Posted on 01/15/2013 7:39:03 PM PST by doug from upland
Want to know how to get a gun?
Just ask Chris.
The skinny teen attends high school in Chicago and is a talented athlete. But he’s also a notorious gunslinger.
As a shooter in a South Side gang, he can get his hands on a gun as quick as you can get a burger at a fast-food restaurant.
“I will make a call and say I need a gun. I will ride down the street on my bike and get it — five minutes.”
The Chicago Sun-Times sat down with Chris for a lesson on how gangs get guns. Armed gangs like Chris’ have driven up Chicago’s murder total 28 percent above the tally at this time last year. And Chris is on the front lines of the shooting.
“For your ’hood, you can’t stop [getting] guns because it’s war season. A gang need any gun it can get,” said the teen, who has worked as an informant for police and asked for anonymity. The Sun-Times is identifying him by an alias.
‘Gun guys’
He knows men whose full-time job in the underground economy is to buy guns from suburban stores and illegally sell them to criminals.
Chris calls them the “gun guys.” The cops have another name for them: “straw purchasers.”
“Gun guys” have clean records allowing them to obtain Illinois firearm owner’s identification cards. With FOID cards, they can legally buy guns at stores in the suburbs.
Then they illegally sell them to gang members banned from owning guns because of their criminal backgrounds.
Most of the guns recovered in crimes in Chicago were bought in suburban gun stores, according to a new University of Chicago Crime Lab study of police gun-trace data.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
Can you get me one of those screwdrivers? The shootings follow the Section eight housing locations.
We have gangs to ensure the trafficking of illegal drugs. The illegal drug industry provides high paying incomes to youths who would be unable to find employment paying anything near what they are making. Politicians like this system because it takes the pressure off them to encourage policy that stimulates the legitimate economy.
What about the guns? Guns are the tools of the trade like a carpenter has his hammer and saw. The trafficker can have the best tools of the trade. Because of the money they bring in from drug sales, the high dollar cost to purchase an illegal, top technology gun is chump change to them. Guns insure they have the best stake on buyers, much like a gold prospector lays claim to a fruitful deposit of gold.
The illegal drug industry is a cancer on the social culture that contains it. The political organization become corrupt, and promote policy that ensures that drug trafficking prospers. This is what I see as the primary reason that guns are being taken away from law abiding citizens while the drug gangs are being ignored. They want to promote the drug gangs. It is easy to take guns away from the law abiding because the honest citizen wants to follow the law. The politician is perceived as doing something good to solve a problem while the real problem is hidden and protected. The truth of the matter is the politicians like these drugs too and they will make sure the illegal drug industry delivers the product to them and their friends. Politicians also like the illegal drug industry because they receive kick backs from it. When they stigmatize the gun of the law abiding citizen, that takes the focus off the real culprit. Gang bangers (an appropriate name, by the way) are the real culprit. They will terrorize the society around them with crime which keeps the police busy and employed. The police unions love lots of police employed.
The drug customers are no law abiding citizen either. The need to finance their habits causes thefts and assaults and the need for citizens to have the protection of guns. When citizens cannot get that Second Amendment protection because of oppressive gun regulations, there is no fear from the lawless to attack them. The lawless will not take the risk if there is the chance of being shot by a well armed citizen. So, the politician, wishing to protect their drug friends, takes the law abiding citizen out of the equation. The politician grabs Joe Citizen’s guns and violates his Second Amendment rights. The politician does this because what is the Second Amendment when you already break the law as an abettor to the drug industry?
When politicians take away guns from law abiding citizens wishing to protect themselves from violent drug motivated lawlessness, it is because the politicians want to insure the success of the lawless drug activity. They want the citizen to be robbed so that drug users have access to the necessary money to support their habit. The beast of the illegal drug industry needs its monetary sustenance. And the politician needs his under-the-table money.
If the availability of guns was the problem...straw buyer or not...then gun violence would be worse in the states where guns are more available. Milwaukee and Indianapolis are very close to Chicago, but their law abiding citizens aren’t unaremed. And even though its even EASIER to find a gun in Milwaukee and Indy, their per capita rate of violent crime is far lower.
If the availability of guns was the problem...straw buyer or not...then gun violence would be worse in the states where guns are more available. Milwaukee and Indianapolis are very close to Chicago, but their law abiding citizens aren’t unaremed. And even though its even EASIER to find a gun in Milwaukee and Indy, their per capita rate of violent crime is far lower.
Free drugs and guns day!
Pile em as high as an elephants eye, and let em have at it!
Like mice to a trap. ps bring plenty of body bags.
Great, forget registration, all they would need to do is subpoena the manufacturer’s database and they know where to collect the guns.
straw buyers are criminals, plain and simple, they aren’t your law abiding gun owner.
I agree. How do we stop them? Limit the number someone can buy in a month?
If I knew the answer, friends, I’d tell you. Feudalism is alive and well in many of our nation’s largest cities. Here’s what’s even stranger: the Chicago way is well on its way toward becoming the new American way.
I’m sure someone will come along and tell me I’m full of Sh*t. But with that said, I think that the reason Feudalism does work in these instances is because feudalism is based on two parts, first is that there is the local Strong-man who enforces the “rules” in his “turf” and second that “strong-man” is usually accessible to all residents. Mind you it’s not a good thing to go bother him about piss-ant stuff but if there is a “real” problem he can do something about it.
And that comes down to real crux of the matter, he/she is accessible and our current politicians are much like the professorial class. They live in “ivory towers” and are not only not-accessible but have real disdain for everyone else who is not part of their “class”. And the people want the ability to have real access to their leaders and feudalism does provide for that.
I can’t imagine the Chicago press would falsify information or believe utter nonsense from a source on a subject with which they are unfamiliar </sarc>.
well where i am, gun store owners often know or suspect some straw purchasers and they do call the police. in the past the police did surveil the people to see if they could see them exchanging the guns to others. they got too many calls and told the gun stores not to call them anymore, they didn’t have the manpower to check up on them.
i’d have the police once again get involved if a gun store owner suspected a straw purchase, and prosecute these cases and not plea bargain them down from a felony. if they straw purchase and are caught, they can’t pass a background check and their career is over arming street thugs or other felons.
And all these problems can be decimated if not eliminated by drug legalization.
I am beginning to think you are correct.
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