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City offers legal gun owners free gun locks as part of bid to reduce gun violence
By adamg on Wed, 09/09/2015 - 1:13pm
Mayor Walsh and Police Commissioner William Evans today announced initiatives to try to reduce the flow of guns onto Boston streets, including free gun locks and a summit with other mayors in the area.
The offer to licensed gun owners in the city comes in a letter sent last month that also reminds them of their responsibilities to keep their guns safe - and to comply with state laws on registering the sale, loss or theft of guns.
The two point to a recent study commissioned by the city that found that nearly a third of the guns recovered from criminals and searches between 2007 and 2013 were originally purchased at a licensed Massachusetts gun dealer.
According to the study's author, Dr. Anthony Braga, of these Massachusetts-sourced firearms, almost 85 percent of them were recovered from someone other than the original, legal purchaser. Sixty-three percent of these guns had not been reported as transferred or sold to the Massachusetts Firearms Records Bureau, even though such transfers are required by law. Only 11 percent had been reported lost or stolen.
Walsh said that he is working to organize a conference of local mayors and law-enforcement officials to look at ways to stem the flow of guns into the area - many of which are purchase in other states with laxer gun laws.
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Comments
Manufacturers (all of them as
Manufacturers (all of them as part of the NSSF) already provide free locks upon request and police departments in MA were supposed to provide free locks upon request since the passage of the state AWB ban in 1998.
What took Boston so long to get with the program?
all guns are supposed to be kept locked up
by state law in the Commonwealth. And dealers in Mass. are required to supply (give? sell?) you a trigger lock with every gun you buy. So I'm not sure exactly what this is supposed to accomplish, other than being a bunch of politicians standing around looking like they're Doing Something.
The root causes of violence are complicated. Facile non-solutions like this won't fix the problem and will only take time, effort, and money away from fixing the real problems--whatever we may think those are. (Sociologists can and have debated for years.)
Maybe...
...to remind people that they're supposed to keep 'em locked up?
Called it...
http://www.universalhub.com/crime/20150906/two-shot-hail-gunfire-outside...
I did expect Marty to come up with something more than free gun locks though (which are already a thing in MA?).
Is this really all they can come up with?
all guns are supposed to be kept locked up by state law in MA
so I'm not sure what this is going to accomplish.
Besides, if a thief encounters a gun with a trigger lock on it, he's just going to take it somewhere where he can work on the trigger lock at his leisure. Trigger locks are good for keeping kids who are too young to be taught gun safety from fiddling with a gun with possible tragic results. They're not so good at preventing theft and subsequent unauthorized use by a determined person.
They should throw anyone in
They should throw anyone in jail who doesn't properly store their gun. If you leave your gun lying around and a kid gets hold of it and shoots themselves or someone takes your gun and commits a crime with it that gun owner should be held accountable but that is rarely the case in this country. Gun owners love to say they are "responsible" yet they never want to be held responsible when their guns negatively affect others.
MA already has "safe storage"
MA already has "safe storage" laws and does put people in prison for violating them.
The greater issue is that repeat offenders keep pleading or dealing out of mandatory minimum sentences for illegal possession and storage. Grandpa goes to jail for having his duck gun in the back seat at a gas station. Meanwhile guys busted for their third illegal possession walk on probation.
uhh
This is not really a thing.
I like your plan.
I'd also like to include all law enforcement personal in that plan.
Entrapment
Offer gun locks to those who need them.
Lock up all comers for improper weapon storage.
And on that note:
Hilarious
Reminds me of the time Homer Simpson won a free boat...
I was unable to find a youtube link of that scene.
Yes, life sentences for everyone!
We should jail anyone who doesn't lock their gun properly.
Or leaves a dog in the car for a few minutes.
And anyone who carelessly hits a cyclist with a vehicle. Long sentence no matter the circumstances.
Or puts their trash out on the wrong day.
A gun owner who doesn't lock her gun, or a driver who has a lapse, are much, much, much worse than the actual robbers and bad-guys who use the guns (and who often receive CWOFs or probation).
Jail everyone that does anything. For life. No Parole. UHub regulars plus maybe a few Anon's can be the the jury.
PS- We also support prison and Cori reform.
This is the state that
This is the state that pioneered (at least on this side of the pond) the concept of a "witch hunt". What do you expect?
If any of that actually happens...
Right. So, if any of that actually happens, you get right on it and let us know.
Meanwhile, STFU about your paranoid fantasies.
misleading
That's inaccurate and should read "a third of the traceable handguns recovered".
The study is careful to cherry pick its data and first eliminate the handguns (43%) that could not be traced AT ALL from the data set. This is very mislead since most of the guns NOT traceable would be unlikely to originate from a Mass dealer legally.
So the number you seek for this statement is 18% of guns recovered could be traced to originally being purchased at a licensed Mass dealer.
What I also found interesting in reading the study was that only 5.2% could be attributed to a violent crime: Illegal gun possession, 64.2%, Found in public places 29.1%, Violent crime 5.2%, and Drug offense/other 1.5%.
Serial #s can always be
Serial #s can always be traced back by the ATF to the original FFL dealer as the transaction from the factory to the dealer is recorded in their bound book. Anything bought, sold, or shipped to a FFL (required from all interstate handgun sales) is logged in a FFL's bound book which is searchable by the ATF.
Unless the gun has been in
Unless the gun has been in circulation since before those laws went into effect.
1968 was a long time ago
1968 was a long time ago
in other words
Walsh's plan is to rehash something that's already supposed to be on the books directed at the people who have gone through the process of getting licensed (in Boston, nonetheless, where it's painfully drawn out and confusing). Surely, these are the people responsible for all the gun crime.
Cable locks are great to make a weapon inoperable to curious kids, meet MA's storage laws, or transport legally under the TSA's regulations. That's about it, though. So when a gun gets stolen in a burglary, it doesn't automatically suggest the owner was in violation of storage laws. And guns bought at gun shops already are required to come with a cable lock.
Another initiative that aims at the least likely problem population and talks about the guns, but somehow completely glosses over who is out using them to shoot people. Feel good nonsense and a checkmark that it's done.
A politicion grandstanding and
making scapegoats out of law-abiding citizens with jobs who are both the least likely to cause problems and the least likely to have a "community organizer" screaming bloody murder on their behalf? Impossible. Clearly you're in need of reeducation.
You got it
I agree.
Gun Violence?
It's the violence from people. Also registered gun owners don't usually go around causing violence. The average citizen has a hard time getting a gun license in the city of Boston. They either move out or use another city or towns address to be able to carry unrestricted.