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“A three-month undercover sting operation shows an estimated 126 firearms are being transferred annually to legally unauthorized persons in Vermont through unchecked Internet sales, burlingtonfreepress.com. “‘Hiding in Plain Sight,’ a first-of-its kind investigation in Vermont by the group Everytown for Gun Safety, monitored guns for sale on three primary websites, according to a copy of the report.” OMG! Unauthorized persons! Buying guns! On the Internet! Click here to download the anti-gun agitprop. Or make the jump for the lowlights and a surprising Arms List-related assertion . . .

The group also posted 24 guns for sale on Armslist.com between July 28 and Oct. 9 and developed a list of 169 potential buyers seeking guns online through unlicensed sales, the report notes.

Investigators hired by Everytown conducted criminal record cheeks by searching court records in the geographic area where the potential buyer voluntarily listed his or her address, the report said.

Seven of the 169 people were prohibited by law from possessing firearms.

“At this prevalence, gun sale transacted on just three websites put an estimated 126 guns into the hands of felons and domestic abusers in Vermont — and likely many more — in this year alone,” the report said.

In south Chicago, that’s known as a Wednesday afternoon. Anyway, the paper runs a bullet-point list of dodgy potential gun deals, provided by the civilian disarmament lobby group, carefully fact-checked by the paper’s editors. (JK) Including this gem republished by the Freep . . .

• A 55-year-old Huntington man, who court records show brutally attacked his wife and repeatedly threatened to kill her by choking. The man responded between Aug. 7 and Oct. 10 to seven gun ads, including a Glock 40mm, a Ruger 9mm and a Kel-Tec .380.

As regular readers know, I believe the words “shall not be infringed” in the Second Amendment mean . . . wait for it . . . shall not be infringed. As in no background checks for gun sales. At all. Ever. On the practical level, how would forcing Americans to have a background check for all gun sales reduce crime? Where’s the evidence?

And while we’re at it, how many of these case studies involved people banned from possessing firearms? Sure, they were accused of domestic violence, for example, but how many were convicted of a felony? And where can I get those sweet 40mm GLOCKs?   [h/t JF]

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94 COMMENTS

    • I just ordered mine! With a 2,700 grain bullet at 650 FPS, I’ll be getting 2,534 Ft Lbs of Muzzle energy. Even though it is a slow bullet, it should still be a “one shot man-stopper!”

        • Nice! I hope that provides for some larger magazines. The standard 4-rounder is my only disappointment. I’d like to see something in the 7 or maybe 8-round capacity! 😀

    • Actually the 9 caliber would be harder to conceal, its bore is nine inches across. (You probably forgot the decimal point.)

      • I saw that too, but you commented on it first.

        Even a point 9 (.9) caliber would be pretty large. Twice the diameter of a .45 caliber, or 4 times the frontal area (pi * Radius squared).

    • I’m not seeing 40mm ammo available at anything near reasonable prices. One of the biggest advantages of the .9 mm is that if you run out of ammo you can just keep shooting, it is just as effective unloaded!

      • SGAmmo has a large quantity of the +P+ loads in stock right now. Since mine is on the way, I might as well just stock up on these. It pushes the same bonded 2,700 grain JHP bullet at a whopping 795 FPS which boosts the muzzle energy to 3,790 Ft Lbs! Speer has a disclaimer not to shoot it in the Gen 4 pistol. I’m just glad the one I’m getting is a Gen 5 with Glock’s new 26-piece recoil spring assembly! It is supposed to bring the powerful +P+ loads to levels where it feels like shooting an everyday .454 Casull.

        • But can I use this ammo in my pot-metal 40mm WWII flare gun (using a modified Glock arm brace, of course)?

  1. Yeah, and is that Kel-Tec a .380mm? Or .380 caliber? I can’t tell anymore it’s ANARCHY! ANARCHY I tells ya!

    “Seven of the 169 people were prohibited by law from possessing firearms.

    “At this prevalence, gun sale transacted on just three websites put an estimated 126 guns ”

    So the 7 people bought 126 guns?

  2. Did the purchases actually take place?

    Bloomberg and his subsidiaries have a habit of confusing shopping from buying.

