Who Guards the Guards: Sheriff’s Office Sells Tommy Gun for $20,000
The Citizen’s Voice of Luzerne County in Pennsylvania is reporting that the acting sheriff has come under fire for “keeping poor records of gun possessed” by the department. This comes after it was found that the former sheriff had agreed to sell a Thompson submachine gun in 2009 for $20,000. The paper didn’t say whether the buyer could legally own a fully automatic weapon or whether it was a semi-automatic version, although it was described as being an “antique” suggesting it was fully automatic.
Let’s see if the mainstream media picks up on this story.
Customs Seizes Toy Guns in Washington State
Several news outlets including The News Tribune are reporting that customs officials seized “30 machine guns at the Port of Tacoma.” We’re following up on this for a few reasons. The first is that these guns were copies of M-4 assault rifles, which were actually seized in October of last year. We bring this up because it serves as ammo – no pun intended – to anyone who says that all guns used by criminals must have been legal. Clearly this is further proof that guns can, and likely will continue to be, smuggled into the United States.
But what is really odd is that the Customs & Border Protection is claiming that while these were “the same size, weight and look of the M-4″ these were listed as toy guns. The News Tribune noted:
“On Jan. 25, the ATF submitted its report. It found ‘that in their imported condition the rifles were tooled to shoot plastic balls. However, replacement of internal components with original machine-gun components could be accomplished within a short period of time, thus rendering the rifles capable of firing live ammunition,’ the Customs news release said.”
“Shoot plastic balls” seems to imply to us that these may be Air Soft guns, as not real guns at all. While these lacked the typical orange tips required for such guns, we should note that this is an American law and isn’t follow overseas. Likewise, there is a market for “non-guns” or “counterfeits” as well – as in guns that look the part but can’t be made to fire. Note our choice of words: “can’t be made to fire.”
We’d like to know how any “weapon” that is either not really a gun, or is meant to “shoot plastic balls” can be converted in what ATF claims to be a “short period of time?” Seriously?
What is more confusing is that according to the ATF, a machine gun is a machine gun if it has a receiver. Essentially a full-auto receiver is what makes a gun a machine gun, so do these guns have such a receiver? Otherwise, we can’t understand what the problem with these seized toys could be… unless the ATF is looking to start an Air Soft team cheaply!
Note to the ATF: If it looks like a duck, is the same size as a duck, but is made of wood it is called a decoy, but it isn’t a duck! Keep that in mind when you look to seize something that looks like a gun, feels like a gun but doesn’t shoot REAL BULLETS like a real gun!
London Police Now Carrying Guns, But US Mainstream Media Silent
The mainstream media in the United States loves to report how gun laws are tougher in the U.K., and how that means there is less crime. So maybe the U.S. MSM can explain why the news media in the U.K. is all over the story on how the police are now carrying guns – including machine guns – in parts of London because of rising crime? Apparently the gun laws aren’t working. Read more
Guns Seized Down Under
Australia is another country that has extremely strict gun laws. According to an August 2007 report, only about 5.2 percent of Australian adults own a firearm. Buying a gun requires a Permit to Obtain. In other words firearms are hard to get, and this should make the land down under safer, at least that is the anti-firearm rhetoric. Obviously if guns are hard to obtain, criminals can’t possibly get guns is the claim. But ABC News (as in the Australian Broadcast Company) is reporting that there has been a large seizure of illegal firearms.
“Police say they were staggered to find more than 60 illegal guns in a storage container in Sydney’s south-west overnight.”
Among the guns found in this raid were several weapons that can’t be legally owned by anyone in the country including a sub-machinegun. The New South Wales police issued a full press release that included this passage:
“A Heckler & Koch MP5 9mm submachine gun, currently used by armed forces and law enforcement units in more than 40 countries, was among the weapons found.”
So how did Australia’s strict laws exactly keep these illegal guns from coming into that country?
Who Guards the Guard’s Cars?
One reoccurring argument made in numerous editorials from the mainstream media is that “most illegal guns are legally sold at some point.” While that remains debatable, at least in what sense the guns were ever “legal,” the point is that many illegal guns are simply stolen. An AP wire story from the Miami Herald has an interesting bit of information:
“Authorities say someone broke into a Jacksonville Beach officer’s unmarked vehicle and stole two guns and other equipment.”
So clearly even if all firearms were banned from private ownership there would still be the worry that guns could be found in the hands of criminals. This story all but proves that fact. But surprisingly it gets worse:
“Stolen items included a semiautomatic .45-caliber Glock pistol, 9mm Heckler & Koch submachine gun and other police gear.”
Confiscated Guns to be Destroyed Include “40 assault-style weapons”
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that “16,000 guns confiscated from criminals and collected from numerous gun buyback programs” will be destroyed and “recycled into steel rebar.” All that reporting is fine. What is interesting is this description:
“Back in March, an LAPD gun-buyback program that traded gift cards for firearms netted nearly 1,700 weapons, including 40 assault-style weapons and a rifle with a grenade launcher.
“The grenade launcher AR-15 rifle, which did not have a grenade in it, was delivered to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Topanga station over the weekend as officers across the city distributed gift cards in exchange for handguns, rifles and shotguns. The anonymous drop-off program netted AR-15s, Uzis and AK-47s.”
Chinese Government Seizes 19,000 Firearms in Four Months
Private ownership of firearms is illegal in China. Let me repeat that statement: PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF FIREARMS IS ILLEGAL IN CHINA. Yet in four months, the Chinese government seized 19,000 guns. According to the China View news agency, it was NOT just firearms that were seized either:
“Chinese police have confiscated 19,000 guns and close to 500 tonnes of explosives in a crackdown on explosive and gun-related crimes in the last four months, the Ministry of Public Security announced here Monday.”
But that’s not all folks, the story adds:
“Police also confiscated close to 1.47 million detonators, 800,000 bullets and 39,000 imitation guns.”
FBI Agent’s “Smoking Gun”
A major argument by the mainstream media has been that American firearms are fueling the drug war south of the border, and the MSM has further suggested that tighter gun laws would reduce the number of guns heading to the hands of those involved with the Mexican drug cartels. But exactly how many of those guns are exactly “legally” purchased firearms? And how many are coming from gray markets, police officers and the military in Mexico? That number has not been factored in much by the MSM. So let’s see how the MSM reacts to the guns coming from American law enforcement. Consider this passage in the Houston Chronicle this week:
“A high-powered rifle allegedly sold illegally by an El Paso FBI agent was used in a deadly Mexican drug cartel shootout last year, court records show.
“According to a 2008 search warrant, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives linked a .50-caliber rifle sold by FBI agent John T. Shipley to a March 2008 shootout between drug cartel fighters and Mexican army soldiers. An army captain and six cartel members were killed in the nearly three-hour shootout in Chihuahua, agents said in the warrant.”
Firing Back: Mexican Drug War Heats Up, Expect More Blame From U.S. Firearms
If you’ve following the news from south of the border you already know that the situation has turned from bad to worse. And in much of the reporting from the mainstream media there has been mention of how American made firearms are playing a role. But consider this passage from CNN.com:
“A 10-minute shootout started when police tried to stop the BMW in which the men (suspected drug cartel members) were riding.”
Would Chicago Gun Ban Stop the Violence?
Gerald D. Skoning wrote an editorial for the Chicago Tribune that compares the recent wave of gun-related crime in Chicago with that of the war being waged by real soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. He brings up this key point in his argument:
“Meanwhile, national leaders who are fearful of offending vital constituencies pander to the right-to-bear-arms advocates and refuse to address the most urgent issue in urban America.”
