Police illegally sell restricted weapons, supplying crime
cbsnews.com
cbsnews.com
1. Cop buys the kinds firearms regular people can buy using law enforcement discounts and then makes an otherwise legal private sale to profit from this. This violates the terms of these law enforcement discount programs. Also, federal law requires people who buy and sell firearms for profit have a federal firearms license. These firearms sometimes are used in crime.
2. In some jurisdictions like California and Massachusetts, law enforcement can buy certain handguns new that normal people cannot. This isn't about safety as these handguns are not capable of anything that the approved handguns are not. It's solely a measure to harm the market for handguns by restricting the kinds of handguns available and increasing their prices. Cops can legally sell these unapproved handguns to normal people. The problem here, again, is doing it for profit. These firearms sometimes are used in crime.
3. Cops buying "assault weapons" and then making illegal private sales to normal people who can't lawfully buy these weapons. This is nowhere near as common as the first two scenarios.
4. Cops playing games with post-1986 machinegun regulations so that federal firearms licensees who pay a special tax can acquire machineguns to rent to the public at ranges or just for their own personal fun. These firearms, which often are significantly more dangerous than the kinds of firearms normal people can lawfully acquire, have never been used in a crime.
Scenarios 1 and 2 have no public safety impact beyond private sales generally. Scenario 3 is only problematic from a public safety standpoint if you believe "assault weapons" are uniquely dangerous, which they aren't. Scenario 4 has not resulted in any violent crime.
I don't necessarily want to have that whole debate again, which I guess I could do by pressing the point, so much as to make space in this subthread for "maybe that one part of your strong comment is not as settled as you're making it out to be".
Statistically speaking, based on shootings and crime, pistols are much more "dangerous". For whatever reason we've made laws solely on long gun features though.
- finger printing
- background checks
- no sale registries
- psych evals
- closing private sale (non FFL) and gun convention loopholes
New Yorks style of gun control is not what I think is effective or reasonable. It's just making the process more arduous and arbitrary without effecting the illegal sale market, where most of these crimes statistically occur.
Edit:
Throwing a point in post edit: Detachable magazines are actually not the deciding factor in the SAFE act. You can have a detachable magazine, just not when combined with a muzzle device (eg: a muzzle break or compensator).
Why?
> background checks
These are being done, what else?
> psych evals
Ah, a subjective means to deny rights. Also, who is paying for this? Maybe you should have to have a psych eval to cast a vote.
> gun convention loopholes
Yesterday's compromise to pass the Brady bill is now being referred to as a "loophole." Do you see why that might make folks concerned about a restrictive agenda?
Brady I don't have much of an opinion on. I do know, as a value, that I buy all of my firearms through a licensed FFL. It's at most $50 + shipping. I don't think that's too restrictive.
> Brady I don't have much of an opinion on. I do know, as a value, that I buy all of my firearms through a licensed FFL. It's at most $50 + shipping. I don't think that's too restrictive.
I think we, as gun owners, do need to acknowledge there are people who go to gun shows to illegally acquire weapons or perform strawman sales with relative ease. Maybe my solution isn't the best, but it does need addressing.
If you really want to tread into analoging ownership to voting I think you'll be very disappointed. We require a lot of hurdles to vote. You have to go to an authorized voting location (akin to going to an FFL), you have to present ID that is known to the state so they can correlate that you are, in fact, in the right place (all those checks I mentioned), and afterwards they determine whether everyone who voted was eligible to vote. If they weren't, they're charged with a serious crime.
Not in most states.
---
There are people that go to the polling booth and commit voter fraud with relative ease, therefore it needs addressed.
The Brady bill was allowed to proceed because of the guarantee that people wouldn't need to involve the government to conduct a private sale between two individuals or gift firearms between father and son, for instance.
Calling it a loophole that "does need addressing" is reneging on a compromise.
Also, have you ever been to a gun show? Recently? Do you know the actual, real percentage of FFLs present vs private individuals? Today, these shows are composed of 95% FFLs anyway, all of whom perform background checks - and the available deals are shitty.
While I'm sure there's a non-zero amount of fraud going on, by all official accounts the actual rate is negligible.
> Today, these shows are composed of 95% FFLs anyway, all of whom perform background checks
I have been to a gun show recently. We can, and should, close that 5% gap. An FFL is an intermediary and the ATF doesn't retain records about transactions they do by law. FFLs will maintain their own records, but they're no some widely searchable database (which is what people fear in an Orwellian sense).
