and “paid his debt to society”, does not owe society any more loss of his own rights. Yes, he absolutely ha as much right to keep and bear arms, as affirmed by the Second Amendment, as every other free citizen, and government has no authority to violate this right.

If allowing him this right is dangerous, then the error is not in allowing a free man this right; but rather in having giving him a sentence that was not appropriate for his established level of criminality. If he's that dangerous, then he never should have been set free.

Why won't you answer the fucking question? That's a sorry assed liberal technique. Be a man, and honestly defend your position. Do you believe felons who have served their sentence should be able to buy a firearm? Yes or no?

 

[320 Years of History]

Look, as goes the supply chain for guns, I asked one question. Are you willing to offer an answer to it that proposes implementable solution approaches for ensuring that "the wrong people" don't get hold of guns or not?

The answer is simple and obvious, and when we used to do it, it worked just fine; but those of you on the [color=#a0a0a0[/color] wrong oppose it for exactly the same reason that you attack the Second Amendment, which is that you are willfully on the side of criminals, and against that of law-abiding citizens.

The answer is that when someone is satisfactorily proven, through due process of law, to be so criminally dangerous that he cannot be allowed to be part of free society; to permanently remove him from free society, to other put him to death, or else keep him in prison for life with no chance of parole or other release.

If those of you on the [color=#a0a0a0[/color] wrong really were interested in fighting crime, then you would support this, and you would oppose all efforts to interfere with the free exercise of the rights affirmed in the Second Amendment.

That you oppose appropriate sentences for hard criminals, and you oppose the people's right to keep and bear arms, makes it very clear whose side you are on, and it is not the side of law-abiding citizens.

Yes, someone mentioned assigning the death sentence or life imprisonment for a whole host of acts. There are surely other solutions. I appreciate your having offered that solution. TY.

Red:
Frankly, I'm far more interested in dissuading people from committing acts of crime than I am in reacting to their having committed a crime. The latter is, of course, what we must do when folks commit crimes, but removing the impetus and enablers for committing one in the first place strikes me as a far better approach.

• When they were young, I let my kids take a tiny sip of whatever alcoholic beverage I was drinking at the time. Invariably, they didn't like the taste and thought I was weird for liking it. As a result, they never raided the bar seeing as they knew there was nothing there they wanted. They never had to find out whether they'd get in trouble, or how badly, for drinking my hootch.
• I can't recall when I ever didn't (upon my kids becoming old enough to understand the value of money) have a couple thousand dollars (give or take) in my nightstand drawer and $1K stashed in my cars "just in case." I even kept $500 dollars in the car my kids used until they got their own cars and had to fund their "just in case" stash on their own. My kids knew the money was there, but they never ventured to take it. They had ample ways they could earn the money they needed and doing that was more appealing than was risking my retribution.

The same basic principles will work for adults too. We just need a system that affords folks a reasonable chance of obtaining the things they need -- be it recognition, entertainment, or objects -- without having to resort to violence, most especially firearm (or bow and arrow, bladed, slingshot, etc.) violence.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

For example, do you argue that released felons should be able to purchase firearms? Don't give me any babble about "they should be in prison" that is beyond the scope of the question. Simple yes or no question. Do you believe felons who have served their sentence should be allowed to legally purchase firearms?

We can argue about whether pigs would be able to fly, if they had wings, but that's beside the point.

Dangerous, convicted criminals, need to be kept out of the free population. They need to be kept in prison, or else put to death. Your side opposes this, because you are on the side of the criminals, and against that of law-abiding citizens. And you support “gun control” for the same reason.

No, I am not going to let you get away with using the consequences of one of your side's defective policy positions as an excuse for another defective policy position.

But to answer your question, yes, absolutely. A person with a criminal past, who has served his sentence, and “paid his debt to society”, does not owe society any more loss of his own rights. Yes, he absolutely has as much right to keep and bear arms, as affirmed by the Second Amendment, as every other free citizen, and government has no authority to violate this right.

If allowing him this right is dangerous, then the error is not in allowing a free man this right; but rather in having giving him a sentence that was not appropriate for his established level of criminality. If he's that dangerous, then he never should have been set free.

