“The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a motion Wednesday meant to spur research into where most of the guns used in crimes in the region are coming from,” lattimes.com reports “The measure would scour L.A. Police Department’s records of guns used in crimes to find the sources of the firearms.” Who’s gonna do this scouring and how much would it cost? Not specified. But we know the purpose . . .
L.A. City Councilman Paul Kerkorian [above] wrote the measure; he says it’ll help law enforcement target “bad apple” dealers who may or may not be using shady practices to get all these guns on the streets. It comes the same day as a shooting that left two dead on the UCLA campus.
“It was ironic that we got the notification about 15 minutes before I stood up to speak on my motion and to declare National Gun Violence Awareness Day. It was pretty incredible,” Krekorian told KPCC.
So what kind of “targeting” does Councilman Kerkorian (no Doctor Death jokes, please…different spelling) propose? He’s working on that . . .
“If we were to determine, for example, that there are a few gun dealers either in Los Angeles or elsewhere, that are responsible for guns — a disproportionate number of guns — getting to our streets, then we could consider options with regard to those gun dealers, whether it be a civil lawsuit, whether it be enforcement measures, either by local or state or federal officials. There’s any number of different solutions that might be appropriate depending on what the information is that we find in the study,” Krekorian said.
As we’ve pointed out before, there’s no evidence that gun dealers whose firearms end up at crime scenes sold those guns illegally. Needless to say (for TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia, anyway) it’s a crime for gun dealers to sell guns illegally (e.g., without performing a criminal background check). Which is one reason they don’t.
“Across the country, I think people are really crying out for more action, and this is another step forward in trying to lay the foundation for that kind of action,” Krekorian said.
Councilman Kerkorian’s measure is designed to set up gun dealers for government harassment and to curtail lawful firearms sales. It’s just another example of California gun control gone wild. If this anti-gun jihad wasn’t a matter of life-and-death for Golden State residents, and a clear infringement on their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms, it would be funny. But it isn’t.
Oh, people are crying for more action, all right.
But not all of them are crying his song, to muddle a metaphor, even though he would like to pretend otherwise.
The gun grabbers need to cry harder…
Ok, I will do the hard work right now. Let me do a little research on where they are coming from…. Oh my! They are stolen!!! With no background checks required!!! So where is my $1 million grant money?
Sorry you already published your findings.
A bandaid on a septic pus filled wound.
Address the cause of the violence. Not the tool the criminal happened to use to commit violent acts.
Whoever sells the most guns will be the winner- probably Turners Outdoors.
Bingo.
Discrimination?
Profiling?
It’s a recipe for the elimination of high volume dealers, as always.
And what will be their course of action when the “bad apple” dealers are found to have run background checks on all of the original purchasers, and followed all of Californias asinine gun laws?
This is the contrasting result that they are praying against.
But who knows? Maybe they get lucky and find a dealer or two who is manipulating sales or otherwise funneling firearms to prohibited persons. I’m a little worried they don’t find a scapegoat and try to make everybody pay.
See, that’s the point — what if there actually IS a dealer that’s ignoring federal law and selling whatever to whoever, regardless of background checks?
Given the statistical distribution of the number of gun dealers out there, and the number of people who insist that the 2nd Amendment is the ONLY law they need to follow, doesn’t it seem reasonable to suspect that those two universes overlap, somewhere?
Look, crime happens. Sometimes even the most ardent voices against gun trafficking, turn out to actually be gun traffickers themselves (Leland Yee, anyone?) So to just flatly declare “it isn’t happening” (as RF’s article does) seems either exceptionally naive, or exceptionally unwarranted.
If someone’s actually violating the law, then that’s when appropriate action can be taken. But if the situation turns out as RF intimates, and all the gun dealers everywhere are absolutely above-board and the problem is one of statistical distribution due to proximity, then no action whatsoever should be taken against the dealer. Meaning, the local dealer is a law-abiding shop in a bad neighborhood, so when he sells a legal gun to a legal buyer and that buyer takes it home to their legal residence or carries it legally, they’re more likely to be robbed of it due to their proximity to criminals.
