“Anything we can do to be creative that might help us with getting one gun off the street or preventing one shooting, we’re going to do it.” – Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh in Mayor’s office asks licensed gun owners to help stop gun violence [via bostonglobe.com]
I’ve always wondered how one determines that a shooting is “prevented” if you don’t physically stop the bad guy right before the shooting occurs.
You have to read the minority report generated by the thought police.
‘Shootings prevented’ is calculated the same way as ‘jobs saved’.
Get guns off the street – sell them to me.
I must be looking at the wrong streets. I haven’t seen any guns laying on the pavement anywhere.
From the source article, apparently they did a study of guns used in crimes and found 315 that had been stolen or transferred without the legally required paperwork:
So, are they going to prosecute those breaches, our will the law continue to be a hurdle that only the most conscientious among us must clear? I’m guessing the latter, because they’d quickly find the public horrified at the punishments meted out for purely paper crimes, threatening not only their future agenda but the continued existence of the present law.
And that’s exactly why they won’t prosecute. When you have an army of paper soldiers, you don’t charge the enemy. They want to keep their bluff going as long as they can.
“Anything we can do to be creative” really means, “Anything we can do to subvert the Second Amendment.”
Marty’s a good guy and all but his sphere of influence is somewhat limited. Plus we have a Republican Governor in Charlie Baker. I wouldn’t read too much into his posturing.
I’ll bet he has the support of the criminals on this one. Listen for the slow clap from that crowd.
It’s so annoying when politicians won’t finish their sentences. What Mayor Walsh meant to say was, ““Anything we can do to be creative (in removing any and all guns from the hands of common subjects will be a great advantage in our designs to disarm the populace)” There, fixed it for you Mayor Walsh.
I am so happy to be out of there!
I’ve got a broken pellet rifle that I’d happily turn in for a $100 gift card.
Canada stopped it’s pistol registration requirement when they found that after almost twenty years and billions spent, not one criminal was caught and charged with a crime due to being traced through a registered gun.
That’s because they didn”t follow the us.gov’s mantra of “it wasn’t effective enough because we didn’t have a greater budget established”, sorta like education & public safety budgets. And almost all other .gov departments and agencies.
Just a quick clarification- we stopped our Long Gun Registry after it failed like you mentioned. With handguns, we’ve been registering them since 1934, and again, it has accomplished next to nothing. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like that registry will be ending any time soon.
Criminals, of course, just smuggle their guns in the same way that drugs are brought in, and shoot each other with said smuggled guns.
“Anything we can do to be creative that might help us with getting one punk off the street we’re going to do it.”
^ That might actually work better.
Perhaps a Thug buy-back? March ’em in for disposal and collect an Olive Garden gift card!
These gun-turn-ins/buy-backs seem to be the most conspicuous of security-theater events lacking in cost/benefit efficacy. As such, they would seem to be grist for our push-back against the Antis.
I imagine the typical voter response to the MSM new story of a turn-in/buy-back as “Isn’t that nice; at least they are trying to do something”. But the something that they are trying to do is to create a political visual such as the photo of they mayor with a quote.
Well, so what? That’s politics. Yet, what if we could find a way to get the voter to QUESTION such security THEATER? When a voter wakes-up to the idea that one anti-gun security-theater event is a fraud he will BEGIN to question OTHER anti-gun security-theater. This notion is a “find the soft underbelly” of the enemy and exploit it.
The Antis use turn-ins/buy-backs to drum-up opposition to guns-in-civilian-hands. It’s purely a publicity stunt. We PotG challenge these events merely for lack of impact. We FAIL to EXPLOIT the opportunity to EXPOSE these events as deliberate FRAUDS upon the incredulous voter’s sensibilities.
In lieu of calling the Anti’s out as being ignorant fools we should be exposing their FRAUDULENT THEATRICS. They know – or ought-to-know – that they are wasting public resources collecting guns that are NOT regularly acquired by criminals.
Suppose some academic did a study of turn-ins/buy-backs. Find out how many cops and municipal employees were tied-up in each of a series of events. How many guns were turned-in by type. Rate the cost/success of the event using factors such as the frequency of use of handguns, shotguns and rifles. Shotguns and rifles collected don’t do much to reduce crime-guns.
It might very well be that the cost of collection via a publicity fueling turn-in/buy-back is relatively high compared to the value of the guns turned in. Both the market value of the guns; and, the social value of reducing the inventory available to criminals. So, a widow turns in her husband’s gun. That was a gun that would be available to the criminal market only to the extent of its probability of being burglarized. E.g., 1 gun * 3% chance of being stolen.
Who are the people turning in guns? Researchers would have to do something like “exit polling”. Stop people leaving the event and ask them what they turned in and the circumstances. How many widows? How many heirs? How many single mothers who found a gun in their teen-ager’s rooms? How many teen-agers who decided that they didn’t want to exercise their RKBA?
