How did this grad student buy all these weapons- with what money?

[Tumbulu]

Aren't all these guns and explosives pricey? Where did he get all the money to buy this stuff?

Or are weapons not only not well regulated but also super cheap?

If they are so cheap, I think that it is time to raise the prices significantly (i.e. impose user fees and or taxes) and then use the money to pay for emergency rooms, medical services, etc.

How cheap are these weapons anyway?

[Lint Head]

1. If you are going to do something that may end your life credit cards can pay for a lot and

you would never have to pay back.

[Tumbulu]

3. That is true, I never think of using

credit cards unless I can pay it all off......

[Scootaloo]

2. They're not particularly cheap

Though I guess it depends on where you're shopping.

I'm personally not sold on the "lone nut" theory.

[cbrer]

4. Pell Grant...Oh wait!

He was a grad student.

Seriously:

AR-15 $500-2000.00
Pistol $100-1000.00
Body armor ~$800.00
Ammo ~$50-200.00

Gun control BEFORE a slaughter? Priceless!

[HooptieWagon]

5. Maybe $5K. Maxed out his VISA, most likely.

Probably had far less invested in the apartment booby traps, which if they'd gone off, could have been just as deadly.

[Liberal_in_LA]

78. His car looked pretty nice. His folks are upper middle class. maybe he had savings.

[bluedigger]

6. 4-5G's, maybe more...

Glocks - 2x$600
AR-15 - $1100
Shotgun - $300

That's $2600 for the weapons alone.

Add in ammo, bulletproof vest, gas mask, "accessories", etc...

I'm probably lowballing it.

[Tumbulu]

15. Do students have all this money?

I go bonkers with worry buying hay for my sheep at a few thousand a stack.....

[bluedigger]

17. They give credit cards to high schoolers, don't they?

Credit is the only thing holding our economy together...

[Tumbulu]

18. Are you serious- Really?

I had no idea- yikes!

[TBF]

38. I had no trouble getting credit cards

when I was 18 and working in the summer. I started with a few store cards. As long as you keep up those minimum payments and don't max them out you're golden.

[Brickbat]

45. When I walked into my dorm room freshman year, there was a ton of stuff waiting for me.

A box of goodies (snacks, coupons, soap and shampoo, etc), clothes catalogs (oh J. Crew, we'll always have our memories), and three or four credit card applications. This was in 1989. It's not hard to get credit cards.

[Posteritatis]

54. One of the things you'll see on most university campuses every fall...

Amidst all the various other welcome-to-school swag and the like, are people offering student credit cards. They usually have ruinous rates to them and various other nasty conditions, but they're very much there. The predatory nature of the whole thing's a decent chunk of the reason a lot of students wind up with credit troubles.

One of the best pieces of advice anyone can give a new university student is to avoid those like the plague.

[rdking647]

7. hand gubs and shotguns are pretty cheap

you can get a handgun like he used for a couple hundred bucks. an ar15 would cost 1000-1500 new and ammo can be pretty inexpensive.
1000 rounds of ar15 ammo would cost 2-300 bucks.
so he could have bought everything he has for 2k-2500

[bluedigger]

8. He bought all the weapons new from big box stores.

He may have found some bargains on ebay for the other stuff.

[Kennah]

28. You won't find guns or ammo on Ebay

[bluedigger]

37. I guess that's why I said he bought them from big box stores.

Thanks for clarifying the ammo part.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

43. Sporting Goods stores from what I have seen

Not Sam Club/Costco/etc

[bluedigger]

50. Are we going to parse every word?

I meant national chains. Didn't realize only certain retailers could be referred to as "big box" stores. I always thought it referred to the facility as much as the goods.

national and regional chains - beat you to it.

[LanternWaste]

59. Meeting the stringent requirements of Fans' Only definitions

"Are we going to parse every word?"

Meeting the stringent requirements of Fans' Only definitions are quite trendy within the insiders-club, and although it adds very little (at best) to any meaningful discussion, it certainly does allow one to advertise a knowledge of irrelevant minutia-- anything we can do to pretend to be more clever than we are.

