NYgunsmuggling640360

Reader H. writes:

From foxnews.com: “What you see here are illegal guns that will be never be used to rob or murder innocent New Yorkers.” Uh…no.  What we see here are legal guns unlawfully purchased to fulfill demand created by New York ‘progressive’ statist statutes, and particularly NYC laws which create the scarcity vacuum that entices and encourages bad actors to import otherwise legal guns for profit. And if not Florida, they’d come from somewhere else, the only variable being the cost of purchase and  importation (or theft from lawful owners or government inventory) and the price for which they are sold on the street.

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36 COMMENTS

    • Fox News tends to run at about the midline of American politics. This only makes them look “conservative” when they stand next to their other MSM compatriots.

      I switched when Fox News was the only national news outlet not to frame Manchin-Toomey’s demise as a “defeat” of some sort. As far as I could tell, people like me who thought of Manchin-Toomey’s demise as a “victory” didn’t exist to the other outlets.

      • I would tend to agree with you on that statement.
        I don’t read their news for gun related articles though. I read it for other politics which they seem to do a good balancing act on.

    • Keep in mind this is reporting by the local NY affiliate of Fox national, which as John points out correctly that Fox TV is perceived by most as centrist, slight right.

      The ‘illegal guns” reference is a direct quote by the NY State AG Schneiderman. Since that is a political position, you can come to your own connclusions about a law enforcement official who speaks so…misleadingly. We all know guns dont comit crimes, people do.

      So talking like this is just more deliberate avoidance of the underlying problem, the identity and characteristics of the majorityy of bad guys selling and buying. Since thats mostly Dem type constituents, Schneiderman is just doing what NY pols do, lie.

  3. Reminds me of the “War on drugs” where the DEA or popo make a big deal out of seizing a few kilos of cocaine. Twenty years ago I watched a show where they stated that the amount of cocaine smuggled into the US was being estimated in TONS PER WEEK. Yeah, just make a law and then forget it, rainbows and unicorn dust will turn all the bad guys into pixies. All it proves AGAIN is that restriction drives the prices up and makes it harder for good people to protect themselves.

  6. They should be prohibited from politicizing their gun buybacks. It’s the people who have free speech, not the government or it’s agencies.

  7. if they were really concerned with public safety, then why aren’t they doing something in the affect of “trade in your firearms for tasers” or something to that affect so they could somewhat accomplish their gun grab YET not leave people completely defenseless. That should awaken people to thier true intentions. The problem is too many people do not WANT to think for themselves or be responsible for their own actions or safety. So they abide by laws and politicians that they can push the blame to when it turns out those laws and politicians are inept in reality.

    • If they were really concerned with public safety, they would have every last backyard swimming pool filled with concrete.

  11. They should be required to give those away to anyone who wants one who has a restraining order against someone else because of possible violence.

    Anyway, wait a few years, and anyone who wants a firearm will be able to 3-D print one in the garage.

  12. In other news, the incomparable Second City Cop blog http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/ addressed the table of guns in Chicago that went missing:

    “A reader asked another question that someone in the media should have done months ago:
    …and where’s the weekly Table Of Guns for the TV cameras?
    And a reply:
    Lol!
    They have “minders” not so much to secure the guns at these agit-prop “Look at ALL these bad guns” media events, but to keep people from scanning the inventory tags… They’ve been busted before for misrepresenting “seized last year” guns as “seized last month” or whatever time frame they select to prop up their propaganda narrative of the day.
    Long time readers will recall that commenters here pointed out the startlingly similar numbers, makes and models of guns that were displayed at various press conferences held at different police facilities every Monday last year. Other commenters suggested that media folks compare inventory numbers of the displayed weapons, whereupon the media was forbidden from approaching the tables. Shortly afterward, the “gun-runs” were instituted where Districts desks are required to transport guns to ERPS on a daily basis after years of awaiting ERPS pick-ups two or three times a week.

    Now the table of guns has disappeared and the CompStat monsters are mysteriously silent as the killings approach 400. But hey….Crime is down!”

    • Great point.

      I had not read that, and find it interesting that no StateRunMedia outlet thought this agitprop, and misuse of the press was worth their time, investigating it.

      But, then, that would be work, instead of phoning it in, and besides MATH! And guns!