Interview the operators of the events. What are their inventory controls? How do they insure that none of these guns leave the prescribed channel between acquisition to disposition? Suppose the guns are destined for destruction (vs. sold to FFLs). It is especially important to have tight inventory controls in such a case. If a gun is going to be cut-up then NO-one has ANY vested interest in ensuring that it was – in fact – destroyed. Any valuable gun is apt to be pulled from the inventory by: a cop; property-custodian; common-carrier; welding-shop employee; etc. Manufacturers, distributors and dealers are obliged by ATF regulations to maintain inventory controls at the serial-number level of granularity. Why would we expect anything less for government recoveries and dispositions?
We want to be helpful here. We ought to offer a suggestion. E.g., have a gun-club (NRA instructor, etc.) volunteer to go pick-up an unwanted gun. So, the Widow Jones doesn’t want her late husband’s gun in her house. She calls her police precinct and tells them so. They make arrangements for a volunteer to call on her to pick up the gun and call her back to make the appointment. A few days later, the volunteer comes to her house to pick up a – presumed to be loaded – gun and logs it into an arsenal. Periodically, the club auctions the arsenal to dealers and the proceeds go to some children’s charity. (It’s not going to happen; this is rhetoric.) Widows wouldn’t have to handle presumably loaded guns they don’t know how to keep safe. Guns would not be walked down the streets by incompetent widows.
@MarkPA: Great comments. I think you are right on the money with your suggestions for a strategy. If the actual benefit (more likely the non-benefits) of these charades versus the cost was exposed perhaps more people would start to realize that these events are really political theater instead of an effective way to stop violence. NRA and others are you listening ?
Send letters of education to gun owners…yes there is a database and your in it.
Will educate you on transfers so if you don not comply with ink on paper, your criminally liable for what s criminal does.
More evidence government has no vested interest in removing criminals from our street (there’s no coin in it for them) but instead will hunt law abiders imposing fines, putting Leon’s on homes and providing evidence to lawyer for lawsuits.
Sure….that will fix the gaping hole of governments lack of leadership.
“…Anything we can do to be creative that might help us with getting one gun off the street”
I have a suggestion Mr Walsh….. focus on the criminals. Take a few of them off the streets and see what happens to your violence levels.
“Anything we can do to be creative” is roughly translated by CSGV and MDA as “SWAT anyone that you see as having a gun, and tell the cops that they’re pointing it at babies.”
I can do nothing to stop “gun violence” in Boston, because for the year or so that I’ll be here, I am disarmed by your unconstitutional laws.
How about you deal with violent criminals, mmkay, Pumpkin?
8000 permit holders? That’s approximately 1.5% of the population, and its unlikely they all carry. Real eye opener…
I get the basic idea here. They want tighten up the paper trail so they can trace crime guns back to the source. Then what? That gets you nothing unless you can prove that the seller knowingly sold to a prohibited possessor. How are you going to prove an illegal sale, when you can’t even prove a sale at all?
All someone has to claim is that the murderer who somehow had your gun, must also be a thief who stole your gun. If I’m wrong, then show me all of the successful convictions of the original owners of these crime guns tallied in the study. Hmm? None? Exactly.
All this is, is harrassment of lawful gun owners and further obsession with inanimate objects. None of it addresses criminal homicides one bit.
And it’s working so well: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5086f19ce4b0ad16ff15598d/t/55f0c971e4b018a23a081b3a/1441843569364/Shootings+9-8-15.pdf
2014 (year total) v. 2015 (1st 9 months) shootings up by 25, incidents same: 135, but 3 more months to go in 2015, victims 154 v. 179 (again, 3 more months to go for all of 2015)
Meanwhile firearm arrests are Down by 28 from 2014. Better get busy to break even with 2014.
And “The program, debuted last year, has thus far brought in one, single firearm.” source: http://www.guns.com/2015/08/14/bostons-2015-gun-buyback-nets-1-gun/
So Walsh said that every gun turned in is a potential life savor. Maybe it will save the life of an intruder, because an ignorant home defender turned in their gun, thinking it would make the would a safe and cozy place.
Perhaps what he means by “creative” is that at the next opportunity they’ll be going house to house kicking in doors looking for guns instead of terrorists.
“Anything we can do to be creative that might help us with getting one gun off the street”.
I know! He can set up check points for people going in and out of Boston and they can confiscate any firearms found. Just like General Gage’s men did in 1775. I mean, that turned out OK for the British.
Didn’t it?
Detroit Police Chief James Craig also asked “licensed gun owners to help stop gun violence”. However the way he wanted them to do it was completely different. Things generally work out better when you ask people to help you solve the problem, not when you treat them like they are part of the cause of the problem.
You guys are simply short-sighted. Did he not say “ANYTHING”? OK, Bozo, give me a million dollars and I will give you one gun. In fact, I will repeat that every day, so long as you are so dedicated. Let me know when we start. Or were you just dumping horse manure on your listeners?
“Anything we can do to be creative that might help us with getting one gun off the street or preventing one shooting, we’re going to do it.” – Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh. He said ANYTHING! How about taking the guns away from the police? That would stop the police from shooting anyone. It is a stupid idea because how will they protect themselves and how will we protect ourselves if they take our firearms. mrpresident2016.com
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