Real gun control...

[spin]

Undercover cop removes more than 150 illegal guns from Brooklyn's streets in 'Operation Phoenix'

Friday, April 23rd 2010, 4:00 AM



He's a task force of one.

A brave undercover cop single-handedly took more than 150 illegal guns off Brooklyn's streets in a risky yearlong probe that also busted a brigade of dealers.

The unidentified cop was so talented at playing his role that traffickers often fought each other for his business, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Thursday.

"This undercover officer was particularly skillful and he appeared to have money. And other people tried to undercut the original seller cut their own deals," Kelly said.

"There's no honor among thieves. The undercover officer did an amazing job."

During "Operation Phoenix," the lone officer, who cannot be identified for safety reasons, broke up a virtual pipeline of arms into Brooklyn - buying 153 weapons in 105 transactions at an average cost of $900 each.

Two of those guns were linked to murders in the borough, including the senseless slaying of a teenage Rollerblading phenom.

"It goes to show the magnitude of the problem we have with guns on the streets of the city," Kelly said.

***snip***

Seventeen people were arrested in the investigation - which was run jointly by the NYPD and the Brooklyn district attorney's office. Three more suspects are being sought, officials said.

***snip***

Alexis, who sold the cop 53 guns, was tracked down through his probation officer and busted this week. He is being held on $1 million bail, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said.

Another dealer, Terence Williams, sold the undercover cop 31 guns, officials said. None of the suspects arrested will be offered a plea bargain, Hynes vowed. emphasis added

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/04/23/2010-04-23_1_cop_makes_a_difference_kelly_hails_work_of_officer_who_got_153_illegal_guns_of.html#ixzz0lwQbjp1D

Gun control should be focused on taking illegal firearms from criminals rather than taking legal firearms from honest citizens.

This article shows how well real gun control works, it's cheap and extremely effective. Notice that no plea bargains will be offered.

It's like using a fire extinguisher effectively by pointing it at the base of the fire rather than spraying at the flames.

[AtheistCrusader]

1. Bravo. I especially like the 'no plea bargains' bit.

Fantastic work.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

2. "an average cost of $900 each"

I don't see a fiream in that photo worth more than $500, let alone $900.
No wonder people were lined up around the block to sell him guns.

The glock, sig and commander length 1911 MIGHT be worth $500 used.

[Callisto32]

3. Black market prices, baby.

I thought the same thing. Sadly, I bet that Hi-Point brought the average down considerably.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

4. You'd think a black market gun would be cheap. Especially one that's hot.

If I ever have to sell a gun, I might just stand on a cleveland street corner with a sign.
Sell to the first guy that pays $100 over retail. :shrug:

[Chulanowa]

10. Why would you think that?

Minimum price for a pistol from a legit dealer is $400, or thereabouts.

The black market fellow, though had to go to the trouble of obtaining the gun; that's another hundred. He's putting his own balls on the line; two hundred. And finally, he knows that if you're buying from him, it's because you CAN'T buy a legit gun. Two hundred more, pure profit right there.

You sell at a hundred bucks, that's a hell of a loss.

[Ready4Change]

16. Demand sets the price.

Most free market possible.

[Ernesto]

5. look like "Saturday Night Specials" to me. nt

[Glassunion]

6. Not at those prices... (n/t)

[Euromutt]

8. 1911, my ass

That's some kind of knock-off. For starters, it's got a non-1911 extractor (not that that's a bad thing as such), and the rest of it just doesn't look quite right. It looks like some 1920s Spanish or Chinese copy of a 1911.

Note, though, that there's also a Ruger P345 in that lot (above the Hi-Point, with the red phoenix logo on the grip), which should be of some value. To the lower left of the Hi_Point is some kind of Taurus, and the one directly to the right of the Hi-Point looks like a an IMI/Magnum Research semi-compact Jericho, which isn't too bad either, but what in tarnation is that thing above it? It looks like an unholy marriage between a Ring of Fire POS and a novelty cigarette lighter.

[PavePusher]

14. Yeah, there are definitely some quality products in the mix there.

Even Hi-points aren't inherently bad. I like them well enough that I'm about to buy one in full-size .45.