      Both topics very scary to Communications Majors.

      • Well, if they did, they’d run the risk of not getting any more interviews from the powers that be. Plus they might not get invited to the right parties.

  13. “What you see here are illegal guns that will be never be used to rob or murder protect innocent New Yorkers.”

    I’m proud to say I voted for Eric Schneiderman’s Libertarian opponent. (Before you call me a “spoiler”, which is insulting to democracy as I voted for who I wanted to win, his Republican opponent John Cahill had no stated position on guns, no NRA rating, and little chance of victory. Schneiderman had over a 20% lead in the election results and the Libertarians won only 0.63% of the vote.)

    • Riiiiggghhhtttt………because innocent New Yorkers with only self-defense intentions typically buy untraceable guns at sky high markups in darkened back alleys from strangers out of the trunk of a car in knowing violation of about a dozen laws. That’s absurd on its face.

      • When the laws have the effect of making lawful sales virtually impossible (even for non-felons), i can see otherwise “law-abiding” citizens resorting to buying “unregistered, ugly guns from the trunk of a car at sky-high prices”.

        A new, potential gun owner in NY can’t go to a range, join up & try out every gun in the case before making a purchase. Can’t even hold a gun without a purchase permit in your hand in NY.

        Do you really think flat-screen tv sales would be as common as they are if people had to get a permit from the state to even look at one? You think anyone might just pay extra to avoid the hassle & hoop-jumping involved?

        I can absolutely see a new gun owner, who really just wants something for the nightstand buying a “trunk gun”.. they probably don’t even realize they’re becoming “super felons” by doing so. If they do realize the implications & do so anyway, thats an even scarier thought. The state has made it “better” to be a felon – to protect yourself from felons.

        • Nobody’s challenging the impact of supply restrictions upon pricing and availability. Market regulations have a well documented history of distorting price signals and motivating black marketeers. What’s at issue here is the likely customer base of such underground distribution.

          Considering that such small percentage of people actually arm themselves for self-defense, in any kind of serious way, it just strains credulity that anyone but other violent criminals would be these smugglers’ customers. Sure, lots of people have a gun at home. So what? That rifle in the attic? That shotgun in the basement? Or even the good ol’ revolver in the closet? Let’s just say atop the nightstand, to be generous, OK? Unfired in ages, uncleaned in at least that long. Perhaps nonworking, likely unloaded. These are America’s “self-defense” minded gun owners. Hell, only a tiny fraction of eligible owners in OC states actually do open carry. Only a slightly larger percentage of licensed concealed carriers do so regularly. And these are the subgroup who’ve paid extra money and taken extra time to be self-defense minded gun owners!

          Now, back to New York. All of these others around the country with abundant opportunities handed to them, or those who’ve jumped through the hoops in front of them, aren’t even seriously exercising their rights in any kind of consistent and useful manner. Are you seriously arguing that genuine, law abiding NY’ers, who are just struggling to defend themselves, would slither around the shadows doing business with interstate gun smugglers, all at exorbitant prices, at major risk of criminal prosecution, and, indeed, personal safety just doing the transaction? Because, after all, they’re showing up, unarmed, to buy a gun from a major criminal, so that they can…..what? So that they can protect themselves from major criminals! Ha ha ha!

          Your argument is laughable beyond compare. These guns weren’t going anywhere near your hypothetical, law-abiding, federal-firearms-law-breaking, friendly, neighborhood New Yorkers. These guns were going straight to gang bangers.

  14. I don’t see the problem. A bunch of gun runners got busted, as well they should. These guns were headed straight to other criminals and violent crimes were avoided. Thank you to the police for finally getting off their abundant butts and enforcing some of those existing gun laws we’re always haranguing them to enforce.

    These aren’t civil rights activists in civil disobedience. These aren’t desperate, disarmed citizens frantically buying weapons to defend themselves and their families from predators. These and their customers are the predators.

    These are criminals straw-buying guns, dealing without a license, obliterating serial numbers, and selling to persons reasonably believed to be prohibited possessors. We can cite 2A nonstop all day, but that day ends eventually. When it does, the Commerce Clause will be there, waiting, impatiently sighing, looking at its watch before finally and snidely inquiring of you “What took you so long?”

