“Some of it is a willful ignorance, or just a mind-set of, ‘My obligation is only to follow the letter of the law,’ as opposed to some gun dealers who sort of take it to the next length and say, ‘Anything I think doesn’t seem right, I have no obligation to sell, and I’m not going to sell.’” – Center for Gun Policy and Research director Daniel Webster in Tracing the Gun Used to Kill 2 New York City Police Officers [at nytimes.com]
I’ve seen dealers at shows refuse to sell to certain people and even at shops seen people told they weren’t buying a gun there. Never actually met a dealer who was just in it for the money but I’m sure they must exist.
So you’ve never read a post or article from FirearmsConcierge yet.
There’s a difference between making a living at something and “being in it just for the money”. The meaning of the second phrase is to mean all other things be damned and I’m in it for me, even if I have to lie, cheat, and steal to get it. I’ve never read any of the Concierge’s articles and thought of him as a cheat, but that’s his job, and if he does his job poorly then he doesn’t eat. I believe most dealers, like most people in general, don’t want to give bad people the means to do harm to others.
Why just guns? People use a great many other things for evil, destructive purposes. Why not background checks and “due dilligence” on the sale of matches, gasoline, kitchen knives, etc. Anything can be used as a weapon, pretty much, including the hands at the end of your wrists.
The person who uses these things has full responsibility for them, and for any harm they cause by that use. The person who sells a gun is no more responsible for it’s misuse than is a cook responsible for the weight and health of the patrons who eat in his diner. Neither is morally responsible for determining the worthiness or intentions of their patrons.
Bloomberg and many others have tried to sell that rotten apple, in many ways, but it will never be true or rational.
If a person has a desire to take on that responsiblity, and therefore refuse to sell to those he finds objectionable, that’s his problem, but he should never be under any obligation to do so.
To me, “in it for the money” has always meant … just what it says. It doesn’t necessarily imply cheating or dishonesty, but it does mean you’re not in it for the love of whatever it is.
So you’ve never read a post or article from FirearmsConcierge yet.
Maybe he’s not a masochist looking for a good reason to commit suicide.
God damn!
NYT’s blinding flash of the obvious: “A store’s guns turning up frequently in crimes is not necessarily evidence that its employees are doing anything illegal. It could simply be an indication that the store does brisk business.”
Buried 3/4ths of the way down the page.
And of course focusing on the short duration from ‘time to crime’.
Tell me, is 15 years a short time?
15 years seems like the gun would have some non-criminal type owners. Of course now all of us commit 3 felonies per day, but that is a different set of criteria.
On a side note, the follow up article link states that the store sold 9, yes 9 whole guns which made their way to NY. So that makes them the leading source??
If we give the UBCers what they want and assume absolute compliance with every participant along the near 20 year life of this gun after it left the pawn shop what is the best case scenario?
Do the cops come back from the dead? Is time reset? Or is there just some guy who they can prove handed the gun to a felon so they have somebody to blame?
Everybody wants somebody to blame. It’s a sad remnant of an insecure childhood that gets carried along through adult lives, professional careers and world changing politics. I could make a killing selling scapegoats.
So, I can blame NY state for the money Wall St took from my 401K in 2008?
It’s all NY states fault for having loose business practices and regulations…
So, I’m gonna need that money ASAP, NYers. We’ll call it an even 20K, oh and, make that check out to “cash.”
We already have someone to blame: the felon who commits the crime.
I’ve never understood why some folks put so much effort into not understanding the world they live in.
Agreed, and that is not simply because, in this case, the shooter is dead. If he were not dead, the clamor for locating the guilt of the gun would be just as loud. Even if the gun were confirmed stolen, we’d hear about how the guy it was stolen from should be jailed for allowing it to be stolen without a BC. Nonsensical.
I read the article and thought it was odd that the writer only named the shooter once, and called him “Mr. Brinsley.”
1) why the show of respect?
2) why not state the murderer’s first name was Ismaaiyl? Political correctness? Not wanting to besmirch a “religion of peace?”
One other point. They say the store is the “leading out-of-state source of guns recovered by the New York Police Department…” . I wonder what the actual numbers are? Considering how many gun stores there are between New York and Georgia this shop could have only sold a dozen or so firearms used in a crime over the course of years and still been the leading one.