The chess novice with a rating of 1150 feel much more clever about himself when he engages another player who doesn't give a flip about en-passant...

[ProgressiveProfessor]

74. Accuracy matters

Words have meanings and they should be used accordingly.

From what I have read he went to high end sporting goods store and paid retail price. He would have also had to pass background checks.

[Tumbulu]

9. so cheap! Why are these things so cheap?

Are they subsidized in some way?

[girl gone mad]

12. Yes. The losses are socialized.

Who do you think is paying for the cleanup in Aurora? Who pays for the first responders?

The public bears the high costs of gun violence while the gun manufacturers pocket all of the profits.

[Tumbulu]

14. yes, it seems that way

so why aren't they taxed as vehicles are taxed to pay for road maintenance?

[girl gone mad]

21. Good question.

[krispos42]

85. Guns and ammo are taxed already.

The excise tax goes towards conservation programs. It's not on your receipt; the gun or ammo maker pays it.


And unlike vehicles, the simple act of using a gun in a safe and legal manner does not wear down large infrastructure projects or pollute the environment. Also, guns are not typically kept parked on a sidewalk or in a driveway, nor are they subject to property taxes.

[coalition_unwilling]

26. Very interesting perspective (and true also) - might be worth

turning into an OP.

[JDPriestly]

33. My solution to the gun issue (not really mine, another DUer thought of it) is

to require that a gun owner insure his gun at the point of sale and every year thereafter. The government would require a certificate of insurance for each gun. The insurance companies would create a fund from which victims of gun violence or accidents could be compensate. There would be criminal penalties for fraud.

[Reasonable_Argument]

35. So

You would support denying a fundamental right to someone who couldn't afford insurance? The wealthy get to protect themselves but the poor are on their own?

[Tumbulu]

52. We deny lots of people the right to operate a motor vehicle

anyone with epilepsy can tell you that, anyone who cannot pay the insurance, etc.

This is a good idea.

[NickB79]

70. Operation of a motor vehicle isn't a right

And it never has been.

You need to figure out the difference between rights and privileges.

[Tumbulu]

79. No one has the right to shoot people

and that is what we are talking about.

Please remain polite - as well.

[NickB79]

83. Actually they do, in self-defense or military. But that's not relevent to the discussion at hand

The point being, driving a car isn't a right, but owning a firearm is.

And I'm sorry I came across as impolite. I will keep it civil.

[JDPriestly]

77. In LA the cost of a permit to exercise your First Amendment rights in a public march

is very expensive -- because they include security costs calculated by the city.

I don't support that, but that is what is being required. So, why should it be different for the Second Amendment?

The damages from the marches in which people exercise their First Amendment rights are minuscule compared to those caused by guns.

[Tumbulu]

87. a very good idea (nt)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

90. There is direct linkage between the two, the other not so much

What direct and measurable cost to the city can you attribute to me owning a firearm that has never been used on anything but paper at a range?

[JDPriestly]

92. The cost of a life if your firearm is stolen and used in a serious crime.

Firearms are often precisely what burglars look for if they break into your house. Happened to us. Nothing else of any value was missing.

I think just making sure that people who have guns know that the police know they have them in case of a crime or other emergency -- such as the need to mobilize citizen militias. The need to mobilize a militia is virtually unheard of, but you never know.

So I think that registering and insuring guns is perfectly reasonable if requiring permits for demonstrations is.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

93. Did you have it secured in a California approved gun safe?

Its been the law here for quite some time.

I insure my firearms as property and have a hefty umbrella policy (which is surprisingly inexpensive) for liability.

If I have taken every reasonable and legally required precaution, why should I be responsible for the criminal actions of others?

[loyalsister]

71. That sounds like a good possibility

It would think it would appeal to anyone who embraces "personal responsibility" combined with the social responsibility so many of us here strongly believe in.

Many have suggested that a car is as dangerous. Why not treat the ownership and use similarly?

[jberryhill]

13. Relative to what? A lawn mover?

A gun is a metal tube, a handle, a lever, some cams and springs, and a chamber with a sliding housing.

