Malone LaVeigh
Member
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/16810183.htm
I suppose now there will be pressure from Chicagoland to have stronger gun control laws here.
Ironically, this is a repeat in some ways of the not-too-distant past. There was an extremely right-wing gun dealer here on the Coast I remember going to when I was a teenager. Some time in the 80s he got popped for being part of a conspiracy in which the Plack Panthers in Chicago were ending up with illegal weapons.
19 charged in Mississippi-to-Chicago gunrunning conspiracy, prosecutors say
SUN HERALD
Nineteen people have been charged in a gunrunning scheme in which "straw buyers" purchased weapons in Mississippi that were later sold to street gangs here, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
Participants in the interstate firearms trafficking conspiracy shipped more than 100 guns between August 1999 and April 2005, according to the U.S. attorney's office for the northern district of Illinois. Most of the guns have not been recovered, authorities said.
According to prosecutors, buyers with clean records bought the guns. The traffickers who recruited those straw buyers then took the guns to Chicago, where they were distributed at the direction of the brokers who had arranged the purchases. Often, serial numbers were obliterated to hide the origin of the weapons, authorities said.
"When you add illegally obtained firearms to the already volatile mix of gangs and drugs on the streets of Chicago, the result is an unacceptable level of violence," said Gary S. Shapiro, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago.
Three of those charged are from Chicago and 16 are from Mississippi. All but one were arrested on Wednesday; the last already was in jail, authorities said.
Fourteen were charged in Chicago, accused of either recruiting straw purchasers, acting as straw buyers or distributing the guns to gangs, according to prosecutors. The other five were charged in Mississippi with making false statements in connection with the purchase of firearms.
Each defendant in the Chicago complaint faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The defendants charged in Mississippi face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Prosecutors said 301 guns confiscated by authorities in Chicago from January 2001 to October 2006 have been traced to four licensed gun dealers in Tunica and Clarksdale, Miss. No dealers have been charged in the investigation.
Police said they confiscated more than 10,000 guns in Chicago last year, and this investigation represents only a small number of the total weapons brought into the city.
I suppose now there will be pressure from Chicagoland to have stronger gun control laws here.
Ironically, this is a repeat in some ways of the not-too-distant past. There was an extremely right-wing gun dealer here on the Coast I remember going to when I was a teenager. Some time in the 80s he got popped for being part of a conspiracy in which the Plack Panthers in Chicago were ending up with illegal weapons.