Illinois Senator Dick Durbin recently took to the Senate floor to rail against “gun violence.” After the mandatory bloody shirt waving re: Chicago’s Independence Day carnage, Durbin lamented the death of the Manchin – Toomey bill. And then focused on the evils – and importance – of straw-purchasing. He joined Chicago’s top cop in blaming the “guns of Indiana and Wisconsin.” Durbin’s solution: increase the federal penalty for straw purchases to 15 years. (Up from 10 years.) Yeah, that ought to do it. The fact that criminals also use guns stolen from legal owners didn’t get a look in. Or the central role of gang warfare. In short, look at this baby! [h/t thegunwire.com] I wonder what this weekend’s death toll will be . . .
OK, it’s not a “solution”, but I’ve got no problem with increasing the penalty.
My problems would be that…
1) Should we really be making it possible to give people more time for a bad gun sale than a manslaughter?
2) Letting people pretend non-solutions do something is part of the problem
Item 2 really gets at the heart of the problem with the dear Senator’s solution.
Because it is stupid.
Let’s take a 22 year old girl. She’s known a neighbor her whole life. He gets her to buy him a firearm, because he tells her he had a conviction for weed possession 25 years ago. She thinks that is idiotic. She buys a firearm, then sales it to him.
He actually did only have a conviction of possession of weed, 25 years ago. He never harms anyone, or does anything illegal with the firearm.
Why should she have the potential to spend more time in prison than someone who kills another person with a firearm, via manslaughter?
Most places for less than the cost of the pistol he could get the conviction expunged see papers daily on it. Plus he’s not much of a friend putting her in the posistion of comitting a felony. What if
he had to use it in a defensive role. She’s going to go along to jail with him. I had a former friend ask me to do a straw purchase for her husband. I refused since he had an alcohol problem & 2 CDV convictions. He found someone to go to the store usef it in the sexual assault of a 14y/o. All involved got jail. It’s 1 thing if they can legally posess & your picking up a glock @ LE price vs. $700 here. But a known conviction, tell them to get an expungement ot relief order
It’s 1 thing if they can legally posess & your picking up a glock @ LE price vs. $700 here. But a known conviction, tell them to get an expungement ot relief order
——————–
You do understand that the number one conviction for straw purchases is exactly what you are saying is OK. That is LE using it’s discount to either buy a firearm at a discount and transfer it to another.
Nor, can all convictions get expunged, and that costs money. Money many don’t have.
I literally could not care less if someone has a conviction for a non-violent crime in their past. Hell, I hardly care if it were a violent crime if it happened 20 years ago, and the person has not committed a crime since.
A 20 year old shop lifting conviction should have no relevance on the exercise of rights. None at all.
In June I had 43 expungement orders ranging from CDV to simple posession to shoplifting come across my desk for victim services ordering destruction of records. All signed by a judges, prosecutors & supreme court. Paperwork costs $200 in filing fees @ most. If I pick-up a gun for a friend they are going to do paperwork. A specific crime was stated for that reply. If someone has done a crime that can’t be removed from record odds are they should not have a weapon. I would pay to get my rights restored if possible. Then save for the gun.
“It’s 1 thing if they can legally posess & your picking up a glock @ LE price vs. $700 here.”
The Supreme Court just ruled last month on that exact point of law, one non-prohibited possessor purchasing a handgun at LE discount and transferring to another non-prohibited possessor and being reimbursed only for his actual costs. (That is, there’s no profit involved and no regular purchases like this, so there’s no dispute that he’s not acting as an unlicensed dealer.)
The Court determined that the transaction constitutes a straw purchase because the guy at the counter is not the “actual buyer” he attested to being on the form, since he knew all along that he was only buying the firearm specifically to transfer it immediately to someone else. Do that and get caught, you go to prison, even if neither one of you is an otherwise prohibited possessor.
People are committing murder. How about we increase the penalty for that also?
Your comment is about retarded.
Because the law does not consider “intent” — it is too broad brush.