I wonder if these writers ever get dizzy from all the spinning.
The “Mr.” thing is part of the New York Times style guide. If they were writing about Jeffrey Dahmer, they’d call him “Mr. Dahmer.” It might seem a little old-fashioned nowadays, but I have some respect for it.
“Georgia is also part of the “Iron Pipeline,” a chain of Southern states with looser gun laws that is responsible for sending a steady stream of firearms into New York and other Northern cities, where there are many more restrictions on who can purchase a gun.”
So, the criminls are willing to traffic guns and be illegally armed, while the average, honest “law abiding” NYers are disarmed… So, only the outlaws have guns then?
Man, I swear I’ve seen that on bumper sticker or t-shirt or something.
“Georgia … part of … a chain of … states with looser gun laws that is responsible for sending a steady stream of firearms into New York and other Northern cities …”
Thus violent criminals who attack people are not responsible for their actions?!?!?!?
Using that logic, we must also blame New York City for having looser murder laws! If New York City would just pass tougher murder laws, those two police officers would be alive today. Am I right?!?!?!?
Substitute “cigarettes” for “guns” and see if the statement seems any more ridiculous.
And if “looser gun laws” lead to murder, why are the murder rates lower in Georgia, Virginia, etc.?
I’m really curious just why anyone would think it bad for a gun store or other merchant dealing in guns (or anything else) to make a profit. Indeed, real business is not possible without a good, solid plan to profit. Why is it suddenly bad for a gun dealer to plan to profit, and what incentive is there for any merchant to deliberately refuse to sell their wares?
You can’t have it both ways…
If the gun dealer is responsible for knowing who “should not have a gun” or who will use it in a criminal manner… then spoons, and the seller of spoons, really are responsible for making Rosie O’Donnel fat.
“I’m really curious just why anyone would think it bad for a … store … to make a profit.”
Hasn’t anyone ever told you that all businesses and corporations are EVIL incarnate whose only design is to exploit people and the environment and wreck lives?
/end_sarcasm
Yeah, man, its the corporate fat cats on Wall Street that are ruining this country. You can’t get sucked into their system, man. *takes a drag from something skunky* We really need to redistribute the wealth. Cause that would be fair.
Hasn’t anyone ever told you that all businesses and corporations are EVIL incarnate
Yup, I read that somewhere. The guy who wrote it was a Russian named Lenin. I wonder if he anything to do with The Beatles.
From the article…. “Federal investigators are now trying to determine what happened to the gun after that.”
Why?
Why do we need to know the path the gun took? We do we need to know anything other than this guy committed a crime with the gun? The previous owner isn’t in any way liable or culpable for the crime.
They really must start doing this with used cars as well then. Trace all the previous owners when a car is used in a crime. That way we can blame them for selling a car to a criminal.
And shoes! We must begin tracing the shoes that criminals wear because they rely on their shoes to commit their crimes. If we could just keep shoes off of the feet of criminals, they would never commit any more crimes. Stop straw sales of shoes!
“Why do we need to know the path the gun took? ”
Because if it was stolen along the way, it should be returned to its owner.
There is that… but not worth the exposure to the criminal class in blue for me.
Seems a much better answer would be to do what it takes to prevent theft. Failing that, there isn’t really much more to it than for anything else ordinary thieves take. What’s the clearance rate, the rate of return to legitimate owners of stolen cars, purses, jewelry, or anything else? Not much.
The guns that should be returned to their owners – and promptly – are those the police take for “evidence,” for whatever reason. Take a bloody picture of it, or something. Makes no sense for the thing to languish in the evidence locker for ten years or longer.
Yes, I agree it should be returned when recovered.
The ‘reporters’ managed to trace the gun back to that particular pawn shop, did they not also look through police reports to see if it had been reported stolen? I mean in the spirit of good journalism, of course.
I wonder if the MSM would ever report the reunion of the original owner and their property? I mean as a ‘feel good’ story and not in an attempt to lambaste the owner for being somehow careless.
The ‘reporters’ managed to trace the gun back to that particular pawn shop, did they not also look through police reports to see if it had been reported stolen? I mean in the spirit of good journalism, of course.
