“Authorities on Friday were investigating whether the man who opened fire on co-workers at a Hesston, Kansas, industrial plant used guns purchased through a third party and not at a licensed gun dealer because his criminal background prevented him from buying guns legally, law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News.” We now know that . . .
Mr. Ford got his AK-47-type semi-automatic rifle (still not specified) and a Glock Model 22 40-caliber handgun from his girlfriend,who bought them legally. (She claims she tried to recover them when they split-up.) Bottom line: the background check system failed.
The antis will no doubt claim an improved background check system would have prevented Ford from tooling-up. In Washington State, for example, Mr. Ford would have been legally obliged to undergo a background check when Sarah Hopkins “transferred” her guns to Mr. Ford.
Is there anyone who seriously believes that Mr. Ford, an eventual spree killer, would have subjected himself to that process? Or that he couldn’t have obtained his firearms by some other extra-legal means?
And yet, after every high-profile mass shooting. the antis and their mainstream media enablers always want to know where’d the bad guy get the gun? Their morbid fascination is based a simple premise: if we can stop bad people from getting guns, bad things won’t happen!
It’s a fundamentally flawed argument. We can’t stop criminals, crazies and terrorists from getting guns. Ipso Ford facto, regardless of the source of Mr. Ford’s firearms. Trying to prevent bad actors from obtaining guns in a nation awash with guns (as it should be) is like trying to prevent teenage boys from increasing their fertility in the privacy of their own room. Details at itaintgonnahappen.com. Meanwhile this . . .
The [ATF] official said it could take several days for authorities to figure out [how Ford got his guns], because federal law prohibits authorities from keeping a database of personal gun purchases and ownership. So the ATF literally has to start each gun trace by contacting the manufacturer, determining when it was made and who it was sold to – often a gun wholesaler that must then be contacted to find out which licenses firearms dealer ultimately sold it, and to whom. Sometimes those checks can be done by phone, but the official said that in a high-profile case like this, it is more likely that federal agents will do personal – and time-consuming – site visits.
“We trace the gun to the first retail purchaser and the rest of it is old-fashioned police work- what did they do with the gun, where did it go from there. There are a lot of layers to that onion,” the official said.
Awwww. Don’t you feel sorry for those poor investigators at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (And Really Big Fires)? They have to use old-fashioned police work. Anyway, mission accomplished, and quickly too.
Wouldn’t it have been so much easier if the ATF had a computerized database of all “personal gun purchases and ownership”? Then they could skip all that preliminary investigation and go straight to the first legal buyer and arrest his ass and stop bad guys from getting guns! Only . . .
Most guns used in crimes were stolen from their first, legal owner. And even if they weren’t, even if the ATF found, arrested and jailed thousands of “straw purchasers” like Ms. Hopkins (which they don’t) or pulled the license on so-called “bad apple gun dealers” who sold a legal product legally (which they can’t, thankfully), it wouldn’t move the needle on criminal use of firearms. [See: masturbatory metaphor above.]
Don’t get me wrong: tracing the source of a killers’ firearms to arrest and prosecute their provider is OK with me. But believing this police work will prevent future criminals, crazies and terrorists from tooling-up is delusional.
The only way to stop bad guys from doing bad things with guns is to lock them up. Perhaps the feds should be spending more time and money investigating how and why Mr. Ford was running around free when he should have been behind bars. Or, God forbid, restore Americans’ gun rights in full so they can defend themselves against killers like Ford.