      • Thanks, and you enjoy being a criminal forever, m’kay? After all, you deny the plain text of the Constitution. It’s right there in Section 8:

        “The Congress shall have Power to…[…]…regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

        Soooo……………who in the F do you think YOU are to call me a slave, to flout the Constitution, and to make up your own rules to impose on the rest of us? Nobody, that’s who. You’re nobody. Just another Internet tough guy who lambastes others for their principled stands, when your own stand is just selfish, chaotic, and anti-Constitutional.

        Fortunately, you don’t have the cajones to do jack squat toward acting on your pseudo-individualist fantasies. You just act out on the Internet. The best you could possibly hope to be, is a pretender in the path of that lawless lame duck prig of a prez we’re stuck with for two more years.

    • @Johnathan – I respectfully disagree with your supposition that “all” these guns were destined for crime. True that anyone who buys a gun without a serial # is a criminal, we’ve made sure of that, and “dealing without a license” is certainly illegal – but many rural citizens build their own guns in their own garages to avoid being on a list somewhere & in a “free” state, a non-felon *can* lawfully buy a gun out of the trunk of a car, in a wal-mart parking lot with no “evil intent”.

      It happens millions of times per year in free states, yet free states have lower crime rates than New York.

      Just like the drivel about “blood running in the streets” with lawful ccw allowed, so too is this drivel about private, person-to-person sales. There is no benefit to allowing the government to interfere with, tax & keep lists of private sales between non-felon adults.

      • Take exception if you will, attempt misdirection if you must, but none of your drivel constitutes an addressing of anything I’ve written, let alone a serious rebuttal.

        What does someone making a firearm on a farm, conforming to legal standards, for their own use and not for re-sale, which is a legal purpose, have anything whatsoever to do with this article’s defaced firearms illegally transported interstate and sold by unlawful dealers? Answer: not a damn thing.

        Same with other lawful transactions between private buyers and private sellers, who are not prohibited possessors, who are not in the business of buying and selling firearms commercially, who aren’t exchanging firearms which are banned for civilian ownership, in states where these activities are legal. What does any of their legal activity have anything whatsoever to do with these defaced firearms illegally transported interstate and sold by unlawful dealers in this article? Same answer: not a damn thing.

        Nobody’s challenging that private sales out of the back of a trunk do take place in states where such transactions are legal. The issue is these guns in this story in New York sold by these traffickers under these circumstances. Given the, well, the givens, of this story, ALL of these guns are destined for ipso facto criminals because every last thing about these transactions is, wait for it…………ILLEGAL………and it’s based on the Federal government’s completely constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce. That NY’s laws, unfair and unforgiving as they may be, give incentive to individuals to attempt to circumvent them, does not then grant any license to violate U.S. laws. I’ll defer to the lawyers in the house, but I’m pretty sure there’s no uniform “break one law, break one free” rule on the books.

        Now, I get it. Your basic quarrel is with reality, not me. You believe neither NY nor the U.S. should not infringe on people’s firearms freedoms. So do I. You don’t like this set of legal facts. Neither do I, but here’s the hitch: you don’t get to ignore the facts and create your own. In the current context of New York’s the U.S.’ draconian, feverish, and maniacal firearms laws, not only would the buyers of these arms have been criminals on the basis of this transaction itself, but yes, I’m betting that all (or virtually all, if you demand a disclaimer) would already have been criminals with actual conviction records. That’s who commits a felony to buy firearms themselves drenched in felonies from traffickers in back alleys: criminals.

        Any more complete and utterly unrelated examples which have no bearing on the facts of this article to raise, or are we done? Either way, I’m done. You can have the last word and I’ll leave it at that. Good day, sir.

        • writing as a scofflaw, i take umbrage to your suggestion that an individual does not get to “ignore the facts” and create their own. happens all the time. it is a fact that these guns were transported illegally. it is not a fact that they would have gone to already established felons. it is a fact that anyone who purchased one would become a felon.
          and were i living in manhattan i would own a firearm, whether purchased feloniously or not. wouldn’t matter, that’s a fact.
          sorry if it disturbs your reality.
          have an interesting dusk.
          and thanks for taking your bat and ball and going home. still. again.

  15. Maybe Obama will sign an executive order to provide amnesty to these “illegal” guns so that they can come out of the shadows and “get right with the law”

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