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Concerns about gun stores misguided
Houston Chronicle ^ | Jan 19, 2004 | DOUG PIKE

Posted on 01/21/2004 11:27:44 AM PST by neverdem

A Washington-based non-profit group called Americans for Gun Safety claims to take the middle ground on gun ownership. I question its neutrality.

As a hunter, target-shooter and gun owner, I've been courted in the past by groups that claimed common-sense positions on firearms. These champions of "responsible use" recruit membership and money from both sides but typically lean hard to one side.

At its Web site, AGS says it is "bringing a new voice to the debate over guns and gun safety, which for too long has been dominated by the far left and far right. Through legislative measures and public outreach, AGS supports the rights of law-abiding gun owners and promotes reasonable and effective proposals for fighting gun crime and keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and children."

Those are fine avenues to explore, but I'm unsure who is at the wheel (calls to AGS were not returned).

A 31-page report (Selling Crime, High Crime Gun Stores Fuel Criminals) issued recently by AGS and reported in Saturday's Chronicle shakes an accusing finger at 120 U.S. gun dealers who sold at least 200 firearms traced to some sort of criminal activity from 1996-2000. (The most recent statistics.)

Note that "traced to crime" doesn't necessarily mean "traced to violent crime." If I report a gun stolen, the store that sold me the gun years ago gets a mark next to its name. If a law enforcement agency runs a routine check on a firearm and turns up nothing, that check may generate a mark against the original seller.

The AGS report opens: "A small number of the nation's 80,000 gun dealers are flooding America's streets with crime guns -- yet Washington rarely investigates, shuts down or prosecutes most of these high-crime dealers."

Flooding the streets with crime guns? A firearm sold in accordance with current federal guidelines is not a "crime gun." Driving under the influence of alcohol is illegal, but I have yet to hear the new automobiles on a dealer's lot described as "crime cars."

Actually, several dealers on AGS' bad-guy list have been cited for violations after random inspection by agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The clear majority of those citations, however, 52 of 67 issued to the seven most-cited dealers as tracked from January 2000-May 2003, were for record-keeping mistakes. Not for peddling assault rifles to terrorists or dealing Saturday-night specials to street thugs, but for clerical goofs.

Firearms sellers should be held to high administrative standards, but linking typographical errors and back-door gun running is a stretch.

I concede that some of the dealers on AGS' list appear shady and warrant closer, more frequent inspection, but I disagree with the foundation's inference that each of those sellers is somehow directly responsible for violent gun crimes. Many of the named dealers merely are high-volume retailers caught in a statistical web that makes them victims of their own success.

Consider that a busy gun store often sells more than 10,000 firearms annually, and a few shops on AGS' list move twice that volume of hardware. Multiply that by 10, 15 or 20 years in business and throw in a system that is quick now to trace a gun's history. Even the AGS recognizes that booming business might have landed honest dealers on its "high crime gun store" roster, which includes a California dealer who had 1,000-plus guns stolen during Los Angeles riots.

AGS wonders why the ATF so rarely "shuts down or prosecutes ... high-crime dealers." Maybe that is because even the most-cited dealer on the list had just 13 ATF violations from 2000-2003 against 483 crime-gun traces from 1996-2000. The shop that had 2,294 crime-gun traces, second highest of all, received only one ATF citation through the same time windows.

The anti-gun movement's efforts to blame firearms makers for gun violence has failed in the courts. Since they could not defeat gun manufacturers and lack the strength to tackle gun owners, the logical targets are small companies and individuals who sell guns.

AGS claims to be the Switzerland of gun politics, but its report waves a different flag.

Criminal use of guns is rampant, but we never will rebuild our nation's damaged framework until we quit blaming the hammers and the hardware stores for bad carpenters.

Doug Pike covers the outdoors for the Chronicle. His column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, and he hosts Inside the Outdoors from 6-8 a.m. Saturdays on KTRH (740 AM).


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; US: District of Columbia; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: administrativeerror; ags; bang; banglist; clericalerrors; gundealers; gunstores; heinz; ruckus; teresaheinzkerry; tides
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FYI
1 posted on 01/21/2004 11:27:45 AM PST by neverdem
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To: fourdeuce82d; Travis McGee; Joe Brower
BANG
2 posted on 01/21/2004 11:28:57 AM PST by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
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To: Joe Brower; r9etb
ping
3 posted on 01/21/2004 11:29:32 AM PST by Tijeras_Slim (Come see the violence inherent in the system!)
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To: neverdem
Nicely written and researched. It is a common tactic for a political group to claim the middle ground when it is merely a vehicle for a less candid subset of either side. This dawg ain't hunting.