IF it was as “Durbin” states in his argument, one person purchasing a gun to give to a gang banger, then I could understand it. But as we have seen, a legal gun owner purchasing for another legal gun owner, and you run afoul of this law. If they had to prove that one person was purposely selling it to a known criminal, then I could understand it. Otherwise, no, it makes no sense..
I could do with enforcing the law and making arrests. I could also go with actually imposing the full penalty. And no deals, And no parole. Do the time.
Chicago tends to not enforce their gun laws, but rather use them to bargain in plea deals.
Chicago will be cool, stormy, rainy, and wet all weekend. This will keep the bangers inside and Rahm, McCarthy, and Durbin will all declare that whatever they are doing is “working” and that their approach is “turning the corner” and that whatever it is, we need more of “it”.
Haha. Nailed it.
Saw the weather report for record lows in the area.
Yeah, more rain – that’s the ticket. Maybe they could arrange for another Ice Age.
Sen. Turbin is pandering to the gullibility of the ignorant.
It’s a sizable market
And getting larger every day.
Election-year histrionics.
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH …
Northern Virginia has about two thirds the population of Chicago. It has shall issue, open carry and no background checks for private sales. Want to know how many shootings happened over the 4th? Zero, nada, zip. That’s how many.
Whatever Dick. This is just a ploy for more $$. See, if they had more federal $$, then that would help the Chicago po-po enforce the laws better, find more MRAP’s, better weapons, etc. Rather than focusing on the real problems (lack of marketable skills, lack of good paying jobs, expungement for minor criminal records, breakdown of the Black family thanks to federal programs, welfare, abortion, etc), no, Dick wants to blame evil guns.
Perhaps he should get an autographed copy of Jason Riley’s new book :please stop helping us. Hell, Juan Williams endorsed it!!
He could also take in a dozen or so illegals. just to keep them off the street, doncha know.
I have THE solution. Just pass a law dictating that criminals follow the other laws.
Y’know, that’s so crazy, it just might work. We should make criminal behavior illegal! I mean, like, if you murder someone, you actually get killed yourself, or sent to prison for the same amount of time that your victim remains dead or until YOU die, whichever comes first!
Naaaaah. Never work.
It’s a rainy, crappy weekend. The death toll will be low. Tom Skilling is the best at predicting Chicago’s weekend homicide rates.
Find the criminals. How about arrest the gangs not
doing bs studies to make pretty little charts. Stop being PC. Most don’t vote unless you fake it. Straw purchases & private sales. Are not the problem except in crook Joe Manchin’s mind as bad as a Governor as Arch Moore. As a former WV resident 1 of the things that keeps me from moving back is the politics.
Next, they will be making “straw” purchases of ammunition criminal. My buddy could doing 15 to life for picking up a box off 22’s for me while he was in town.
Strange how other populated cities under the same federal laws (lax or not) have drastically lower crime rates. It’s almost as if there’s some particular problem with Chicago… nah, what was I thinking, must be the gun laws.
It is the gun laws, the ones that prohibit honest citizens from posessing or carrying protection. If the Morton Grove residents would remember that if there grand or great grand parents had not disarmed to Hitler they would have 6 million + more Jews that lived. Possibly not even a war in Europe. Yes a stretch but they would have had a better chance. Even with the politicians caving in to appease Hitler et al… The St. Patricks celebration isn’t even fun anymore. Used to fly up just for that a & Molinaris. Now Georgia gets my money. & I can carry on state permit not LEOSA.
Gunr
He was able to get .22’s?
Are they for your evil assault rifle the marlin model 60 as it has an ammunition thingy under the bbl.
LEO,
So does my Henry, I can’t decide which one to use in case I go mad and decide to go on a killing spree.
Henry it’s 100% USA & is the only rifle “You load on Sunday & shoot all week”
Bought a yellow boy before they went sky high for my son. It’s now more bucks than a stainless Marlin 336 30/30. Selling the 30/30 cause 2 pretty to take into woods. 1st deer hunt is this year for him. Bad part is need to. Gotta fill the freezer. Our taxes are higher than Chicago. Btwn disability &wifes job we cover bills. Don’t ever get hurt @ work in SC.
