How do criminals obtain firearms?

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I just saw a story on the Albuquerque TV station tonight about a police officer from a small town near Albuquerque who was apparently staying at his second home here, and had a shotgun and "police model" AR stolen out of his home. Seems no one is immune to theft.:rolleyes:
 
I guess they are assuming straw purchases are used to commit other crimes. If you buy a gun for your wife or as a gift for someone, isn't it technically a straw purchase?
 
If your occupation is "criminal" and you need tools to do your daily business, you go to the "Criminal Supply Depot" and "get" a gun. Since you are a professional "criminal" the legal avenues are not open to you. The gun laws only apply to the Legal side of society, not the Criminal side. This isn't hard to figure out.
 
Illegal gun trade

The vast majority of guns that end up in criminals hands in the US are stolen....there are thousands of burglary's in this country daily.....I investigated a gun theft from a sporting goods store, where the crooks took three handguns from a display case when the store clerk was pulled away by a third crook on some pretense. The crooks knocked over a fire hydrant on the way out of the lot and that drew some citizen's attention who noted the license plate.....the guns were recovered six hours later, after they had gone through two other people's possession and then "muled" to Chicago.....270 miles away.....there is an "underground" trade for stolen guns....next to cash, guns are what burglars seek...
 
How do you think criminals get their guns.

1. They go to a brick and mortar LGS.

2. Truthfully fill out all required forms, submit their fingerprints

3. Pay their fees

4. Wait for their background check to came back.

5. Pay their money.



It's the only way gun control laws can be effective. All progressive gun-grabbing liberal politicians know that??? That's why they want to pass more laws. The bad guys always comply.
 
One of our local FFL's , a year or so ago, notified the Feds about some suspected "Straw Purchases" and was basically told to mind his own business.
Does the Drug Trade have EVERYONE on the pad??
 
I read a stat about the confiscation of 7500 guns in Chicago in 2012.
If only HALF that amount were in the hands of repeat offenders, why were not over 3500 Perps jailed?
 
If all else fails they can call up Eric Holder (program director) and participate in the fast and furrious method of obtaining them.
 
A large number of straw purchases in the South near the border are used for illegal drug trade by the gang bangers in Mexico. Other than that, I don't believe straw purchases are nearly as big a problem as many people think it is.
 
They go to Gun trader and buy them, why is this even a question. They are available everyware.
 
Have you ever been to one of those police "crime gun" auctions? I have. What a serious load of crap. Probably 80% are .22s first off. A lot more are rifles than you'd expect. There are probably not robery guns but guns that the gang bangers use to shot at one another out of vehicles etc. A lot of really loose, rusty old revolvers of questionable lineage...not many S&W, Colt. Quite a few Taurus and Rossi revolvers. Surprisingly few semi-automatics and those are mostly .22s and a few .25s. There will be a few Glocks. There was a mini-14 at the one I was at.

Frankly I can't imagine who'd own these crappy guns to steal. They were rusty, cracked, broken, bent, dented. It looked to me like a lot of the 22s were just very old and had probably bounced around the city for 50 years, traded here and there, sold over and over again, until they finally ended up in the hands of somebody who got arrested.

Based on what I saw, it looks like the nice guns that I know do get stolen must be sold for high dollar to somebody who manages to hang on to them. I mean where do all the stolen Colt Pythons actually end up? They are not at these auctions. Maybe the cops "launder" them (legally and above board I presume...if not publicly) and sell them to bone fide collectors/dealers for top dollar? Maybe the bad guys have people willing to pay real bucks for good guns? Presumably a lot of those that were stolen were returned to rightful owner? Thus leaving all the crap for the auction?

The thing about thieves is that the vast majority of them are, above all else, poor. You are not going to hang onto a Colt Python (if you know what you've got) when all you need to rob liquor stores is a rusty old .22 revolver with 4 bullets in it. You'd presumably turn that thing into money. Now if you found some old beater gun under your burglary victim's matress, that you'd sell to a buddy for what ever the underground market would dictate.