    We don’t have an actual crime unless the purchase takes place and the firearm was delivered to the prohibited person.

    Little details, I know.

    • They did not complete the transactions. They just listed them.
      Selling a firearm to a known prohibited person, and then admitting to it in a study, would have made their lawyers go into billable hours overload.

      • I thought Bloomberg got in ‘trouble’ from the FBI from doing this way back in the day. Granted ‘trouble’ meant being requested that they don’t continue to break the law.

  3. “Everytown conducted criminal record cheeks”…
    Really? “criminal record cheeks”?
    Is that where the Everytown investigator sticks their nose into the public’s behind?

    • I’ve never had a background CHEEK. Who performs that since the FBI does background checks?

      Just remember though, these folk are “experts” on guns so that’s why they can write laws on gun control. Just ask Diana DeGette, clip expert and Carolyn McCarthy, Predator armorer.

  4. If they knew a criminal bought a gun and did not report it to police, does that count as a crime? How did they know who were criminals and who were not? Did the authors of the study have real criminals buy or pretend to buy? I sense a laps in ethics here.

    • You must have a fully licensed tongue in order to enter a crowed, or potentially crowed theater because you have the “potential” to falsely yell “Fire”, thus “potentially” causing the death of 100’s.
      .
      No?
      .

      • Agreed.

        And as another commentator posted and I have posted before, every reasonably fit male is a potential rapist. What should we do about those two classes of people?

        • Well, as I suggested earlier, all penises should be registered and a background check performed at that time.
          .
          Another suggested micro-stamping, as he had had that painful procedure performed to make him safer.
          .
          As for tongues, I suppose one could choose to have his/her tongue torn out to make movie-going more convenient.
          .

  5. On the more serious side of this cynics emporium, as the title so aptly demands – Of course they were looking for bad guys and assumed that all of the sellers would actually SELL to these folks. Most of us who dabble in online sales have very strict codes and ID requirements. In VA, I require two IDs; a state DL AND either a Military ID or CWP. I also cover my arse by requiring the seller to sign the very same state questionnaire required of FFL sales. I applaud their efforts to derive REAL data, just not their methods and conclusions.

    • Esqueeze me? You think they are trying to do some sort of research, here? This group is perennially attempting to manufacture BS to deceive normal people into believing the garbage they spew. They would not recognize actual research if it bit them on their arse, and if they did recognize it they would not care.

      • My good fellow. Are you insinuating that this country’s best educated are in fact just ordinary common everyday fools and not the brightest, most intelligent of our elite ruling class?
        .
        How dare you Sir!

        • Vermont legislatures are using this “fact filled article” as the impetuce for revising gun laws.

          Within 10 years Vermont laws will be as restrictive as those in other northeastern states (NY, CT, MD, NJ, etc).

  6. Suspected, Accused, Indicted, Convicted are all very different things.

    But as ya know, in this here 2015, Accused is good enough for some OMG!!!!!!!! panic good times.

    Oh and just to be a dick I’m going to go on Buds or Gunbroker this afternoon and buy a new gun. And Dear Shannon, there is not fuck-all you can do about it.

    Neeners!

  7. Are convicts barred from voting or speaking? Just wondering…

    Also are convictions public record? Or are these people snooping into people’s private lives somehow.

    • “Also are convictions public record?”

      Most yes. Minnesota’s Info for example:

      Data on criminal convictions is public for 15 years following the completion of the sentence. Public information includes: offense, court of conviction, date of the conviction and sentence information. Information not available on this website includes: arrest data, juvenile data, criminal history data from other states, federal data, data on convictions where 15 years or more have elapsed since the completion of the sentence, and other data deemed private or confidential.

      https://cch.state.mn.us/

      • You are wrong. Even people in prison can vote in two States, and the vast majority of people live in States where voting rights are automatically restored upon completion of either sentence, sentence and parole, sentence and parole and probation.

    • You can get a brackground search on anyone. There are sites that will do it. I wonder how many of those “prohibited ” persons were actually false positives (law abiding person that has the same name as a convicted criminal). I doubt that anyone would give all information required (name, addresss, ss #) to do a proper background check to someone they contacted through the Internet.