What good will increased jail time do when they’re not prosecuting fraudulent 4473’s? Chicago doesn’t prosecute criminals, they let them plead out. Maybe if that ended, Chicago would find peace…
How many people are prosecuted for straw purchases in Chicago DICK? Our pair of special senators. The other one is a brain damaged RINO. Honestly the straw purchase thing IS a problem. I observed one at Cabelas in Hammond Indiana. And I told 3 guys working there. Yeah the weather is awful BUT it is forecast near 90 degrees later today.
Durbin refuses to take responsibility for this issue. The United States Attorney’s Office in Chicago has the lowest prosecution rate per capita for straw purchases of any federal district in the country. Durbin has recommended the last two local prosecutors to the president. These are his guys and this is their performance. Gun prosecutions are not their priority. We are back to the old issue of those who haven’t vigorously enforced the law want stiffer penalties when more arrests and prosecutions haven’t really been tried.
These are his guys and this is their performance. Gun prosecutions are not their priority.
So what the Hell do they DO all day? AUSAs aren’t cheap either. To rent or to buy.
Let’s cut D1ck a little slack here, okay? He didn’t blame George Bush, the Republicans, Fox News or global warming, which puts him miles ahead of the Chicago OG in the White House.
“He didn’t blame George Bush, the Republicans, Fox News or global warming”. He must be saving that for the Sunday shows.
Enforce existing laws, and maybe add federal mandatory minimum sentences for violent felonies committed with a gun
A local crime is none of the Fed’s business.
In theory, I agree, but if it wasn’t for the Feds prosecuting “local” crimes in Chicago, we would be in a far, far worse situation. Operation Greylord and its progeny only removed the most obvious judicial and prosecutorial corruption in Cook County. If our Feds weren’t going after Chicago gangbangers, no one would be.
Rival gangbangers would be. It’s called “Natural Selection.”
Why don’t you nuts in Washington figure a way to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons and others that do not abide by the laws, and leave us people alone that do obeys the laws of this country. The gun store owners need a way to know for sure by thumb, index finger print scanner or what ever way to check a person so they will know the person trying to get the gun is not a criminal. When you find a criminal with a weapon that committed a crime sentence him to life in prison.
That would be called NICS…
Durbin, like the rest of the slope-head liberals are really big on blaming other people and things, but slow to accept how their own professional ineptitude and lack of personal responsibility could ever possible effect the gun debate.
News reports and stats. show straw purchases are a significant source for u.s. And Mexican criminals for obtaining guns. Is there some possible solution to reduce/prevent this from occurring, given there will always be those willing to lie on paper when asked “are a law abiding person and are you up to no-good”?
It’s really a matter of police enforcement at that point.
Most people don’t have enough money to buy 5 rifles a month, so at the very least the police could give those people a polite call and scare the actual straw purchasers a bit. I doubt raids are gonna fix this though. Chicago is a broken city when it comes to crime, and I don’t think it can be fixed.
That’s it; straw purchasers. NOT unemployment, breakdown of the nuclear family, welfare generations, proliferation of gangs, Rahm Emmanuel, or gangster culture. It’s straw purchasers. Here’s an idea; the majority of Chicago shootings seem to occur between 11pm and 4am. Why not just impose a curfew during those hours? Problem solved.
Phil, maybe your right….there is no solution, short of requiring parents take a morality exam before being allowed to conceive, and maybe prove viable income to care the child. I was just hoping some might have a good solution to straw purchases of guns on behalf of criminals, which is a problem (not the ONLY probem in our society, but for sure a way many criminals obtain guns). No easy answers…..
Straw purchases are a problem; mainly, a problem for us, the PotG. It creates a great PR campaign against the 2A. We PotG can’t persuade US Attorneys or ATF to enforce the law they have. Nor can we make them enforce any law the Anti’s design. Straw purchases are not going to go away; they will continue to occur as long as the Feds won’t enforce the law.
– – – So, who suffers from straw purchases? We, the PotG. We suffer all the bad PR because – so the story goes – gun laws are lax. It’s just “too hard” to make a conviction. They want a law that will enable them to convict us for innocent transfers; they won’t bother going after deliberate straw-buying by criminals.