[Hoopla Phil]

7. THIS is the kind of gun enforcement that the ATF should be doing every day.

Not bitching about the "gun show loophole", and arresting people for malfunctioning guns. Do REAL police work and go after the REAL criminals! Excellent job this man did!!!

[X_Digger]

9. Excellent work! n/t

[progressoid]

11. Question.

"...rather than taking legal firearms from honest citizens."

Can you explain that? I know lots of honest citizens (and even some not so honest) with legal firearms. But have yet to meet anyone that has had their legal firearms taken away. Is this a large problem?

[X_Digger]

12. Residents of Chicago & DC, comes to mind. n/t

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

13. Gun control legislation typically only affects honest citizens

Honest citizens, like Kal Penn, typically obey firearms laws. Criminals really don't give a shit so, with the ubiquity of firearms, easily ignore firearm laws. When firearm laws, under the guise of gun-control, only aim to make guns "difficult to get" then only honest citizens have a difficult time getting them.

Legislation can quite literally take firearms out of the hands of honest citizens who would otherwise be able to purchase guns.

[spin]

15. There was an effort to take "assault weapons" from Californians ...

After the Stockton massacre, the term "assault weapons" became the pejorative term to classify any long arm that gun prohibitionists desired to ban. The weapon used by Patrick Purdy was a semi-automatic rifle, not the Soviet fully automatic military firearm, which is not for sale legally in the United States. Yet, his semi-automatic firearm became the gun-banners’ symbol for "assault weapons."

In response to the furor over Patrick Purdy and his firearm, the California legislature defined and banned the "assault weapon." In 1989, it passed the Roberti-Roos bill, which listed roughly 70 firearms, generally identified by make and model and required owners of these guns to register them with the state. Additionally the legislature further defined "assault weapons" to include guns with specific characteristics such as pistol grips, magazine capacity, and other cosmetic features. The law was so draconian that even after gun-owners registered their rifles, the guns could not be sold or bequeathed.

By the 1991 cut-off date, only 34,000 firearms were registered, from an estimated 250,000 to 1 million firearms, and manufacturers renamed their firearms to avoid those named guns.

The gun banners responded to the renamed firearms and in 1991 amended the "assault weapons" law declaring that AR-15 and AK-47 "series" guns (defined as other models, regardless of manufacturer, "that are only variations, with minor differences") were "assault weapons" too.

Those amendments led to more unwitting "assault weapon" violators. People like Desert Hot Springs Police Officer Steven O'Connor was arrested and prosecuted by his own department just last year for possessing a Maadi RML rifle, incorrectly deemed an AK "series" gun. It isn't. It took ten months for the case to be dismissed; but he still isn’t back on the job.

Due to poor registration compliance, the legislature also included money for an "education campaign" and extended the grace period for registration until March 1992. If a gun owner was caught with an unregistered gun after that date and prosecuted, it was possible for him to register the offending firearm, thereby reducing the felony to an infraction, and get his gun back. Former Republican Attorney General Dan Lungren, not wishing to further alienate gun owners, as he was planning to run for Governor in 1998, extended the registration date, causing Handgun Control, Inc.(HCI) to file suit.

When Democrat Bill Lockyear, an avowed gun prohibitionist, became Attorney General in 1999, he dropped opposition to HCI’s lawsuit, thereby invalidating every post-1992 registration and causing all those legally-owned firearms to become illegal.

This wasn’t happening in some Third World country, but in our most populous state: California. Honest, law-abiding citizens complying with a gun registration law were told to either turn them into the police, render them inoperable, or get them out of state. It was California’s version of firearms confiscation -- gun registration leading to ipso-facto gun confiscation. emphasis added

In late June, the California Supreme Court recognized some of the 1991 law's flaws and partially limited the laws’ application in Harrott v. County of Kings. The Court simply stated that the DOJ must give folks notice of specifically what guns are 1991 AK or AR "series" guns.

The decision, however, in no way affects the original 1989 list and the 1999 amendments. Since the legislature passed the 1999 amendments and the new Attorney General unilaterally declared 140 guns to be AR and AK "series" firearms, this decision is too little, too late.

