The Post Newtown Gun Control Push round 2: Ammunition

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Jeff White

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The St Louis Post Dispatch posted this story over the weekend. A special investigation into the "shady" world of online ammunition sales. I consider this the first shot in an attempt to move the debate to restricting the availability of ammunition since restricting firearms isn't getting any traction.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/multim...tml_3e70a8af-dc60-5d52-b7fc-98476c257d28.html
How The Aurora Shooter Got His Ammo
By Todd C. Frankel | Post-Dispatch
© 2013 St. Louis Post-Dispatch

S

tart with the FedEx packages. Follow the trail. That’s what police in Colorado did. They wanted to learn how the gunman got his bullets, how he accumulated an arsenal of more than 6,000 rounds before he walked into an Aurora, Colo., movie theater last July, where he fatally shot 12 people and wounded 58. Where did that ammunition come from?

The answer appeared to be an online company in St. Louis, a detail widely reported one year ago. But recently released search warrants and additional reporting by the Post-Dispatch have shed new light on the path traveled by those thousands of rounds.

The trail leads not to St. Louis but to Knoxville, Tenn., and on to Atlanta, to a secretive 4-year-old company considered to be among the nation’s top online ammunition dealers. Its founders — a pair of former real estate developers — sell bullets using far-flung P.O. boxes, different corporate identities and online marketing tactics that have offended even some firearm enthusiasts. By last summer, these entrepreneurs stood perfectly positioned to close on a quick, legal sale to a deranged killer.

The story of how the Aurora gunman got his 170 pounds of ammo — a transaction that received far less attention than how he obtained his firearms — is a journey into the divisive debate over gun violence, about how guns and ammo flow through the nation and the companies that profit along the way.

Each shooting briefly revives talk about banning certain guns or magazines while another often common feature goes overlooked: the ammo stockpiles. In Newtown, Conn., authorities are looking into how the gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School acquired more than 1,600 bullets. A thwarted plan by a former student to shoot up the University of Central Florida in Orlando earlier this year led police to 1,000 rounds of ammunition. And then there’s the 6,000 rounds in Aurora.

It wasn’t always possible for someone to buy so many bullets so quickly, with so little scrutiny. And it wasn’t always so difficult to track where those bullets came from.

It can feel like chasing a ghost.

Just try to follow the trail.

I'm sure that Frankel will get a Pulitzer for this. As far as I know, no laws were violated, but the author sure works hard to make the online ammunition sales industry look like they are up to something nefarious. I don't know if this story has been syndicated yet but it's out there and if you read it you will see how all the sound bite phrases for the antis are there....waiting...
 
he did not have all 6000 rounds of ammo on him when he started shooting. What difference does it make haow much ammo he bought?
 
he did not have all 6000 rounds of ammo on him when he started shooting. What difference does it make haow much ammo he bought?

That's a stupid question. Naturally he would have loaded all the ammo into a 6000 round magazine but they're tough to get a hold of these days.
 
There are some that would like to limit posession of ammunition to a certain amount. I understand England does this already.
 
6000 bullets can really hurt your delivery driver's back or innocent bystanders if dropped from new york's skyscrapers on to the sidewalk below. With a little research, The author could have scooped the story that new yorkers can stuff almost 26 thirty caliber bullets into a legal 7 round 45 acp magazine. I just dont get the obsession with bullets in the story. Afterall the raw materials for making bullets are laying around for free in every chicago and ny intersection. They should issue their cops brooms and dust pans for bullet/gun control.
 
There are some that would like to limit posession of ammunition to a certain amount.
Yes, like 3 boxes per customer limit at Walmart (and you are the second or third person in line, and they just finished unloading the truck, if they happen to have them on this delivery). Or the no boxes of pistol and rifle ammo at Meijer. Or the overpriced $50 -$70 ammo at CTD. Someone already is " restricting the availability of ammunition ......." and it isn't the government.
 