Maybe somebody has experiences different from mine.
 
I cannot see anyone giving away money regaurdless what their convictions were. Unless they were extremely wealthy. You aren't going to see a kimber or a Les Baer show up at one of these hundred dollar givebacks, "unless someone just used it in a crime". In which case it might be a good way to dispose of eidence, "I am sure they considered that".
It's got to be a bunch of rusted non functioning metal, resembling what may have once been a gun.
But anyone who wants a gun, can go to a seedy part of town and hang out in a bar for an hour, and I am pretty sure someone will be able to point them in the right direction.
Or sometimes a friend of a friend, or a pennysaver like gun trader, or a gun show.
Some dealers don't ask questions, it's too bad, but I have seen it happen many times in the past.
When someone needs money and it's not illegal to sell a gun to someone, the formalitys may be skipped, especially if the guy is paying the asking price. Just because the majority of gun owners are honest hard working guys and gals, doesn't mean they are all angels.
Maybe now folks are watching their 6 a bit more because of the heat being turned up, but it is done occasionally.As long as the person has a drivers license and says they aren't prohibited from owning one in this state, you can sell it, but you are supposed to see FL, ID
 
Also, many "guns" used in crimes are in fact not guns. A toy, a concealed block of wood a finger in a pocket work almost as well as the real thing.
 
PBS hum wonder where they get they're funding from? The same one who saved big bird and cut defense spending Id say. A bunch of liberal hacks.
PBS is primarily funded by members. It is something like 70/30 (members/Gov't). That doesn't mean they are incapable of bias, but they are not a wholesale Government mouthpiece.
 
PRM said:
How do you think criminals get their guns.

1. They go to a brick and mortar LGS.

2. Truthfully fill out all required forms, submit their fingerprints

3. Pay their fees

4. Wait for their background check to came back.

5. Pay their money.


It's the only way gun control laws can be effective. All progressive gun-grabbing liberal politicians know that??? That's why they want to pass more laws. The bad guys always comply.

They want to pass more laws, but not just to pass laws. They want to do it in order to take away our 2nd amendment rights.
 
The serial # is removed so as not to incriminate the buyer.
Possession of a weapon with an altered serial number is supposed to be a federal felony offense. Betcher booty gunsmiths have been threatened with prosecution for obliterating serial numbers during installation of telecope mounts on receivers or overzealous polishing in refinishing abused guns. But failure to prosecute criminals who obliterate serial numbers deliberately with criminal intent is a sticking point with me. I or other gun hobbyists bear the threat of prosecution, but too many criminals are allowed to skate.
 
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If you buy a gun for your wife or as a gift for someone, isn't it technically a straw purchase?

No. Gifting is perfectly lawful, so long as the recipient isn't a prohibited person.

When you buy a gift for someone, you are the actual buyer.
 
Usually through slide deals of stolen goods from robberies or other illegal activity.

In my home town of Detroit, I knew of at least 3 places by the time I was 17 that you could get a handgun of your choice ( well, choice of what was in the trunk..... ) and enough ammo to learn to use it for less than $200- and that was in the 90's.

Dont worry- they'll never be traced. Most of them have the SN's litterally ripped off with a rasp, and after a short period of time end up at the bottom of the Detroit river. There's an entire armory down there- thats for certain.

An "Acquaintance" of mine was in some trouble once, and got a saturday night special for $20 and a carton of newports. It happens.

Trades of metal for drugs are also fairly routine. Its still a crack town- although not as bad as it once was, and a few twenty packs of heroin on the right corner will get you pointed in the direction of anything you could ever possibly need.

If you want it in a big, crime filled city- you can get it.

In the 80's- you could get mac-10s for about $300 by the bushel. Would you want one of them ? Probably not long term...but they were very common.