– – – What do we want to do about it?
– – – – Try to maintain the status quo which is a PR disaster for us?
– – – – Invite the Anti’s to write a new background-check law (according to their taste) governing private transfers?
– – – – Exercise some imagination on our own part to write a new background-check law (according to OUR taste) governing private transfers? I.e., one that would facilitate knowing straw-purchases for criminals. One that would exempt transfers to recipients who retain their 2A rights.
– – – It is – to a great extent – our choice; to play defense; or offense.
It is sort of interesting to talk to some of the more honest LEOs about the source of gang crime guns. Keep your guns in a safe!
Capitalism isn’t always pretty. The War on Drugs should be the obvious corollary. But I’d say a bigger problem than straw purchasers would be (all that I mentioned plus) theft. What’s the solution? Probably not another law that amplifies the existing law. Start with the family and culture, then allow those who are law abiding to defend themselves without fear of reprisal.
Capitalism isn’t always a four letter word, yet it really requires a wide sense of morality and ethics for it not to eat away, like a cancer, the very host that allowed it to flourish. Capitalism, when pursued in a socially responsible manner, can have profound benefits, but when unleashed on a society without a conscience can be that society’s death knell.
Like every other sad sack liberal socialist they twist the facts to MAKE a problem so they can do something FEEL GOOD that fixes NOTHING and then they lie about the outcome. These people have SERIOUS mental issues and need medication NOT a job in public service.
They don’t call him Dick Doofus for nothing.
The idiocy of this moron is amazing.
Why not make the penalty 100 years or 200 years! I mean really, let’s give the law some real teeth. I’m sure straw purchases will just magically evaporate overnight because criminals will start to care. Or not…
Cutting off the testicles of drug dealers and gang bangers would be much more effective.
I’m a big proponent of the life or death penalty. If you have a record that is so long that it proves you’ll never get right, it’s either life or death. Remove those repeat elements from society and gene pool.
My problem with the Indiana straw purchaser theory is that all reports of street prices for guns in Chicago is just not high enough to make a profit in legitimate purchases at a gun shop. I did have a sheriff deputy tell me that about all thefts from rural and suburban areas go into the black markets of the inner cities in exchange for drugs and money. I can see the black market gun prices if the guns were stolen at no or low cost. I still think the organized crime drug trade river needs to dry up to stop or slow the flow of stolen or straw guns. Most straw purchases or transfers that I have seen has been more or less purchases for family and friends.
This times 1000. Guns being sold on the street for $100 are not from straw purchases.
Let’s focus on the guns, because if that diversion doesn’t work, then the Chicago voters might actually question whether the politicians and police are doing a good job.
Durbin is not only an enemy of the Second Amendment, but also of the First Amendment. Shouldn’t these guys have to take a test of, or a loyalty oath to, the Constitution before buying their office?
“Is each of Twitter’s 141 million users in the United States a journalist? How about the 164 million Facebook users? What about bloggers, people posting on Instagram, or users of online message boards like Reddit?
“But who should be considered to be a journalist?”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/20978789-452/sen-dick-durbin-its-time-to-say-whos-a-real-reporter.html
Wait. Noooooo. It can’t be. Is that a Democrat against the Constitution? It can’t be. That is so unusual, and Dick Durban is normally so rational and pro-United States military and pro-United States in general. Nah, this article must be false, I just can’t believe it. Nice try guys, you almost got me.
Show me the data. Not one or two. Show me a significant proportion and relevance…not a gun bought a number of years ago.
This should provide some of the data you’re seeking. http://www.atf.gov/statistics/trace-data/2012-trace-data.html
Click on the Illinois link for that state’s 2012 data, the most recent year for which complete data is available. State source data shows that of the firearms recovered in Illinois in 2012 and traced, Illinois itself accounted for the source of 50.2% of the guns. Indiana is next with 15.7% and Mississippi is third with 4.3%. Other states trail off in percentages rapidly thereafter. This is for all scenarios resulting in a traced firearm, e.g., found guns, suicides, aggravated assaults, robberies, as well as homicides.