Of course not, silly! The reporters were assigned to find whoever was “responsible” for sending this evil weapon into the Garden of Eden, aka Brooklyn.
Since they found something more evil than a gun — a gun store — they went with that. As you know, the only thing more evil than a gun store is a gun manufacturer, and the only thing more evil than a gun manufacturer is the evil, greedy NRA. But don’t worry: efforts are under way to pin the NYPD assassinations on the NRA as we speak.
Remember, they’re the same bastards responsible for those knife murders, shootings and vehicular assaults in Santa Barbara.
So much attention to a store that sold a legal product.
Where is the in depth article on the piece of shit that committed crimes for years before going out in a blaze of agony?
“…It was at Arrowhead Pawn Shop……. that the gun was last purchased in a legally traceable transaction in 1996 …”
“…Mr. Brinsley had multiple felony convictions on his record, which would have prohibited him from being able to legally purchase and possess a firearm. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to a felony theft charge in Fulton County, Ga., for shoplifting from Neiman Marcus. In 2011, he was convicted on multiple felony charges for firing a bullet into a woman’s car, using a stolen handgun…”
“…He was arrested 15 times in Georgia for assorted crimes and arrested four times in Ohio, Boyce told reporters Sunday…” from CNN
Okay, help me understand something. Mr. Webster is doing a story on the LEGAL sale of a firearm from 1996. Eighteen years ago…??? Don’t cha think a more appropriate story should be why Mr. Brinsley was able to roam the streets after 19 arrests for a man on this earth for only 28 years? That’s one arrest a year if he started his life of crime at the age of 9 (unlikely…..I think I read his first arrest was 2004). Why was he on the streets? >>> THAT MR. WEBSTER SHOULD BE YOUR STORY <<<
Anything coming out of the Center for gun policy is going to be anti-gun.. Its like asking the SPLC to investigate race relations.
‘My obligation is only to follow the letter of the law,’
Correct. The law sets a standard of conduct and diligence that the dealer must comply with.
Period, full stop, draw a line under it. Anything more and we get into a realm where we demand a dealer be prescient.
I have no problem with a dealer deciding not to sell because something feels squirrelly, but – thanks to NICS or state-level equivalents – the ultimate burden of deciding whether a sale may be made does not rest with the dealer.
^^^This^^^
Get real guys. This is all an argument for firearm registration. If they only knew WHO had that gun they could arrest Mr. Brinsley before he went on his murderous attack.
Oh, wait that doesn’t work.
Well we should do it any way.
We MUST do something,even if it doesn’t work.
Don’t forget the “For the children”…
If we know who has the guns, then we can confiscate them.
It has been a good year. Not all wins but converting one anti at a time. Post above calls for replacing gun with cigarettes to show fallacy in anti statements. I suggest a bible. 10 day waiting period. registration. lock up. required training. open carry laws. It is not the book. it is not the gun. it is the one holding it.
“In 2011, he was convicted on multiple felony charges for firing a bullet into a woman’s car, using a stolen handgun.”
Hmmm…now wherever could he have gotten his most recent gun? I mean, he must’ve bought it from a licensed dealer, right?
Arg I’ll never that minute back. 1996 you say? I knew that was vintage Taurus. The point is the jags want NO guns sold. In a “free” country s##t happens sometimes. I saw a movie yesterday on cable called Divergent. While I thought it was mediocre it showed a future Chicago where everyone was disarmed and free thought wasn’t allowed-kinda’ like present day Chicago…imagine a pawn shop that doesn’t make a profit…
Firstly I would not take seriously anything I read in the NYT’s.
If I recall after the four officers were shot in WA State a few years ago, the weapon used was traced back and the seller was hassled for a while. In the end the seller was legal, the paper was in place, they did everything right, an upstanding business transaction. Being able to successfully get back to the point of a legal sale points to the system working properly.
The anti-gun crew hopes to make trouble out of lawful actions, that’s what these reports typically boil down too. The anti’s love to have it both ways. Trace back to a legal sale?, we need laws to stop sales then because a criminal got a gun. Can’t trace back, the gun was hand-made other other?, we need laws to stop this underground production then.
Once a product is purchased, control of the product is lost. I believe the anti-firearm movement would accept us all to have a microchip implanted in our body, updated to our purchases, our every move tracked. This would not satisfy them.
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