Good luck getting compliance without a formal registry.. oh wait.
All that needs to happen is the prohibition of private sale outside of an FFL. From there you can penalize gun shows that allow non-FFL holders to sell.
As I said earlier, there's not a good reason not to transact through an FFL. They're charged with maintaining your privacy as a purchaser while simultaneously preventing strawman purchases. They're a very basic extension of nearly every pawn broker.
Thankfully, home manufacturing (a protected activity) of firearms is becoming cheap, simple and effective via 3D printing and machining - this is already a SCOTUS-affirmed, historically-legal activity.
What's next, regulating CNC machines and 3D printers?
I don't really get why you're so defensive on this point? Like yeah, psych evals are probably a bit too onerous for every gun owner to go through just because of the time commitment alone but you seem to take issue with them on principle.
On principle I don't take issue with adding requirements to vote, you're more than welcome to push for them but additional restrictions do go counter the goal of increasing turnout which is already embarrassingly low.
Also I'm not taking a stance one way or another on the gun show thing, I personally don't care about them that much but by any definition they are a loophole. Even more so it's a near full escape hatch from the law. Instant background checks could be as easy as one of those Square payment terminals if we let it, the burden is really low.
Where in the Constitution does a "psych eval" constitute due process?
Why can I not be required to pay to exercise my right to vote?
When I got my CHL in Texas I was required to get a psych eval because I'm a veteran. Here's the form: https://www.dshs.texas.gov/sites/default/files/medical-advis...
You pay for it, but any old doctor can affirm the things on that form.
Reasonable is both a legal term used in legislation and a term that appears in gun debates at a disproportionate ratio.
The question here is whether there exists a meaningful category of weapons called "assault weapons" (yes: the semi-automatic and select-fire long guns with detachable magazines, which were designed as weapons of war) and whether they are more dangerous than other legal firearms (yes).
The earliest form of a magazine was the repeating rifle and it predates the Civil War. Clips, the earlier form of what we colloquially call a magazine, evolved through the same way. Where it converges was with the development of the M1 Garand that took a clip during WWII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Garand
None of this, as I said, is effectual to solving the problem people want to solve so the discussion is kind of moot. "Assault Weapon" is a grouping that some politicians came up with based on arbitrary characteristics. I think it's useful for appealing to their voter base that doesn't want to think too much about solving the actual problem of people who want to cause violence using gun. Beyond that, the term loses value rapidly.
That's a very narrow, parsimonious claim, which is part of what makes it easy to defend.
It’s pretty clear statistically that handguns are in fact much much more dangerous than assault weapons.
But you don’t need to prove that to be anti-assault weapon but it feels very weird to look at the stats around these things and conclude that’s where the focus should be.
I think the focus is on assault weapons because handguns are off limits. The populace wants them and the courts are pretty clear on them.
If you're aiming to prevent the most firearm-related deaths, you focus on handguns.
If you're aiming to prevent mass shootings, assault weapons are very relevant.
You can ask "why prevent mass shootings, when ordinary shootings kill more people", and of course someone else can say "why focus on shootings at all when cars kill more people".
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R48276
I’d guess you mean the mass public shooting one.
It’s hard to find comprehensive data on all the dimensions but in this report for instance https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R44126.pdf
You’ll see 16 of 66 mass public shootings were performed by assault weapons that were illegal under the Brady ban but legal now (another one was an illegal conversion and a final one was performed by a police officer who could legally purchase under either regime).
So I don’t agree with you about where you’d focus if you wanted to stop mass shootings.
And worse than that I think focusing on assault rifles especially turns what is a pretty universally agreed upon problem (mass shootings are increasing and becoming more deadly) into a culture war issue.
The courts are nearly certain to affirm civilians rights to own assault rifles soon. We can keep chasing ever more caricatured laws around weapon definitions or we can focus on things that don’t require the culture war: - strong and universal enforcement of the laws on the books that don’t abridge the legal possession rights of citizens (felony straw purchase enforcement, background checks, felony bans, etc) - make domestic abuse disqualifying for firearm ownership (by making it a higher class of crime and enforcing it) - red flag laws and training on identification (including a process to surrender firearms when in crisis and to regain your rights when not) - repeal all the crazy laws preventing the gun industry from being researched and sued - safe storage laws - civil and criminal liability for providing firearms used in crimes
And while we’re at it let’s get gun owners mental health resources and build a culture where it’s normal to store guns outside of your house if you start having suicidal thoughts.