Interestingly, the “time-to-crime” averaged well over 12 years, which suggests a lot of guns are out there for a long time before being used in a crime where they’re recovered and traced.
The time to crime is what I was getting at. I think it’s a stretch to say a weapon purchased several years ago in another state is a straw purchase. If the weapon was purchase a year or so ago…I would say there might be something to it.
The criminals shooting up Chicago aren’t paying retail for these guns. So why would someone buy it at retail and sell it for less? And while some may coming from other states, I seriously have my doubts they were obtained legally there either.
“And then focused on the evils – and importance – of straw-purchasing. He joined Chicago’s top cop in blaming the “’guns of Indiana and Wisconsin.'”
I read Senator Durbin’s remarks, as posted on the federal government’s website here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r113:17:./temp/~r113g02ZSM::
I watched the video on youtube, too, and it matches the text verbatim, although it ends at the end of his speech and doesn’t include his exchange with the Presiding Officer regarding yielding time and other quick parliamentary details.
I didn’t read or hear anywhere in there where the Senator blamed gun laws in other states, or even mentioned the states of Indiana or Wisconsin at all.
He did lament the Senate’s success in turning back the infringement lobby’s efforts via Manchin-Toomey, but didn’t address other states’ laws specifically. So maybe it’s implied? His big argument was to challenge other Senators to impose background checks to bar convicted felons and mentally unstable people from buying guns, as well as daring them to defend straw buyers.
Maybe you mean that he meant that but for other states not criminalizing private sales and forcing sales to go through FFL initiated background checks, these murders would not have happened? That’s silly in reality, of course, but I didn’t see the Senator actually making that, albeit farcical, argument. I didn’t see him actually argue that the guns used by any of these shooters originated from outside Illinois, nor did I see him speculate that they might have.
Dick’s ludicrous speech, with its exaggerated sighs, melodramatic pauses, gap-riddled reasoning, and overall acting worse than a high school production of “Hamlet”, is laughable enough without imputing additional follies.
Hmmm, did Fast & Furious operate in Chicago also??
Durbin is just as big an idiot as Jesse Jackson with this “blame” stuff. If progressives were not so dangerous they would be more hilarious.
Straw purchase? Let’s say you buy a brand new .40 Whizbang at your local gunshop. You then take it to the range to try it out. You don’t like it and can’t hit the broad side of a barn with it. So, you sell it (legally) to an old friend. His kid sells it on the street for drug money and it gets picked up being carried by a gangbanger.
Guess who is the Straw Purchase suspect? Guess who might get prosecuted for Straw Purchase? You.
Does ATF care about the subsequent sale? Doubtful. Think you can explain this away? Think again. The Feds are far more interested in a conviction than in Justice…..
SteveInCO: IL Sen. Durbin et. al. to Blame For Chicago Carnage.
And every other big city, for that matter.
Actually, little Dickee Durbin is to blame for the Carnage In Chicago, as is every politician who has fought tooth&nail to strip citizens of their Constitutionally protected God given right of self defense.
Durbin can get on the Senate floor and talk about the sadness of Gun violence and Gangs in Chicago at the same time allowing Central American to dump it children into the United States. The resources that is being spent on another Country kids who look fine and healthy as they come across the border, to be the poster children for Amnesty. We the American Public are not stupid. Kids fleeing Gang Violence. Really, the area in Guatemala is a rural area with no Gang activity. They are being brought over on buses to the interior. The kids in Chicago are dying everyday. This is their country, Relocate and protect them. Now we find out the Central American Gangs are running the Illegal Immigration pipe line. The same people are coming back over and over again to claim different children. Pregnant girls, Mentally ill kids that need special care. How stupid can the US government think it citizens are. You cut to the bone services for citizens for which we pay taxes. Then to push through immigration reform suddenly there are kids running for their lives from the gangs, who by the way are bringing them here and dumping them off at the Border. Then having there other Gang member in the US to pick them up from Detention Centers.
What does Dear Mr. Quinn plan to do about beatings and stabbings which make up a large part of the Chicago crime problem? Or don’t those crimes count?
Comments are closed.