It’s easy to see why California gun owners believe their government is out to get them. They have borne the brunt of arbitrary and capricious definitions, and have watched gun owners arrested for mere possession of legally acquired firearms. Thus there grows among American gun owners, as with Americans during Prohibition, a vanishing respect for both the law-making process and the legal system
http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=23707

And also in other states:

New Jersey in 1990 banned ownership of so-called assault rifles. Governor Jim Florio declaimed: "There are some weapons that are just so dangerous that society has a right and the obligation even to take those weapons out of circulation." President Clinton considers the New Jersey law a model for the nation, declaring last October: "We need a national law to do what New Jersey has done here with assault weapons." But the ban was so extensive that even some models of BB guns were outlawed. Owners of the restricted guns were required to surrender them to the police, sell them to a licensed dealer, or render the guns inoperable. Yet, Ira Marlowe of the Coalition for New Jersey Sportsmen reported that "there was not one murder . . . with a semiautomatic assault weapon" in New Jersey in 1989, the year before the ban took effect. Joseph Constance, deputy chief of the Trenton, New Jersey, Police Department, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 1993:

"Since police started keeping statistics, we now know that assault weapons are/were used in an underwhelming .026 of 1 percent of crimes in New Jersey. This means that my officers are more likely to confront an escaped tiger from the local zoo than to confront an assault rifle in the hands of a drug-crazed killer on the streets."

New Jersey had an estimated 300,000 owners of "assault weapons," each potentially facing up to five years in prison for violating the state law.

New York City required rifle owners to register their guns in 1967; city council members at that time promised that the registration lists would not be used for a general confiscation of law-abiding citizens' weapons. Roughly one million New Yorkers were obliged to register with police. The New York Times editorialized on September 26, 1967:

"No sportsman should object to a city law that makes it mandatory to obtain a license from the Police Department and to register rifles. . . . Carefully drawn local legislation would protect the constitutional rights of owners and buyers. The purpose of registration would be not to prohibit but to control dangerous weapons."

In 1991, New York City Mayor David Dinkins railroaded a bill through the city council banning possession of many semiautomatic rifles, claiming that they were actually assault weapons. Scores of thousands of residents who had registered in 1967 and scrupulously obeyed the law were stripped of their right to own their guns. Police are now using the registration lists to crack down on gun owners; police have sent out threatening letters, and policemen have gone door-to-door demanding that people surrender their guns, according to Stephen Halbrook, a lawyer and author of two books on gun control. emphasis added

***snip***

Halbrook notes that the New York ban "prohibits so many guns that they don't even know how many are prohibited" and that the law is so vague that the city police "arbitrarily apply it to almost any gun owner." Jerold Levine, counsel to the New York Rifle Association, observed: "Tens of thousands of New York veterans who kept their rifles from World War II or the Korean War have been turned into felons as a result of this law. Even the puny target-shooting guns in Coney Island arcades have been banned under the new law because their magazines hold more than five rounds." The motto of New York gun owners fighting the proposal was: "We Complied, They Lied." Jerry Preiser, president of the Federation of New York State Rifle and Pistol Clubs, declared that the mayor's and city council's acts "only show that New York City's leaders are like repeat sex offenders . . . they can never be trusted!"
http://www.fff.org/freedom/0396d.asp

So yes, firearms have been confiscated. A bigger problem is that some states restrict certain firearms. This is effectively taking away the ability to own firearms that citizens in other states enjoy.

California restricts the sale of many firearms. For example, I have recently considered buying a NAA Mini-Master .22 mag revolver with a 4" barrel. If I decide, I can just walk up the street to the hardware store where it sits in the gun display counter.



Only two NAA revolvers are listed on the approved California list. Both have a barrel length of 1.25" Not what I wanted.
The longer barrel length and the better sights would make it possible for me to easily shoot with greater accuracy at longer ranges.

This is the only NAA .22 mag I can buy in California.


Now I ask you, does that make any sense at all? The California approved firearm is easier to conceal and lacks the barrel length and the sights for any target shooting.

To view the list of firearms approved for sale in California visit:
http://certguns.doj.ca.gov/

edited for fat fingers

[jazzhound]

18. "Now I ask you, does that make any sense at all?"

"The California approved firearm is easier to conceal and lacks the barrel length and the sights for any target shooting."

This type of genius it typical of CA firearm regs. Hadn't seen this type of example cited before, but it doesn't surprise me a bit.

[SteveM]

17. A little prosaic for some, but this is the best way. Kudos.