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Too many guns
By adamg on Tue, 07/28/2015 - 11:50am
The South End News posted photos of some of the 50 weapons seized by Boston Police over the past four months, concludes there are simply too many guns on the city's streets, says the local media needs to pay at least as much attention to shootings as it does to fans getting hit by foul balls at Fenway (with an oped by Dianne Wilkerson on the topic).
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Comments
Too many illegal guns*
Too many illegal guns*
Where do illegal guns come from?
Ilegal gun manufacturers?
thieves, people making straw
thieves, people making straw purchases, international smugglers, and people conducting illegal private sales to felons or illegally across state lines without using a FFL.
sometimes
Nat Geo did a special called "ghost guns" about illegal black market weapons being fabricated in the Philippines. Pretty interesting stuff. I see your point, though.
I went and looked this up.
That family has a small operation, turns out about 5 guns per month, sells them for around $150 each and they are totally untraceable. No serial number or anything. Their stuff all appears to be made entirely by hand too. In the clip I saw they were using a hand saw, files and templates. Now just imagine what someone here in the US can do with one of these:
https://ghostgunner.net/
I'm happy UPS and Fedex have refused to ship the ghostgunner:
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/fedex-mill-untraceable-firearms/
Too damned many guns....period!
The United States, as a society and a culture, has revolved around and depended on firearms from day one, and we're now seeing the net results, if one gets the drift.
Too many guns? The damn
Too many guns? The damn things don't walk around themselves.
The are too many criminals walking around.
Why are people with habitual weapons charges not serving mandatory minimums? Why do DA's constantly drop these charges or allow criminals to plead out?
It seems from UHub alone that the same cast of characters keeps re-offending. Why isn't more done to either keep criminals locked up or rehabilitate them?
too many irresponsible owners
Almost every gun sold in America is sold legally. Criminals get them by stealing them from irresponsible owners that often don't lock them up or from various distribution channels like gun shows in states with lax transfer rules.
Not saying there isn't a criminal justice problem but our gun laws and those problems are like putting a match to gasoline. And remember about three times as many people shoot themselves accidentally or on purpose because there are guns in the house. Hand guns in particular should not be permitted in homes. Certain exceptions like LEO'S.
Not holding my breath though. 100 people will die at the wrong end of a gun today mostly just because it's conveniently at hand.
Great post, steel nil.
The United States has the highest murder rate by firearm per capita in the Western world, all because of our dependency on the gun, and the all-too-easy access to guns in this country.
Not only do more people get killed or permanently maimed by gunshots, either by accident or on purpose, at the hands of a family, friend, relative, neighbor or acquaintance, but the randomness of the shootings that occur in public places such as movie theatres, etc., has also become more prominent...and scarier.
Congress has to close that loophole that makes guns all too easy to obtain.
Federalize gun crimes
Caught with an illegal gun? 5 year mandatory minimum.
Shoot someone with a gun? 15 year mandatory minimum.
Cops do all they can, but if these animals are out within weeks (days?) of a gun arrest, the violence will continue.
Run for President please.
Run for President please.
It's common sense. You want to take the illegal guns off the streets and quell the violence, then make the punishment as severe as it deserves! Two and half years for firearm related crimes is a joke. 15 years for shooting at someone seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Also, we don't say it enough: thanks to BPD for taking these guns off the streets.
There are already pretty
There are already pretty onerous federal gun laws with high mandatory minimums:
http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-ut/legacy/2013/06/03/gun...
Defendants sometimes get prosecuted under both state and federal laws (bc just about every gun/ammunition has crossed state lines at some point).
fixed this for ya
Shoot someone with an illegal gun? 15 year mandatory minimum.
I think we all know what this would result in:
An anecdote about the kindly bow-tied judge who really wants to turn the misunderstood youth around but those nasty knuckle-dragging troglodytes just live to incarcerate innocent children who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mandatory Minimums vs. Budget Hawks is a battle everyone is avoiding.
Correct, thanks
.
We've been through this before
If fear of punishment stopped crime, then crime would be something regulated to history.
The problem isn't lack of punishment. The problem is dealing with human nature in a rational way to limit collateral damage.
In this case is economics, education, and ridiculously easy access to illegal guns mixed with fear.
This doesn't address the
This doesn't address the other part of the issue: the market for illegal guns and the accessibility of those weapons. Proliferation of guns in America absolutely adds to this problem, and simply increasing incarceration rates isn't going to solve the problem. Someone else already spoke to the issue of more serious sentences not being effective deterrents to crime. If there's a solution to these issues, that's apparently not it.
Record ownership, record
Record ownership, record sales, record production, lowest crime rates since the 1960s. Please explain how proliferation is the problem if crime is down. Mind you prior to 1968 people could mail order guns with little federal regulation beyond NFA taxes.
not so simple
Record ownership, but mostly in states that have seen increases in violent &/or gun related crime.
In states where gun ownership has flatlined or dropped in the past 20 years, crime is down.
See FBI uniform crime stats x-reffed with UC Chapel Hill gun ownership study (2013)
A more accurate statement would be
Too many criminals with no regard for life.
don't forget
Don't forget all the race-related starter pistol shootings.
illegally possessed by bad people
How many times do BPD release these media reports and it's the suspect's second and subsequent or even third firearms offense? How many have a rap sheet a mile long?
We spend too much time on laws that only affect the people who follow them, and not enough on prosecuting violent repeat offenders.