  8. F*ck the 40mm Glock!

    I want one of them 5.56 caliber AR15s. You know, the ones that shoot 30 ghost rounds a second.

  9. I would really like to ask the copy editor what exactly he thinks a 40mm pistol looks like.

    “I’m sure it said 40mm or something…”
    “I can tell you for a fact that there is no GLOCK 40mm. GLOCK makes no such firearm. No handgun manufacturer makes such a firearm. There is a GLOCK model 40 pistol, and several GLOCK .40 caliber pistol, but there are no 40mm pistols.”
    “How do YOU know?”
    “Because a 40mm firearm is either a grenade launcher or a mortar. The biggest bore production handguns are chambered for 12.7mm. Anything bigger is specially made and wouldn’t have an arms manufacturer’s mark.”
    “……..Oh. Well, it’s still a hand cannon that’s made for war use.”
    “Actually no military force on Earth uses a .40 caliber sidearm. Some use a .45, but that caliber has been in civilian semiautomatic use since 1911, and civilian revolver use since the 1830s. And generally nothing less than a .44 Magnum caliber is considered a hand cannon in the gun world.”
    “But what does anyone need a 40 caliber handgun for? You don’t use that for hunting!”
    “Actually pistol caliber carbines chambered for .40 are common for feral pig hunting, and for comparably-sized game, even small deer. The sidearm would be carried as a backup weapon in case something with large teeth ambushed the hunter. It’s also used by many law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.”
    “… well, maybe it’s okay for hunting and for police then. But why do normal people need it?”
    “It’s one of the stronger calibers made for small-frame firearms, such as those marketed to women. You don’t want women to not have self-defense options, do you?”

    • That’s just ridiculous. The conversation would look more like this:

      “I’m sure it said 40mm or something…”

      “I can tell you for a fact that there is no GLOCK 40mm. GLOCK makes no such firearm. No handgun manufacturer makes such a firearm. There is a GLOCK model 40 pistol, and several GLOCK .40 caliber pistol, but there are no 40mm pistols.”

      <Sticks fingers in ears> “Na, na, na, na, I can’t hear you.”

  10. Unless they priced the guns very low, or picked highly desirable ones, I doubt they got that many potential buyers. And if price fairly low, some respectable buyers may be less certain of it.

    And pray tell, how did they find the background of all of these people? I posted a gun on Armslist. No one sent me an email saying I am John Smith of Anytown, DOB 01/04/179 SSN etc

    Instead I get an email saying “I see you want to meet at an FFL, I prefer straight cash” (I am in California), and I respond no, I am following the law here. Nothing more. Another email asks if there is anything wrong with the gun. No, I say. Some are just offers.

    Until someone goes, “I will take it” I don’t learn his name, and I certainly don’t learn enough to be certain of saying he is the same John Smith that was charged with X.

    I also note, that seeing sales posted elsewhere, out of California, many want to see DL, want to write a bill of sale, some only sell to CCW holders and by and large many will not sell if they feel something is hinky. How many of the felons responding to ads actually get to the point of buying a piece? And more importantly, how many of the sellers are actually selling them it? I doubt that many.

    Interesting article I read mentioned how even terrorists that lived near the Czech border went to Belgium to buy guns, rather that the relatively gun freedom country of the Czech Republic (it isn’t AZ, but it does have shall issue CCW). A society that respects gun ownership not the place to arm up for a terrorist? Shocker

    • Yeah, they seem to miss the fact that most of us require “good guy” IDs in states that do permit private transfers just because we don’t want the hassle. It is the Antis who are encouraging any illegal activity; not us.

    • This shows the difference between a gun control that is considered acceptable by the society and gun control that is overreaching. In the Czech Republic, getting firearms license (incl. CC) is a straightforward system much like getting a driving license. There are plenty gun shops but none will jeopardize their business by selling anything to someone without license/permit to buy (also shall issue). This leads to the outcome that every law abiding citizen who wants to have guns have them legally. Meanwhile having illegal firearms leads to presumption that the person must be either criminal (can’t pass background check), lunatic (can’t get general practitioner’s stamp) or imbecile (can’t pass the test). No-one wants any of those as a neighbor to be armed.

