Okay. Folks who know me on these boards know that I'm a gun-totin' redneck from the wilds of Howard County, MD. I stock my safe with "assault weapons" and enough ammo to start a small African revolution. So when I say the epidemiological evidence of straw purchase mills like Realco in Forestville, MD disturbs me, I think it's worthy of a look.
Realco has been linked to over half of the illegal gun sales in MD and DC. The next nearest (MD Small Arms Range) isn't anywhere close to their numbers.
I'm a big fan of guns, but I have to be honest and my severe discomfort at this.
This thread is huge.
Is this thread for Big guns or it's a big thread?
It's destined to live up to the name, unless it gets locked.
I definitely don't think the gun lobby should be protecting the worst of the offenders any more than the medical profession should be protecting the worst of doctors.
I agree with you but for industry to allow these people to be penalized is an admission that there actually is a problem. This store just highlights the situation. Through negligence or malfeasance, people have probably died because of its behavior.
Guns kill people. Frequently.
I think we should all try very hard not to get this locked. I think there is actually quite a bit of room to talk about this.
Seriously, I think that that particular gun seller should do a much better job at policing himself before the situation gets significantly worse for everyone else. When over half of the guns seized in illegal activity in MD and DC came from your shop (and you aren't selling anywhere near half of the guns in the state to eliminate statistical average), you are clearly doing something wrong.
I definitely don't think the gun lobby should be protecting the worst of the offenders any more than the medical profession should be protecting the worst of doctors.
I haven't RTFA yet, but are there any statistics mentioned about guns used in crimes in other states? I'm thinking of NY in particular, since most of our illegal guns are said to come from Virginia.
Unless the legal system starts finding some form of liability for negligence in sales of a weapon, I don't see this changing. And Congress will never let that happen. The democrats have just given up, I think. There are just too many voters for whom gun control is an overriding issue, and it's not worth it to the dems to lose elections over the issue. They have other priorities.
To sound a bit morbid, this is a problem that should sort itself out after a century or two. Every time someone dies from gunfire, a few more gun control supporters are born.
As a person with no horse in this race, my only concern is that Realco sounds like it's within spitting distance of an underground dogfighting club or narcotics ring. I fail to understand why dealing guns to felons is any more acceptable than dealing drugs to them.
This is a microcosm of the entire gun debate. If they shut down a seller because too many crime guns get tracked back to them, does that stop those crimes or force those criminals to buy from someone else?
I've got a bit to say on the gun debate as a whole but I'll wait for the thread to derail there on its own.
LobsterMobster wrote:This is a microcosm of the entire gun debate. If they shut down a seller because too many crime guns get tracked back to them, does that stop those crimes or force those criminals to buy from someone else?
It certainly forces them to try. And should they try at Atlantic Guns or Bass Pro Shops, they're likely to be told where the door can hit them.
I'm not sure I'd say such a thing to a would-be violent criminal looking to buy a gun who definitely knows where I work.
All the clerks I've ever seen are armed to the freaking teeth and somewhat sadistic about the possibiity of getting to use their gun on a deserving perp.
That's been my impression. I seem to remember a surveillance video a while back of a guy trying to rob a gun store. Instantly there's people pulling out weapons. Can't remember how that one turned out.
Paleocon wrote:LobsterMobster wrote:This is a microcosm of the entire gun debate. If they shut down a seller because too many crime guns get tracked back to them, does that stop those crimes or force those criminals to buy from someone else?
It certainly forces them to try. And should they try at Atlantic Guns or Bass Pro Shops, they're likely to be told where the door can hit them.
I'm not sure I'd say such a thing to a would-be violent criminal looking to buy a gun who definitely knows where I work.
But if I'm working at the gun store, I have the guns, and they, by virtue of asking to buy one, don't. I suppose they may be after another gun, but chances are I'll have more.
LobsterMobster wrote:Paleocon wrote:LobsterMobster wrote:This is a microcosm of the entire gun debate. If they shut down a seller because too many crime guns get tracked back to them, does that stop those crimes or force those criminals to buy from someone else?
It certainly forces them to try. And should they try at Atlantic Guns or Bass Pro Shops, they're likely to be told where the door can hit them.
I'm not sure I'd say such a thing to a would-be violent criminal looking to buy a gun who definitely knows where I work.
But if I'm working at the gun store, I have the guns, and they, by virtue of asking to buy one, don't. I suppose they may be after another gun, but chances are I'll have more.