I don’t see how this is all that difficult of a thing for them to determine though. They spend all their time tracking “crime guns” so surely they know where the originating sale took place. A simple audit of their 4473s should reveal whether the guns were being sold in some sort of underhanded way. Why does this have to be a big thing? (oh, right, because it’s never actually about what it’s about, it’s more about looking like you’re “doing something”)
I bet they will be looking for legal sales to non-prohibited persons, but an inordinate number to one person, *implying* they have a side-business supplying others.
The only thing is, they will trace back to that one or several persons eventually.
One person could buy a gun a day (OR more) by bouncing around to many shops in the area, not triggering suspicions of any one person at any one shop.
In CA we’re restricted to 1 handgun per month. The preferred weapon of criminals.
@ JWM
Nope, the one hand gun per month applies to dealer to customer sales. customer to customer sales via a dealer all go thru the same hoops, but I do not believe they have that limit.
I was able to purchase a Ruger P90 in good shape in between my monthly limit because it was a used gun. BTW, thanks for the mags, they work great.
Glad you got some use from them. They were just cluttering up my man cave.
Their course of action will be the same as if they caught a 9 time felon selling guns out of the trunk of a car. They’ll try to stop legal commerce in firearms. You don’t think there’s any reason or logic in their purpose do you?
The UCLA shooter the other day was a resident of Minnesota, where he legally purchased the firearms he brought with him to California to conclude his plan to kill a former professor due to a patent dispute (most of which dispute, apparently, was only in the gunman’s head). and apparently Kerkorian is unaware that the average time to crime for any given firearm is typically measured in years, and usually involves a firearm that was not legally owned or possessed by the shooter. Idiot. He is not going to make a dent in gun/gang crime by having the LAPD research possible federal gun law violations. But I suspect he doesn’t care about that; he would rather just shut down as many gun stores as he can.
Kali
What if they find the crime guns were funneled thru Mexico courtesy of barry, holder and Fast and Furious?
They won’t.
Even if they do … they won’t.
Lovely. This looks like they think they can do a better job than the ATF who they will need to gather the full evidence to determine the entire life cycle of each “crime gun”. However I doubt all of the evidence will be sought out.
They’ll most likely only look to the first evidence of retail sale and then blame that entity. They won’t bother going beyond that original sale to see if it was later sold or stolen. They’ll release the first sale information to the press and remain blissfully ignorant on what might have transpired after that, as that won’t benefit their narrative.
Actually figuring out what happened to get that gun on the street is not their goal. They want to blame a retailer, so they’ll accumulate and tally all “crime guns” for each retailer, and probably include a nifty pie chart or bar graph, as well as bloody crime scene photos, along with pics of evil black rifles that were probably less than 5% of the guns “traced”. Shannon will clutch her pearls and join the fight to shut down these “bad apple” dealers that are probably three sales and a theft removed from the transaction.
Who wants to make a bet that I am even slightly off in my prediction?
Spoiler: ATF and Mexico.
Full court press this election cycle to make another HUGE step towards the “Fundamental change of America” promised by Barry and the Progressives 8 years ago.
Clearly you don’t know much about how the ATF does things. We had a gun shop here in CT that got shut down because of bad paperwork practices. Guns were stolen from them, and they didn’t realize it, and they lost their FFL because of it.
So the possibility that you pose is as close to impossible as it’s likely to get.
“Guns were stolen from them, and they didn’t realize it, and they lost their FFL because of it.”
I’ve worked gun shops. Unless they were *unbelievably* sloppy with inventory – bound book, those thefts were likely an employee – trusted person in that shop.
wonder what car dealer in los angles sells most cars that’re in accident on the los angles city streets.
Time for hardball.
The first gun shop targeted should come at these people with all kinds of lawyers.
Lawyers are expensive and a gun shop doesn’t get to throw around taxpayer dollars like a drunken sailor in a Tenderloin whorehouse.
LMFAO
Who writes your material?
I believe you have missed your calling…
Unless of course you ARE a professional comedian and this is just a hobby.
Doesn’t matter… We are all the better for just the way it is.
LA Targeting ‘Bad Apple’ Gun Dealers…
Soooo… Politicians?
Leland Yee say, “What up!”
“The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a motion Wednesday meant to spur research into where most of the guns used in crimes in the region are coming from,”
I’ve got a better research proposal for them if they want to reduce gun violence. A study of who/what groups are most often involved in gun violence and to what extent the sanctuary city policies of aiding and abetting the violation of immigration law are contributing to it.
LA has a huge illegal alien gang problem…
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