Why won't you answer the [Fair&Balanced]ing question? That's a sorry assed liberal technique. Be a man, and honestly defend your position. Do you believe felons who have served their sentence should be able to buy a firearm? Yes or no?

I did answer the question.

Look at the paragraph in my post, which you quoted, beginning with “But to answer your question….” The very next word is the answer you demanded.

 

[Fair&Balanced]

For example, do you argue that released felons should be able to purchase firearms? Don't give me any babble about "they should be in prison" that is beyond the scope of the question. Simple yes or no question. Do you believe felons who have served their sentence should be allowed to legally purchase firearms?

We can argue about whether pigs would be able to fly, if they had wings, but that's beside the point.

Dangerous, convicted criminals, need to be kept out of the free population. They need to be kept in prison, or else put to death. Your side opposes this, because you are on the side of the criminals, and against that of law-abiding citizens. And you support “gun control” for the same reason.

No, I am not going to let you get away with using the consequences of one of your side's defective policy positions as an excuse for another defective policy position.

But to answer your question, yes, absolutely. A person with a criminal past, who has served his sentence, and “paid his debt to society”, does not owe society any more loss of his own rights. Yes, he absolutely has as much right to keep and bear arms, as affirmed by the Second Amendment, as every other free citizen, and government has no authority to violate this right.

If allowing him this right is dangerous, then the error is not in allowing a free man this right; but rather in having giving him a sentence that was not appropriate for his established level of criminality. If he's that dangerous, then he never should have been set free.

Why won't you answer the [Fair&Balanced]ing question? That's a sorry assed liberal technique. Be a man, and honestly defend your position. Do you believe felons who have served their sentence should be able to buy a firearm? Yes or no?

I did answer the question.

Look at the paragraph in my post, which you quoted, beginning with “But to answer your question….” The very next word is the answer you demanded.

My apologies, I completely overlooked that.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Frankly, I'm far more interested in dissuading people from committing acts of crime than I am in reacting to their having committed a crime.

Please do not insult my intelligent by continuing to repeat this transparent lie, that you care at all about reducing crime; as if to suggest that I am stupid enough to give it any credence.

If you cared about this, then you would agree with me that dangerous criminals should not be released back into the free population; and you would also not support any impairment of the people's right to possess arms with which to defend themselves against criminals.

You've made it clear enough whose side you are on. Be known by the company that you choose to keep.

 

[Fair&Balanced]

Frankly, I'm far more interested in dissuading people from committing acts of crime than I am in reacting to their having committed a crime.

Please do not insult my intelligent by continuing to repeat this transparent lie, that you care at all about reducing crime; as if to suggest that I am stupid enough to give it any credence.

If you cared about this, then you would agree with me that dangerous criminals should not be released back into the free population; and you would also not support any impairment of the people's right to possess arms with which to defend themselves against criminals.

You've made it clear enough whose side you are on. Be known by the company that you choose to keep.

but as to your answer to my previous question.

Let's suppose that a pedophile has served his sentence, do you think he should then be allowed to hang around schools? After all, he served his sentence.......

 

[320 Years of History]

Please do not insult my intelligent by continuing to repeat this transparent lie

Look, you can call me a liar if you want, but I haven't something different to say because you do.

And, BTW, unless you can prove that I've lied about something - -and I know you cannot for I have not lied about anything in a very long time, even when it would have been easier for me to have done -- please refrain from calling my remarks lies I've made, thus implying that I'm a liar.

 

[Fair&Balanced]

Please do not insult my intelligent by continuing to repeat this transparent lie

Look, you can call me a liar if you want, but I haven't something different to say because you do.

And, BTW, unless you can prove that I've lied about something - -and I know you cannot for I have not lied about anything in a very long time, even when it would have been easier for me to have done -- please refrain from calling my remarks lies I've made, thus implying that I'm a liar.

Well then, make it clear.

Would you support a law that demanded a 20 year sentence for any person caught with an illegal weapon?

Yes or no?

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Would you support a law that demanded a 20 year sentence for any person caught with an illegal weapon?

Yes or no?

No, I would not support imprisoning anyone for legitimately exercising a Constitutionally-affirmed right.