You can buy an iPad for $499. A gun has fewer parts and the basic mechanism hasn't changed for about 80 or so years.

[Tumbulu]

16. Why aren't the associated societal costs

not added to purchases as tax or fees? Like motor vehicles, or other consumer goods?

[jberryhill]

20. Because then we'd have to pay those Chinese people real money

Wait, were you talking about iPads or guns?

[Reasonable_Argument]

34. What do you do for a living

that a $1,500 rifle is cheap?

[Johnny Rico]

48. Cheap? An AR-15 costs at least $800, and nice ones are 2 to 3 times that.

Free market.

[jberryhill]

11. Gubs are definitely cheaper than guns

But not as effective:

[obamanut2012]

40. I doubt Glocks can be had for $200 anyplace

[SoutherDem]

10. No they are not cheap, but how much support was he getting from his parents?

As someone said if you don't plan on paying it back get all the credit you can get use it. Also, in grad school you are allowed to borrow money for expenses, it is assumed you are not working or are working less so if he was planning this for a while he could bank thousands with student loans. I think for someone like him, money was the last of his worries.

[Chan790]

19. I dunno, some thoughts:

1. Ph.D candidate in a hard science, not only were they probably not charging him tuition but probably paying him on stipend to attend school. Not at-all uncommon in the sciences, the research work a competent Ph.D candidate can do generates far more income for a university than tuition would.
2. How expensive do you think these guns are? The rifle was the only one likely to have cost much. Shotguns, by comparison, are cheap. Handguns can run the gamut but he bought on the low end in terms of price and power.
3. If you know where to look for information, even the average kitchen chemist can make rudimentary explosives sufficient to booby-trap the apartment for less than $100.* (By the time I was 13, I knew how to make napalm and thermite, before I was out of HS I had the knowledge to make things analogous to Semtex and used to blow-up junk cars in the national forest.)
   
   *-The cheapest and biggest boom is diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Such a bomb took down the Murrah building in OKC and in today's dollars would cost about $490 for components. For his purposes, he'd need a bomb about 1/12 the size to demolish his 3-floor apartment building to rubble.

[Tumbulu]

22. thanks for the info

so sad, it all is, really.

[Igel]

24. The previous poster's right.

Hard science MS and PhD students that are worth their salt get funded.

During the school year it's usually 50% time, meaning tolerable money. Rolling in dough, if you use standards in the humanities. Friends when I was in grad school had enough cash for necessities and some niceties.

During the summer you work full time and while you're not making professional level wages, you have cash.

One friend launched a music label on a hard-sci grad stipend.

Another bought a new car. A Saturn, so a cheap car. But a car, when I was struggling to keep up with maintenance on my bicycle and with food. There were days I walked to save the $0.50 bus fare. Other days I waited for the bus before realizing I didn't have a bus token because I ran out and couldn't afford more. Humanities.

Then, a year later, he bought a condo. Sigh.

Extramural funding. The school I was at the overhead on outside grants was 42%. If you wanted to do research, you had to include the cost of the lab, any equipment, your summer pay as the primary investigator (with benefits), pay/tuition/insurance for grad student researchers, lab supplies, office supplies, and then divide by 0.42. That 42% went to the school. Some stayed with the administration, some went to the originating department to help fund other students who couldn't find lab researcher slots, and some went to a general fund for grad students in other depts. Usually social sciences and humanities.

[alcibiades_mystery]

42. A few notes

Graduate students in PhD or PhD-trajectory Masters programs in the humanities also typically receive tuition waivers and a stipend. Science grad students usually work in labs, and may TA some of the big science lecture classes (teaching the breakout sessions, etc.); grad students in the humanities typically teach 100 and 200 level courses (freshman composition for English grad students, or the 100 level language courses for foreign language and comp lit grad students, for example). In either case, the stipend usually runs between $12,000 and $20,000 / year, where $20,000 tends to be on the science side. You can pick up extra money by teaching a summer class, etc.

