Easy access to guns helped me commit murder. I’ve changed, but the loopholes remain

[SecularMotion]

On Sundays, I attend Protestant services at Attica Correctional Facility in New York. It’s my safe place. There’s a band, a choir, clapping, and hands-in-the-air yelling—“Thank you Jesus!” “Hallelujah!” Most prisoners are black with green uniforms, and the guards, posted at the back of the chapel, are all white with blue uniforms.

Reverend Tomlinson, a sixty-something black man from the Bronx who looks forty and wears shiny suits, has kind eyes and a big, bright smile. One Sunday last March, before he began his sermon, the Rev called a prisoner named Steffen Jones to the front of the congregation. Arm around Steffen’s shoulders, he told us that Steffen’s son Tyquan had been shot to death. He was fifteen. We bowed our heads and the Rev led us in prayer.

The writer in me couldn’t help opening my eyes in the middle of the prayer. We were praying to God, asking Him to ease Steffen’s pain, but God knew that we had brought that same pain to so many other parents.

Weeks later, I was facilitating a workshop with the Alternative to Violence Project, a civilian-run volunteer program that began after the Attica prison uprising in 1971. During a break I was talking to a prisoner who calls himself “Paradise,” convicted of trafficking guns and attempting to commit murder with one of them. From behind his big beard and permanent diamond grill, Paradise told me how he used to take drugs from Buffalo, New York, to rural towns in Pennsylvania. After selling the drugs, he’d ask customers with clean criminal records to buy guns for him. Paradise would take the guns back to Buffalo to sell or trade for more drugs.

http://qz.com/610257/easy-access-to-guns-helped-me-to-commit-murder-ive-changed-but-the-loopholes-remain/

[hack89]

1. I have no problem cracking down on illegal gun trafficking.

focus on the criminals and leave us legal gun owners in peace.

[Oneka]

2. Disengenuous or uninformed? I can't tell.

This is a phenomenon known as straw purchasing, a dangerous loophole that has remained open for decades. I should know, my friends and I had gotten guns the same way in the mid-nineties.

The phenomenon known as straw purchasing is not a loophole, it is a criminal act, in all 50 states. There is a tiny difference.

And yet, illegal private-party gun sales account for as much as 40% of gun purchases in the US. Why do we refuse to actually address such a patently—and demonstratively—dangerous problem in American society?

So the dubious 40% statistic from a, 20 plus year old study, has a new feature?
Now it has become 40% illegal private sales?
Can i seriously take anything that this writer spews as truth?

I think not.

[beevul]

3. Uh huh.

Uh huh.

Just like easy access to keyboards help people deliberately misspell words (gunz), easy access to bullhorns help people incite riots, and easy access to other forums (GD) helps certain posters post things in them contrary to the rules.