Yes, like 3 boxes per customer limit at Walmart (and you are the second or third person in line, and they just finished unloading the truck, if they happen to have them on this delivery).

Apples to Oranges.... If I own a store and have 100 boxes of ammo, and 50customers in line... In the long run I am better off selling 2 boxes to all 50 of them instead of 100 to 1 of them.
 
It doesn't matter if the CO shooter had 6,000, 60,000 or 600,000 rounds at home when he went on his shooting spree. He had about 200 rounds with him at the time.
He could have bought that anywhere that sells ammo without raising any eyebrows.
 
What a non story!

So what. Couples guys start an E-commerce business using the same techniques Amazon and others use and it gets called shady.

Media hype and fear mongering at its best.
 
I buy ammo in bulk due to the intermittent availability of various calibers coupled with better pricing.

This article is hardly newsworthy. Did this guy actually graduate high school?
 
One of my co-workers is an anti-gun guy. He explained that the whole point is to keep the price of ammunition and reloading supplies up and to even drive them up higher if possible to discourage people from stockpiling. Banning on-line sales, or at least severely restricting them, would help achieve that goal.

I told him that the market always adjusts accordingly. The former on-line wholesalers will likely push more ammo, with incentives, to higher volume local retailers such as the Walmarts, Kmarts, Targets, etc. All they'd have to have is an FFL and by this they most likely would be encouraged to start selling firearms as well. You all most likely would be defeating your own purpose in the long run.

All I got after that was a "hmmmm......"
 
I'm sure that Frankel will get a Pulitzer for this. As far as I know, no laws were violated, but the author sure works hard to make the online ammunition sales industry look like they are up to something nefarious.

when the don't have proof or don't like the facts they rely on suspicion and innuendo and half truths.

It's been my belief for a long time that their big play would be on controlling ammo.
 
One of my co-workers is an anti-gun guy. He explained that the whole point is to keep the price of ammunition and reloading supplies up and to even drive them up higher if possible to discourage people from stockpiling. Banning on-line sales, or at least severely restricting them, would help achieve that goal.

And, boys and girls, how do we keep the prices high? By having the US citizens buy, buy, buy! How do we discourage stockpiling? By getting people to stockpile!

LOL! That's strangely familiar. In the last panic we had someone float the idea that Obama was exercising a master plan for keeping folks from being able to buy guns and ammo. All he had to do was make noise about a ban and then everyone would rush out and buy all the guns and ammo on the shelves, and then buy all the guns and ammo the manufacturers could make and then that would keep the shelves empty. So he tricked the whole country into buying massive quantities of guns and ammo so that they can't buy guns and ammo. :D

Kind of like keeping the lion from eating you by jumping down his throat. :scrutiny: :D
 
Apples to Oranges.... If I own a store and have 100 boxes of ammo, and 50customers in line... In the long run I am better off selling 2 boxes to all 50 of them instead of 100 to 1 of them.


Yep. Actually gives more customers the chance to get some.
 
One of my co-workers is an anti-gun guy. He explained that the whole point is to keep the price of ammunition and reloading supplies up and to even drive them up higher if possible to discourage people from stockpiling. Banning on-line sales, or at least severely restricting them, would help achieve that goal.

My question in reply would be, "the whole point of what?"

Is he suggesting there is some massive grassroots shadow plan to do what he is talking about?
 
My question in reply would be, "the whole point of what?"
The anti gun conspiracy secret plan -- to make everyone, everywhere, buy as much ammunition and as many guns as they possibly can, so that they can't buy guns and ammo any more.


... makes sense, right? :D
 
The anti gun conspiracy secret plan -- to make everyone, everywhere, buy as much ammunition and as many guns as they possibly can, so that they can't buy guns and ammo any more.


... makes sense, right?

Actually, I think they wanted to keep guns and ammo away from everyone. And in the process armed more citizens than ever. Goal achieved!
 
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