The economics are clear, in either case. A graduate student teaching 2 courses per semester of freshman composition generates far more income than expenditure. Consider the tuition waiver and stipend to run about $32,000 per annum, and 22 students per section at $2100 each, for a total of $184,800. Even if we assume that only half these students are paying full tuition (a ludicrously low number), and facilities costs for just the 4 sections runs at $25,000 for the year (a ludicrously high number), you'd still be almost doubling your money at $67,400.

[Posteritatis]

55. Also, he can't have expected to go back to everyday life after this

So if his finances were a smoking crater after all those purchases, I doubt that would matter much to him.

[global1]

23. Cigarettes Are Being Taxed To The Hilt....

To the point that many people can't afford and are quitting. Why don't they try the same thing with guns and ammo?

To what extent are guns and ammo taxed now?

[Surya Gayatri]

29. + 1,000,000 !

[Lizzie Poppet]

46. There is a Federal Firearms and Ammunition Excise Tax.

Currently, it brings in about half-billion dollars a year.

[uponit7771]

49. +1

[slackmaster]

51. Federal excise tax on firearms is 11%

There are also state and local sales taxes.

[global1]

57. What Are The Taxes Associated With Cigarettes?.....nt

[Raine]

25. I heard that he had spent at least $15,000 on his arsenal

how does a guy that works at MacDonalds have access to that much money?

[cali]

30. you can also refer to him as a phi beta grad

of the University of California who attended on a merit scholarship and someone who until a month ago was in a doctoral program at a respected med school. His parents aren't exactly poor and it's not hard to get a credit card.

[obamanut2012]

41. He didn't work at McDonald;s

[ProgressiveProfessor]

44. Not close to being true

more in the 3-5K region, max

[Raine]

88. Apparently early reports were vastly enlarged. I should've known the media

is always going to over-hype.

[tblue37]

27. In one of his routines Chris Rock says

that instead of regulating guns, we should just raise the price of bullets—to $10,000 each. In that routine he speaks as an angry man who says, “Man, I am so pissed at you right now! I’m gonna cap your ass—as soon as I save up enough money!”

(Of course, at $10,000 per bullet, Romney would be able to buy a bullet instead of making a bet any time he wanted to!)

[PoliticAverse]

31. "University: CO shooting suspect had federal grant"

DENVER (AP) — The University of Colorado says shooting suspect James Holmes had a federal grant to study neuroscience.

University spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said Saturday that Holmes was one of six neuroscience students at the school to get National Institutes of Health grant money. She didn't know how much money he got.

From: http://hosted2.ap.org/OREUG/f7ded15e4d4846268a17b79c1c4b7cb8/Article_2012-07-21-Colorado%20Shooting-Suspect/id-8e53f630781d48cdb54c369b05b4fc99

[cali]

32. He had a $26,000 a year grant

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-shooting-denver-profilebre86m02a-20120723,0,1051907.story

[Fire Walk With Me]

86. Thanks for the info.

[HopeHoops]

36. Today's paper said the total arsenal cost about $3K. I don't think that included the riot gear.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

91. 4 firearms does not a arsenal make

The firearms would not have been that much even at MSRP.

[TBF]

39. I've seen some conspiracy theories starting about this already -

there have been a few blogs on this subject. Saying the FBI was involved etc ...

[davidpdx]

47. I have too, they are seeping on to Facebook

And people are screaming how Obama is going to take away their guns. I've already aggressively dealt with a few of those today.

[Tumbulu]

53. Thanks everyone, I learned a lot

I had no idea that grad students took in this amount of money and I had no sense of the price of these sorts of firearms.

[TBF]

64. Depends on the grad student -

when my husband and I went to grad/law school we had worked several years and had credit in excess of $100K. We both had decent salaries and mine was pretty high (6 figure with my O/T) before we decided to change fields.

It would depend upon what kind of funds you had in general (your parents might be well off and give you access to credit - which means they should have been looking at those statements!), whether you have grants or fellowships ... law students can make a lot of money in the summer working for private law firms (this may be true for business students as well). If you are a top scholar as this kid was you do qualify for foundation money sometimes (research grants). Not every student would have these different options, but a certain number definitely do.