While Paleocon is likely correct and some gunstore owners are just itching to blow someone away, I don't consider that a good reason to mouth off to someone who would try to kill me, no matter how unsuccessful he may be. I don't want to kill anyone.
Like most other things, we have an issue of resource allocation. What would the landscape be if we put the same money we have to say tracking pot towards guns? Or the money spent screening shampoo at the airport?
But there are also questions to ask. Germany makes a lot of guns, China makes a lot of guns. What makes their industry, their regulations different? Why do we find mostly American and Russian guns trafficked? Is it worth threatening one of our major industries and exports with short sighted and ineffective regulations-The Brady bill did nothing.
Seriously, I think that that particular gun seller should do a much better job at policing himself before the situation gets significantly worse for everyone else. When over half of the guns seized in illegal activity in MD and DC came from your shop (and you aren't selling anywhere near half of the guns in the state to eliminate statistical average), you are clearly doing something wrong.
I definitely don't think the gun lobby should be protecting the worst of the offenders any more than the medical profession should be protecting the worst of doctors.
I was wondering if this story would pop up in P&C...
First, a bit of shock. The gun seller in question should do a better job policing himself? Come on. Realco's been selling guns to anyone who walks through their doors since 1992. It should be pretty clear by now that they're a bad apple and they aren't going to change. They should have their FFL immediately revoked.
Personally, I'd also like to make sure that all their family and friends were barred from ever obtaining a FFL so they can't simply start up again under someone else's license and face criminal and civil charges for selling guns used in crimes. The owners or Realco are responsible for each and every deed done with one of their guns because they failed to act appropriately at the time of sale.
I have to wonder why there's even any hand wringing over this gun dealer. The data from recovered and traced guns linked back to this shop is a statistical beacon that shouts "we sell guns to criminals". I mean what possible reason can you give for still allowing them to have the privilege of selling guns?
But I think the resistance to the idea that law enforcement should be able to track, instantly, where a felon got a gun with an electronic chain of custody, to me, is pretty {ableist slur}.
Then I hope you haven't ever given any money to the NRA since they are the lobbying juggernaut that is actively preventing effort to increase the transparency and oversight of firearm ownership.
This is a microcosm of the entire gun debate. If they shut down a seller because too many crime guns get tracked back to them, does that stop those crimes or force those criminals to buy from someone else?
Shutting down lax sellers reduces the flow of guns from their retail source. That makes it harder for criminals to get their hands on clean weapons, which is a good thing.
Is it perfect? Heck no. That's because the NRA has fought tooth and nail to ensure that guns can be easily sold outside of government oversight, such as through person-to-person sales or no background check loopholes at gun shows.
Unless the legal system starts finding some form of liability for negligence in sales of a weapon, I don't see this changing. And Congress will never let that happen. The democrats have just given up, I think. There are just too many voters for whom gun control is an overriding issue, and it's not worth it to the dems to lose elections over the issue. They have other priorities.
I see it changing, but very slowly. I agree with you that Democrats now consider firearms another political third-rail. The only positive trend is that gun ownership has been slowly declining, which lessens the general societal support for completely unhindered gun ownership. At that point people can start to look at the real societal costs of gun ownership and begin to approach from a law enforcement/health and safety perspective and not have it painted as "the gub'ments coming fer me guns!!" hysteria the NRA promotes.
A study just published by researchers at Iowa State University might change help change the political discussion about gun ownership.
The study calculated the total societal costs of major crimes and found that murders cost $17.25 million. That means murders involving firearms cost our society nearly $158 billion in 2009. Each armed robbery cost $335,733, which means that robberies involving firearms cost our society another $58 billion. Assaults cost $145,379, meaning that those involving firearms cost society another $22.8 billion. So firearms can be linked to about $239 billion in societal costs each and every year.
In the case of Realco, that one company cost society nearly $1.5 billion for the 86 murders it was linked to (plus another couple tens of millions of dollars for the 300 robberies and assaults its guns were used to commit). The cost of its lax operations certainly weren't offset by the $90 it paid to renew its FFL.
These real numbers serve as a practical counterpoint to the purely emotional "it's my right" argument used by gun owners. Yes, the current read of the law says you have a right to own an arsenal and thousands of rounds of ammunition, but that right doesn't let you off the collective hook for the costs your right imposes on society. The gun lobby has crippled any attempt at meaningful oversight meaning that anyone with an NRA membership is responsible for the dysfunctional system that makes it easy for a criminal to buy a gun.