No. Both you and the people you're arguing against think that the category of "assault weapons" exist, but you're using your own definition whereas others are using the legal definition. Why are you clinging so hard to the phrase "assault weapons" specifically? People who are using the legal definition have a pretty strong claim to that definition, because it's literally enshrined in law. Why not say "guns with detachable magazines" or whatever and save everyone from pointless word lawyering?
You must be well-aware that handguns are much more tightly controlled than long guns pretty much across the board, totally aside from the fuzziness of "assault weapon" designation.
What I'm pointing out is that a stock long rifle is arbitrarily made a felony only in New York and New Jersey law, which logically leads to a more dangerous outcome: I have to store said gun somewhere else while I live there for work.
But if you go off the route, say a couple miles off the freeway to visit a cousin as long as you are in Illinois, then a highway patrol stop can mean arrest and imprisonment.
No one has been arrested just for traveling through Illinois yet.
The issue of "assault weapon" bans boils down to the question of whether or not restricted features like pistol grips and adjustable stocks make magazine-fed semi-automatic firearms more dangerous than those without. People who shoot these kinds of weapons tend to be unconvinced. Gun control advocates generally believe this distinction makes sense.
There's also the issue of how restricted magazine-fed semiautomatic weapons should be, apart from the baggage of "assault weapon" features, which I feel could be a more productive debate.
The cosmetic feature bans come from the mismash of court cases that define gun rights.
You might believe I'm completely wrong about all of this, and that's OK. That's how message boards work. But do you think "you haven't read the assault weapons ban and don't know how silly it is" is going to work as a rhetorical strategy here?
Or we can just accept that reasonable, informed people might disagree on these points, and there's no winning this.
Where is this?
Frankly it's something I've always wondered about, but as mostly a spectator of these kinds of discussions I've never seen anyone explain. Like a lot of folks, from my surface-level knowledge it seems arbitrary and likely meaningless. But so much so that it feels like I must be missing something.
Or any chance of a link to your previous cpmments on the topic?
But buying things with the idea of selling seems like an organization that's operating way outside it's mandate.
Which isn't something a law enforcement organisation should ever do.
>Which isn't something a law enforcement organisation should ever do.
It's unclear whether it's the "law enforcement organizations" doing the transactions, or its employees.
But yea it's afaict not cops selling machine guns to people illegally, it's just getting them online or wherever.
Yeah, those $30 switches from Temu et al are another issue entirely.
Yea like maybe twice ever in the last 80 years, it's effectively never
This is incorrect. NFA weapons have been used, albeit very rarely in crimes:
"Since 1934, there appear to have been at least two homicides committed with legally owned automatic weapons. One was a murder committed by a law enforcement officer (as opposed to a civilian). On September 15th, 1988, a 13-year veteran of the Dayton, Ohio police department, Patrolman Roger Waller, then 32, used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 caliber submachine gun to kill a police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence Hileman." [1]
Ironically, it was a LEO who committed this crime.
And now, of course, it is possible that the UHC CEO was killed with a suppressed handgun which would add to the extremely small list of crimes committed with NFA weaponry.
[1] https://guncite.com/gun_control_gcfullau.html
EDIT: I see your reply to my sibling post - you were referring very specifically to post-sample MGs and I suspect you are correct.
Is something really "significantly more dangerous" if you can carve a part out a piece of thin sheet metal to obtain the property in question?
Never been used in a violent crime. They have been vehicles of financial crime, which is what’s being alleged here.
This is incorrect. An "assault weapon" is semi-automatic and it has no intrinsic rate of fire. The National Firearms Act of 1934 already regulates automatic firearms at the federal level. The definition of an assault weapon varies by state, but usually comes down to cosmetic and minor features such as a pistol grip, a shrouded barrel, a folding stock, a threaded barrel, etc...
Yet you define it concretely in your first line, and immediately contradict that statement in your second like. You seem more focused on arguing than being logical.
It's cut and dry. The NFA act of 1934 (which many believe is unconstitutional and should be overturned post BRUEN), was the only law written to establish this rule. The 1986 FOPA was written to stop the sale of post 86 machine guns from MFG and Sale (prior weapons are still legally able to be sold).
Again modern claims of assault weapon are used to conjure up an image rather than provide any factual definition in line with the above comment.
At the end of the day there is nothing for "people who want to die on the hill of being pedantic" have to admit. The laws are clear, emotionally charged words have no bearing and are being used to muddy discussions around a clearly defined set of laws.