Straw purchases aren't made for people looking to commit crimes with guns. The original purchaser gets hosed :/
 
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I was raised in the barrio so I know the answer to this question. Sad that its not common knowledge. The way they get them is from robbing houses. The criminals who dont rob houses buy them from the ones that do. Handguns typically go for $100 dollars I know this cause gang bangers would roll up all the time saying you want a gun? They would raise it up and say $100; this was common.
 
pardon me if I am repeating myself....but

James D. Wright, sociologist, was hired by the Carter Administration to study guns, crime and violence in America in 1977. Wright and co-author Peter D. Rossi produced a report for the government, and expanded it into the book "Under the Gun", Aldine, 1983.

Later they were chosen to write the report on the US NIJ Felon Survey of 1,874 felons convicted of armed crimes, interviewed in 18 prisons in 10 different states. This too was expanded and published as James D. Wright and Peter Rossi, "Armed and Considered Dangerous", (Aldine 1986, 2nd ed 2008, ISBN-13: 978-0202362427).

A summary was linked in a post above at http://rkba.org/research/wright/armed-criminal.summary.html

Any one have any data more current that 27 yrs old?
Well, there was a 2nd edition of the study in 2008.

Wright and Rossi found felons "obtain guns in hard-to-regulate ways from hard-to-regulate sources".

(No surptise to me. I grew up in a county that was "dry" til 1968 and I know prohibition does not work whether alcohol or guns. From knowing both cops and crooks as friends, relatives, neighbors, schoolmates, I had practical experience that the hoods in my neighborhood in the 1960s were getting their guns from other-than-legal sources.)

Wriight and Rossi found that handgun-using felons expected to be able to get handguns from "unregulated channels" within a week of release from prison*: friends (mostly fellow criminals), from "the street" (used guns from strangers), from fences or the blackmarket or drug dealers (who often run guns along with drugs).

Of gun using felons,
50% expected to unlawfully purchase a gun through "unregulated channels" above;
25% expected to be able to borrow a gun from a fellow criminal,
12% expected to steal a gun.
7% cited licensed gun dealers and 6% cited pawnshops (usually through a surrogate buyer: friend, relative or lover).

40% of the felons surveyed reported stealing firearms, mostly for trade or resale. Sources stolen from included:
37% from stores,
15% from police,
16% from truck shipments,
8% from manufacturers,
21% from individuals.

A few years back, two officers interviewed in Knoxville about a proposed gun law told the newspaper that one in five of criminals they encountered owned a gun, and of the criminals who owned guns 80% got them from illegal sources, so I suspect things have not changed much since the 1980s of the Wright & Rossi study or my experience in the 1960s.

(yeah, I am not a citable, notable or reliable source by academic standards, but Wright and Rossi, professed liberal academics turned gun control skeptics, are.)

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*Surprise, surprise, surpise. A UK study after the infamous 1997 handgun ban revealed that UK gun using felons interviewed in prison expected to be able to get guns within a week or two of release if they wanted one, up to and including submamchine guns. Gun sources: from smugglers, drug dealers, underground "armourers" who specialized in fencing guns stolen, converted blank guns, military surplus smuggled in, and the drug-smuggler/gun-runner overlap was also mentioned as a UK source of guns.

Home Office Research Study 298, Gun crime: the market in and use of
illegal firearms
, December 2006, details the "emerging criminal gun culture" in Great Britain.
 
I used to do jail ministry for a county in OK, I once asked the guys where they got guns cause most of em have pretty long sheets. Most of they guys said they got girlfriends or people they knew to buy them for them. A couple admitted the guns they had were stolen, but they "didn't know" they were stolen. I would actually be willing to bet quite a few were in fact straw purchases, but this just goes to show that the criminals will get guns, one way or another.

On a side note, I asked one guy about other types of guns and he said as long as you got money, you could have anything you wanted, from handguns to full automatics its out there you just have to know the right people and have the right money.
 
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