      Meanwhile in countries with restrictive gun control, many come to conclusion that getting guns legally is too cumbersome, or straight out impossible (especially when it comes to having a firearm for self defense). Law abiding citizens start buying them from the black market, increasing its general extent. Meanwhile everyone knows that having guns legally is next to impossible so those who have them illegally are not automatically sorted into category of criminals/nuts/imbeciles, they are accepted by society and not reported to authorities. These law abiding citizens drive most of the black market in countries like Belgium, which in turn makes guns also accessible to real criminals and terrorists.

      I am not saying you can’ get an illegal firearm in the Czech Republic. But you need to know a guy who knows a guy, you need to know them well and no one in the line wants the sail to bite them back in the ass. You can’t just set a meeting at a main train station in Prague over Internet and expect a guy to show up with full auto AKs and an RPG.

      I suppose that when you are talking about Polish terrorists, you meant Brunon Kwiećien group that wanted to attack the Polish parliament. While in his case it is not known whether he went straight to Belgium or attempted to buy guns in the Czech Republic first (living 50kms from border with people on both sides of border speaking the same Silesian language), it is well known that Breivik tried real hard to get firearms in Prague before killing 77 people in Norway. The funny thing is that he was watching some BBC report about how terrible it is with guns in the Czech Republic, people carrying legally and illegal guns sold all around the town. He couldn’t get even a lousy Makarov, not to mention his plans for AKs and RPGs. He concluded he can’t trust BBC.

  11. I heard a rumor that the Air Force is considering replacing it’s Bofors 40 mm L/60’s on it’s AC-130 gunships with 40 mm hand held Glocks as a cost saving measure.

  12. I think this quote from a Yahoo! article really highlights the danger of all of these gun sales in Vermont:

    And most of the safest states are getting even safer: The safest state of all, Vermont, experienced a drop in violent crime of more than 19 percent in just a single year [2012 to 2013] — the biggest annual decline of any state. Only 115 violent crimes were reported per 100,000 people.

    • I read that article a little deeper. Interestingly enough, those ten states with the lowest crime rate are all very pro-gun.
      And to counter the argument that rural states have low crime, while urban states are more susceptible to crime: Virginia, Utah, Kentucky, and Minnesota made the list.
      And to counter the argument that poverty causes crime: Kentucky, Idaho, and Montana made the list, and they have high poverty rates.

      Maybe, just maybe, there is some link between high gun ownership and low violent crime.

      • It’s true. I’ve been going thru the FBI/CDC/BJS to look at the and the history of the states with background checks for all gun sales and it is not as rosy as Bloomberg keeps preaching.

  13. Pretty sad statistic inflation. So 7 of 169 potential purchasers had names similar to someone who had some sort of criminal record. About 4 %. Probably the ones with the most generic names?
    Somehow those 7 over three months gets morphed into 126 through simple extrapolation?
    I remember being warned about the dangers of extrapolation, when you multiply your “potential” results by 18 you are really out of bounds.
    These results are of no use whatsoever, except as propaganda, of course.

  14. Buying online? How is buying from Armslist any different that using Craigslist or Autotrader. Its a clasified ad! Any reference to “buying online” is calculated to inflame and agitate.

  15. As regular readers know, I believe the words “shall not be infringed” in the Second Amendment mean . . . wait for it . . . shall not be infringed. As in no background checks for gun sales. At all. Ever.

    Robert spewing out his fundamentalism again, refusing to think for himself and always reverting back to “well it says right here what to do so i don’t have to think”

  16. Here I thought the 27mm FiveseveN was a beast.

    9mm kills the body
    .45 kills the soul
    27mm kills the spirits of your ancestors
    40mm goes back in time and kills the dinosaurs.

  17. It’s called extrapolation. They found 7 possible illegal purchases on one site, so they extended that to include all the sites they looked at. No way to know whether that 179 figure is at all accurate. They were just guessing. No actual facts here.