To be blunt, you've been lied to about this. No assault weapons ban has ever distinguished firearms based off of their rate of fire. The magazines banned are often are those typically used for self-defense and sport.
After assault weapon bans, most of the market goes to "featureless" firearms that are still semiautomatic but lack enough banned features to remain legal.
I'm not sure that was the gotcha he seemed to think it was...
Things a cop would say but no sane civilian would.
I doesn't even pass the sniff test.
Either the police are total idiots with no concept of right or wrong let alone knowledge of the law, OR they are willingly corrupt and will brazenly break the law to line their own pockets and to fuck with the consequences, which incidentally are pretty negligible because of the corruption and blind-eye turning of their buddies.
Both options are pretty troubling.
"the police are total idiots with no [...] knowledge of the law [...]" AND "are willingly corrupt and will brazenly break the law to line their own pockets"
“I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state,’” Patel said in an interview on the “Shawn Ryan Show” that aired in September. “Then, I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops — go be cops.”
The last part is generally--dishonestly--omitted in the headlines from our favorite and most trusted news sources. (edit: which is done to frame Patel as wanting to fire them all--a pathetic stunt that is no longer surprising from these corrupt tools.)
Anyway, what are these "circumstances" to which you refer?
As for the parent comment, this administration plans to put more agents in the field immediately. Why is that a problem? Perhaps try persuasion instead of vague dogwhistles about 'circumstances.'
Every FBI director is an unelected bureaucrat. Patel will be as well.
And people really, really need to stop triggering themselves over the term (simply because it is often misunderstood and used as conspiracy fodder).
A consideration: One form of community policing uses officers that live in the area they patrol. The notion is that police will better know and protect their own community.
To support your larger point, it is my experience that there is little oversight of LEO at the peer level. ex:When meaningful oversight of county/city police happens, it is typically by state or federal LEO authority.
So we have a system that is capable of doing what needs to be done. However, it likely has a tiny fraction of the resources (and will) necessary to broadly keep Americans safe.
Here’s a list of the law enforcement agencies in the Houston Area: https://hapca.org/Member%20Agencies/member-agencies
They get as local as a department for just 150-300 acres of Brazosport College / Rice University or the Tiki Island Police Department covering a village of 1,100 people, despite being just a 5-minute drive to Galveston (a city of 53,000 people)
I don’t think the problem is local vs national police. Either way the national culture can be poor overall (as it is now) and each local area can have widely different quality (as they do now)
[1]: https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/weighing-impa...
The Federal justice system is capped by Senate confirmed judges with lifetime appointments, US Attorneys who serve at the pleasure of the appointing authority, and various Federal agencies with few levers to influence from a citizen perspective.
You can also get a sneak peak at such a system by looking at Washington, DC. It’s justice system is a federally administered or supervised tip to tail, and it isn’t exactly a bastion of justice.
Obviously more government control will solve the issue. /s
Government always excepts itself from gun control regulation. It's why the NRA failing to support Breonna Taylor was so glaringly transparent - the entire point of the supposed lobbying organization is to defend private gun ownership against the conflicting desires of government. But instead they lined right up behind the government oppressors! Like what exactly do they think destruction of the second amendment looks like if it's not government agents invading your home at night and summarily executing you for exercising your purported right of self defense?
I stopped reading here. What magical ammunition is this? An Abrams tank with a DU APFSDS penetrator isn't doing this. No ammunition that can "blow straight through an armored tank" is exploding on the other side.
> "Congress knew almost 100 years ago, in the days of Al Capone, that fully automatic weapons were unusually dangerous," ATF Director Steven Dettelbach said a public address on Feb. 28, 2023. "They have no place in our communities."
Or, Congress knew they needed a way to prosecute these folks, so they created convenient laws to fit and simultaneously expand their state monopoly on the use of force.
But if they are actually spending some time on each article (which they should) it seems like it wouldn't be hard to actually do their job and talk to -if not an expert- at least a local enthusiast/hobbyist.
The claims about the weapons effects (at least in the context of typical small arms) are on a similar even of magical effectiveness as the Supermicro allegations.
It's painful to see reporting something that is obviously (ethically and legally) wrong (law enforcement should not be trafficing firearms, regardless of your stance on 2A rights or automatic weapons bans), intermixed with factually dubious claims (or at least incredibly misleading claims).
That said, many folks who know things about guns have a tendency to assume that if they wrote wild things about weaponry that don't really make sense, the article overall isn't trustworthy.