[Initech]

56. What I want to know is - did he buy all this ammo with a credit card?

And how did purchasing enough weapons and explosives to take out a small city not set off a red flag with his credit card company?

[TBF]

60. Apparently the ammo was purchased on-line,

so that would be credit or debit.

[Initech]

61. But how did that not set off a red flag somewhere? That's what I want to know.

[TBF]

62. My household acct is Chase -

(we also have a small bank & credit union we use for savings - but for the convenience I do have a Chase checking w/debit card) - and if I have a day where I'm paid for example and have a bunch of purchases (back to school or a birthday) they will sometimes send an alert just to make sure the card wasn't taken. I do a lot of on-line shopping so this has happened a couple of times. But all you have to do is verify that they are your purchases through their on-line number and you're ok. I don't know if there are any laws on how much ammunition a person is allowed to buy and/or if that is tracked, but that is a darned good question.

[NickB79]

72. Because it's not illegal to buy 6,000 rd of ammo or 1-2 guns/month like he did

You can buy thousands of rounds of ammo at one time in most Walmarts, let alone a sporting goods store or online.

If the credit card company was suspicious of the transactions, they'd call the cardholder, ask him "did you make these purchases?" and when he says yes, that's the end of it. He didn't break any laws at the time, so the credit card company had no obligation to contact law enforcement.

[Initech]

73. But in this day and age where everything is tracked, monitored, categorized, databased, etc...

You'd think that with all the tight security and everything else that this wouldn't have gone unnoticed - or am I being too paranoid?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

75. But its done by Google and the like not the government

and many here bitch about the lack of privacy regularly. We can't have it both ways, its either a surveillance society or its not.

[Posteritatis]

81. You are being too paranoid, yeah

Several thousand rounds isn't even an unusual purchase for quite a few people. Ammunition's definitely something that tends to get purchased in bulk.

[Macoy51]

89. Ammo is Cheap

A few thousand rounds of ammo is fairly cheap and very easy to buy. I walked in to one gun store and they had pallets full of crates of ammo, each crate with a thousand rounds or so. I bought two crates and the clerk just treated it as a routine sale.


/ready for the zombies


Macoy

[justanidea]

58. Credit card.

Its not that hard to get a credit card these days. I got approved at the age of 19 for a $4,000 limit and I didnt even have a bank account. lol

[Alduin]

63. I'm a graduate student...

and I can barely afford to eat.

Good question.

[TBF]

65. Please see my post #64 -

it depends upon your field. Science grads often have research grants from foundations, law students have summer jobs, some kids are just well-off and have substantial parental support. It's not uncommon. Like you, I was eating soup in college. By the time I went back to grad school I had made decent money for many years and had quite a lot of credit availability.

[Alduin]

66. It's unfortunate that grad students in the Social Sciences don't get the funding that science

grad students receive.

At least not at my college.

[TBF]

69. I know, it's really not fair

I was lucky to have some of my tuition reimbursed by the company I was working for ... but I don't know how common it is for companies to even do that these days.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

76. Market forces have an impact, even in academia

[Tumbulu]

80. When I was a grad student in Entomology there were no funds

I worked and took student loans....I did not have a credit card.

[4th law of robotics]

67. Credit cards I'm guessng

not like he was worried about paying it back.

[Marrah_G]

82. maybe student loans?

[krispos42]

84. A S&W AR-15 probably would run about $1,300

Glocks would be about $600 each.

Remington 870... maybe $400?

That double-snail magazine runs about $250, I heard.

So without ammo we're looking in the vicinity of $3,000.

Bulk .223 ammo might cost $0.35 a round, so 6,000 rounds works out to be about two grand.


So say about $5,000 to $5,500 for the guns and rifle ammo. Handgun ammo and shotgun ammo, maybe $100 more for the good stuff.



I'm not sure about the Kevlar, but I imagine it was probably over $1,000 between the torso, leggings, codpiece, helmet, and neck ring.

There's a built-in excise tax on guns and ammo; the money goes to support conservation projects.