    If Glock were to go into the 40mm grenade launcher market, I am sure the place to start would be those very cities the gun grabbers are most concerned about. South Side Chicago would be a smoking hole in the ground in short order. The crime rate would plummet. The rest of us could restrict their use to ending noisy parties, dispersing rioters (literally, there would be body parts everywhere), and reshaping architectural monstrosities that offended our sensibilities. What other uses can you think of?

    • Chicago would have to make sure the gun is extra super illegally banned forever, so the gang bangers will know which one to buy.

  18. Long, long ago, and points south of here, I did double duty as a “volunteer” (when the police sergeant normally doing the gig was always drunk on his ass) as the department’s statistical officer, reporting our property and violent crime numbers to the State Police and the Feebies. Just one or a handful of violent crimes, say, can jack those stats sky-high; they don’t really mean much, and like most stats are usually badly abused by the usual suspects, in this case, the imbecilic anti’s.

    I don’t doubt that a handful of criminal dummies browse and respond to gun ads on the net; whether they actually conclude any kind of sale anywhere is anybody’s guess, but doubtful these days, even here, in very gun-friendly state. Of maybe 700,000 population, roughly the same as that of the city of Boston. And still one of the most rural states. And it must be said, whitest, tying each year with either Wyoming, Iowa or Maine. If there are one or two homicides here in any given year, it’s a lot.

    The anti’s have produced here what is known as a ‘red herring’ argument, a tale told by fools and signifying nothing.

  19. So 4.14% of their fake gun ads received “interested” e-mails, form persons with a criminal history, through armslist.com. From that, they extrapolated that 126 out of 3042 guns available on these three websites, must have been purchased by felons.

  20. Another case of numbers without analysis. Every town people need to go back to school, or they are just further proof that the education system has failed them.

  21. THis smells like a cooked story. I got my Kimber from a guy in Chicago via Gun Broker. He had to send it via an FFL and I had to receive it via an FFL and then take it to One Police Plaza to be examined and registered. Just HOW is that “unchecked”?

    Ray

  22. Definitive proof that put of 169 people, 7 may have names substantially similar as other people in the system. What ARE the odds? Well, if you have ever done a case search, you know it’s 100%.

  23. How much does 40mm factory ammo cost per round? I imagine it has impressive “stopping power,” but, as with any caliber, it’s still all about shot placement.

  24. Hey. The AC-130 gunship I flew in 1975 had 40mm’s. Granted they wer Bofors, not Glocks. They were tough shoot off hand, but on the mounts, all I needed was my trigger thumb (the left one).

    • I was on that aircraft (and choppers) in ’72–‘Nam and ’74-’75–Thailand-Laos-Cambodia).

      I’ve been having a pretty good laugh here today about the 40mm Glocks.

      Welcome home, Bill.

  25. Who needs the 40mm, I carry a flare gun, $30 at walmart and no backround! Sonbitch will hitcheww so hard in the chest it”ll make yur shoulders touch.. and cook you well done

  26. You mean a .40 S&W or 10mm Glock. 40mm is the caliber of a military grenade launcher, be it a M79, M203 or M119 automatic grenade launcher. I can really see that most shooters in the US are metrically challenged or just stupid. There is a guy comparing a 40mm to a 9mm, really? There is another one that seem to know what a 40mm size projectile is but thinks that it is a bullet manufactured by Glock. I can sell these two guys sandy beach property in Antartica. Glock does not make 40mm weapon which is roughly 4 tenths of a inch smaller than 2 inches. The only “bullets” made in 40mm are solid aluminium practice projectiles to be used with the M119 grenade launcher; they were made and used in the late 80’s and early 90’s for use in testing at Aberdeen proving Grounds in Maryland. I know because I shot a few. Please people, some of you need to check your head-space and adjust it with a time gauge. By the way, anything above 20mm is considered a cannon like a 20mm Vulcan in a jet fighter, 25mm Bushmaster on a Bradley, a 30mm Tank buster on a A10. The M119 shoots Fragmentation grenades only so it not a cannon per se, just a smooth bore tube. That kind of weapon will never be approved for civilian use and can only be procured in the black market and you will deal the AFT, FBI etc, and the Patriot Act.

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