Meanwhile, "preventing people from owning machine guns" is widely accepted as legal, at least if they're made after a specific date.
I agree that there's probably not a strong reason to assume that moving modern manufacture machine guns to a tax stamp regime with a huge tax wouldn't trigger some kind of litigation, but that seems mostly like a tangent. (And I think by default you'd assume there's no reason for the court to seconds guess the tax level of a tax without questioning the current tax stamp regime too.)
DARE and other anti drug campaigns follow the exact same playbook, just with children on the receiving end - no, smoking 4/20 is not a direct pathway to ending up homeless and with a heroin needle sticking out your arm. Or religious anti-sex campaigns - no, having sex with people will not make you a whore or whatnot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raufoss_Mk_211
Unsurprisingly, the description is exaggerated. It could probably do a subset of those things at the same time, provided the "tank" is using pot metal armor or something.
Most tanks are low to the ground, as are most concrete walls: it's impossible for any "ammunition" fired at ground level to penetrate a bunch of ground level objects and then fly 18 football fields away ... and then explode.
Is this ACME ammunition?
Oh good at least they’re not looking to prosecute crimes as long as it’s fellow law enforcement. No moral hazards there.
> Wendt is unapologetic and has appealed his conviction. "If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail," Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term. Wendt's crimes appear to be part of a nationwide pattern.
Yup no moral hazard. Of course gun trafficking in untracked war weapons would be something that should be within the purview of every random three person police department and lying on government forms is a-ok. At least this guy is getting persecuted but it’s worrying this is a large pattern:
> In 2011, federal agents busted a smuggling ring out of New Mexico involving a police chief, mayor and village trustee who delivered automatic firepower and tactical gear to a Mexican cartel.
Oh boy
> A decade later, prosecutors uncovered a multistate conspiracy linking a sanctioned Russian arms dealer with three police chiefs, one sheriff and a Delta Force veteran who sold machine guns directly to a criminal trafficker. All of them pleaded guilty.
Moral hazards exist but we always act like it’s ok for prosecutors and fellow law enforcement to act like it doesn’t for law enforcement.
>"Some ammunition can [1]take out a helicopter or [2]blow straight through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side, then explode, hitting targets 18 football fields away."<
Concerning [1]: a common .22 handgun can take out a helicopter. Even a well-placed rock can take out a helicopter:
https://www.foxnews.com/story/border-patrol-chopper-forced-d...
That, and their inherent complexity and relatively low reliability, are the reasons why helicopters are my least-preferred means of transportation.
Concerning [2]: Bullshit. Mostly b/c no knowledgeable person would try to shoot "through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side, then explode, hitting targets 18 football fields away."
After all, to hit a target requires that you aim. You cannot aim "through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side".
And I've simply got to ask: what munition, after piercing a tank and a concrete building, "then explode[s], hitting targets 18 football fields away."?
This article's author is sadly uninformed: no experience, no knowledge of the physical world. Sad.
You appear to be arguing that the DoD wasted a ton of money when all they needed to do was give the Ukrainian army lots of rocks. If that wasn’t your intent, consider that effectiveness might be the principal behind the law - there’s a huge difference between being able to get lucky with perfect circumstances and being able to reliably down aircraft. In particular, consider that the Border Patrol commonly uses helicopter rotor backwash as an improvised weapon against migrants which requires them to get much closer to their targets than would otherwise be the case - people can’t throw rocks anywhere near normal firearms distances.
Attachment of this discussion to the Ukrainian conflict and DOD is your imagination.
Of course people can’t throw rocks as far as a firearm can shoot. But to state that "people can’t throw rocks anywhere near normal firearms distances" is contrary to most gunshot assault statistics, especially for handguns:
"The True Distance of a Typical Gunfight"
https://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/the-true-distance-of-a-ty...
(tl;dr - 3 to 5 yards)
While a firearm can shoot farther and more accurately than most persons can throw a rock, human encounters usually occur at short ("rock-throwing" or less) distances. Most conflicts occur at distances correlated more with the range of the human voice than with the range of a firearm.
This is why asides about handgun distances aren’t relevant: in the context of taking out helicopters, we’re not talking about close quarters situations - 3-5 yards means people are getting hit by prop wash or the rotors themselves!
Some could say that if it weren't for this mindset and approach, much of the world would be worse off. The backbone military for the world that affords much of the stability needed is the US military. The emphasis on national defense capabilities and the government and civilian levels are what make us unique. It's not for everyone, but in the same vein, there's not a lack of people requesting help or intervention either.