Posted on 05/30/2014 10:43:16 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
With the toughest gun-control regulations in the country, California has a unique, centralized database of gun purchases that law enforcement officers can easily search. It offers precious intelligence about a suspect or other people they may encounter when responding to a call.
But this rare advantage wasn’t enough to help authorities head off the May 23 rampage in Santa Barbara that claimed six victims.
Before a half-dozen sheriff’s deputies knocked on Elliot Rodger’s door last month in response to concerns raised by his mother about his well-being, they could have checked the database and discovered he had bought three 9mm semiautomatic handguns. Several law enforcement officials and legal experts on gun policy said this might have given deputies greater insight into Rodger’s intentions and his capability for doing harm.
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Technically, the database is not a registry, but rather a record of a firearm “transfers.” It records nearly all gun sales, because California law prohibits the sale of guns between private parties.
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“If they found out he bought 40 magazines, that would have been the end of it,” said Wintemute, who is also an emergency room doctor and professor of emergency medicine. “I don’t think anyone could talk their way out of 40 magazines. Three handguns could be aggressive collecting; 40 magazines is stockpiling. You are preparing for some kind of event. With the family saying he was possibly suicidal, it wouldn’t have been too hard to connect the dots.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Absolutely stupid statement.
ßookmark
I guess they will also now have to register knives.
After the shootings, state Sen. Kevin de León (D-San Diego), renewed calls for a statewide database that would track detailed information about ammunition purchases.
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“As the bill is written, you can’t dispose of ammunition in any current, lawful way. You can’t even sell it back to a vendor,” Combs said. “Even if you buy a case and you use it all, the government doesn’t know that, because it doesn’t have provision for that. So it forces you to stockpile ammunition.”
“Capitola Police Chief Rudy Escalante said, for instance, that it would be “virtually impossible” to consult the database for every person who is acting strangely.”
But they did have time to send seven officers to go talk to him. Really, these police must be dumber than a box of rocks. They look at everything as storming a citadel, rather than using what brains God gave them.
Sounds like the LEOs were negligent and share some responsibility in this tragedy.
The officers involved should be fired and be held PERSONALLY liable. And don’t palm any multimillion dollar settlement off onto the backs of the taxpayers.
The good doctor would have a fecal hemorrhage if he could see inside my house, where shotguns adorn the walls, loaded pistols are in every room, and there are lots of 20mm ammo cans full of rifle, pistol, and shotgun ammo.
/johnny
Richard Martinez absolved the police and the killer so this is all irrelevant.
/johnny
The deputies could have also looked at the actual posts that were concerning the parents they didn’t do that either. Did the parents mention that he was a diagnosed, unmediated schizophrenic. That seems like it ought to be a warning sign.
Scan the manifesto, view the YT (if still avail).
This guy was a total head case.
From age 8 on.
When the government bureaucrats get caught not using the laws and regulations already on the books to stop criminal activity, the liberals politicians cover up the negligence of the government workers by saying new laws are needed.
It seems in almost any situation today, there are more than enough laws on the books. The problem is getting government to enforce the laws. Such as illegal aliens.
In this case 6 or more officers went to Rodger’s apartment to interview him. Just maybe if one of them had stayed behind and checked the gun registry, Rodger’s crime spree could have been stopped then.
When 6 or more officers respond to such a call it indicates they have too many officers with too little work to do. They have gotten lazy and a bunch of people are dead or severely injured.
Picked up three dozen 5.56 mags, 30 round each, at a garage sale for $2 each.
And that, gentle readers, is the problem with databases.
Either you get bombarded with so much data that it becomes meaningless, or you get overly clever with queries and data mining that you start to believe that there ‘just couldn’t be anything wrong with the data.’
The New York daily News’ article about this event has some interesting comment made by various “commentators”. Now for some reason, it is being viewed as a ‘Racist” event by several of the posters because of this guy’s “manifesto”.
ZHow’s that for typical New York City BS?
The databases have nothing to do with protecting the public.
They are all about preparing for confiscation.
What about the Governments massive weapons and ammo purchases. What do you think of those? Stockpiling for a big event are they?
Do they have a comprehensive knife database in California?
bfl
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