I really don't think we are that far away from quick and easily manufactured cyberpunk "smart" guns with tracking chips, id locks, and target verification (the tech for most of that already exists)- and once those are commonplace it's only a matter of time before legislation is passed to make them the mandatory industry standard. Of course, this will create a black market for hacked and pre-chip weaponry, but that's just how capitalism works.
I really don't think we are that far away from quick and easily manufactured cyberpunk "smart" guns with tracking chips, id locks, and target verification (the tech for most of that already exists)- and once those are commonplace it's only a matter of time before legislation is passed to make them the mandatory industry standard. Of course, this will create a black market for hacked and pre-chip weaponry, but that's just how capitalism works.
Someone has one that requires a watch and their implementation of it just sucks. I'm sure someone can do a better job at it.
ruhk wrote:I really don't think we are that far away from quick and easily manufactured cyberpunk "smart" guns with tracking chips, id locks, and target verification (the tech for most of that already exists)- and once those are commonplace it's only a matter of time before legislation is passed to make them the mandatory industry standard. Of course, this will create a black market for hacked and pre-chip weaponry, but that's just how capitalism works.
Someone has one that requires a watch and their implementation of it just sucks. I'm sure someone can do a better job at it.
I am not sure I understand what you are saying here Edwin. You have to wear a wristwatch that matches the gun to fire it?
I am not sure I understand what you are saying here Edwin. You have to wear a wristwatch that matches the gun to fire it?
It's Smart Gun technology. The weapon is synced with a control device, whether a coded electronic signal or matching magnetic fields, so that the weapons cannot be fired without the control device is close proximity. Early versions used a bracelet as the control device (hence the watch), while others used a magnetic ring or even a chip planted under the skin.
Smart guns? The brothel scene from Shoot'Em Up comes to mind.
I'm aware of that tech, but anything that requires extra action on part of the user will never catch on. I'm talking more about ambient tech, like something out of a William Gibson novel. When you pick up a gun it takes a biometric scan off your hand and locks up if you aren't an approved user. When it senses you beginning to pull the trigger it takes a snapshot of whatever the barrel is pointed at and feeds the results through onboard software which looks for heat signatures corresponding to organic life, then scans those for facial signs and body language signifying hostility. By the time the trigger is depressed into firing position the software has already decided whether or not it will allow the gun to fire. If it has fired, assuming you shot at something living and not just a target, it uploads positional data along with serial and gps signatures from both the gun and bullet to law enforcement/emergency services (or, if you fired at something clearly an animal, it notifies animal control services or deducts hunting allowances from applicable hunting licenses).
The tech for all of this already exists in some form, it's just not to the point where it would conveniently fit in a handgun, though I would say we'll probably reach that point in around 10-15 years on the inside, 20-30 conservatively. Tack on another five years to either figure for the time it takes to be cheaply enough produced for widespread adoption.
Vive le future!
Better yet, deploy that facial emotion recognition engine at the point-of-sale, make it take a long hard look at the face of the prospective buyer, and politely decline his business!
With any biometric security device, the challenge is to play the odds between inevitable false positives and false negatives. No system is going to be perfect and figuring out what a tolerable level of failure gives you an idea of what consequences you may need to accept. If, for instance, the biometric bone density palm scan you have to use in order to get into the secure datacenter comes up false negative, no big deal, you do it again. If if comes up false positive, you get unauthorized access. As a result, those devices are set with pretty tight tolerances.
Ten years ago the most popular portable media player on the market could both play CDs and receive FM radio. It even had enough memory to keep track of your progress on the cd while powered down (assuming you didn't remove the battery). The most popular one today can internally store the equivalent of hundreds of CDs, can take photos, can record and playback video, can browse the Internet and run literally millions of different games and programs. While not all technology has moved as quickly, biometric technology ten years from now is bound to be more sophisticated than it is currently as security technologies tend to be on the far side of the bell curve. I wouldn't be surprised if some form of rapid genetic
sampling was common practice in ten years.
I think you are missing my point entirely... You are speaking from current technological limitations, I am speaking of theoretical future tech based on modern trends in the industry, and can't really be assumed to suffer the same physical or monetary limitations (as there will be entirely NEW limitations).
But I feel I have derailed this thread enough...
Pages