I'm not blaming non-criminals for the action of criminals, I am saying these scrap yards are co-conspirators and criminals. It would just take a DA who gave a crap to prosecute. In California it would fall under section 496 of the penal code - receiving stolen property.
My analogy makes perfectly good sense. In both instances the wrong person is being blamed for things they did not do. You’re blaming the recycler for the fact that some but not all of the people they’re buying from are criminals and they have no way of differentiating.
You most certainly are blaming the non-criminals, and you just did it again. They are not co-conspirators or criminals, they’re people buying merchandise which is readily available legally and might, or might not, have been acquired by the seller illegally. If the law was the way you want it then everybody, including you, is a criminal, somewhere along the lines somebody gave you something that was not acquired legally at some point in its history. But you, just like the recyclers, have no way of knowing. If you want to throw them in jail lead by example, give yourself up.
Not even an ambitious DA would waste his time and money trying to prove that a scrap dealer knowingly received "stolen scrap".
Reading the entire story would help explain to you how the guy was caught, and that was with the cooperation of the scrap dealer who still had the stolen wiring on hand and had the transaction receipt. And that was only because the copper wiring remained in the same length as it was when stolen which helped in identifying it..
You'll never get an arrest let alone a conviction of a scrap dealer who has absolutely no idea where his scrap comes from...........
You are exactly correct...the scrapyard owner knows the difference between a construction crew that comes in with the extras from a construction site and someone that just cut the insides out of some stolen AC units.