Unmentioned in all this is that a dealer who can be traced to a number of "crime guns" is a dealer whose record-keeping is good enough and whose adherence to ATF regulations is scrupulous enough. It's the ones who can't be traced at all that are the problem.

4 posted on 01/21/2004 11:33:42 AM PST by Billthedrill
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To: neverdem
Nice find. The RATS have gotten a bit more clever in their gun-grabbing efforts, but they still want the same thing they've always wanted: recension of the 2nd Amendment and confiscation of all privately owned firearms. Which reminds me, I need to renew my membership in the NRA.
5 posted on 01/21/2004 11:34:23 AM PST by ABG(anybody but Gore) ("Mr. Dean is God's reward to Mr. Bush for doing the right thing in the war on terror."-Dick Morris)
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To: neverdem
I don't plan to be "reasonable". Screw 'em.
6 posted on 01/21/2004 11:37:22 AM PST by TexasRepublic (Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!)
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To: *bang_list; AAABEST; wku man; SLB; Travis McGee; Squantos; harpseal; Shooter 2.5; ...
Click the Gadsden flag for pro-gun resources!
7 posted on 01/21/2004 11:39:55 AM PST by Joe Brower (Follow-up shot...)
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To: Joe Brower
How does Dean, Vermonts D- grade on 2nd from HCI and the RAT's support for him equate.....?? Seems theres something to toss back into their smug little faces. Just not sure how to approach such .

Stay Safe

8 posted on 01/21/2004 11:52:58 AM PST by Squantos (Cache for a rainy day !)
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To: Joe Brower; Squantos
I gotta say Joe, for all of the socialism we've gotten lately, I've been happy with the way our lawmakers have for the most part left us alone. I think the 2000 election scared many of them off.

Yeah these grab-groups screech and squeal and a few municipalities act up, but it hasn't gotten much past that. In fact we've won a few with CCW etc. in many areas. Let's hope that the AWB goes away, I'd love to tweak out a few of my toys.

It's nice to be left the hell alone once in a while. As I said once things settle down a bit and I square things away I'm going to have you over.

9 posted on 01/21/2004 11:53:29 AM PST by AAABEST
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To: Squantos
How does Dean, Vermonts D- grade on 2nd from HCI and the RAT's support for him equate.....?? Seems theres something to toss back into their smug little faces. Just not sure how to approach such .

I couldn't help but notice your comment, so allow me to offer my take on Dean and Vermont. Vermont lacks diversity and the concomitant crime problem, therefore Vermont, with a substantial number of hunters, never had a need to think about gun control. Hence, the NRA gave Dean a grade of A.

10 posted on 01/21/2004 12:13:39 PM PST by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
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To: Joe Brower
As always, thanks for the ping!!!!


Stay safe, stay armed,
Eaker

--MOLON LABE--

11 posted on 01/21/2004 12:20:33 PM PST by Eaker (Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark. - Lazarus Long)
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To: Billthedrill
"Nicely written and researched. It is a common tactic for a political group to claim the middle ground when it is merely a vehicle for a less candid subset of either side. This dawg ain't hunting."

Yeah, so nicely written and balanced that I am amazed it appeared in the Houston "Communistical".

12 posted on 01/21/2004 12:27:40 PM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: Joe Brower
The Second Amendment...
America's Original Homeland Security!

Be Well ~ Be Armed ~ Be Safe ~ Molon Labe!
13 posted on 01/21/2004 12:51:54 PM PST by blackie
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To: Joe Brower
Thanks much for the heads up, Joe.

I went to their website, and it reminded me a lot of the old Communist disinformation technique. When one sees a pix of McCain, without some obvious disclaimer or used in a negative context, one knows that there is something rotten in Denmark--LOL---

What really scares me about this site is the fact that it ISNT vitriolic, the way most of the grabber's sites are, and its not "preachy". It would APPEAR, at first reading to be a legitimate site with "centrist" views. That being said, however, I worry that "average citizen" who encounters this site will be lulled into security by just such the absense of the aforementioned vitriol and preaching, and actually think this site was created by a self-defense advocacy group. These little buggers (the Dumbocrat/gungrabber/socialist-communist alliance) is getting smarter as time moves on.

Convincing the unknowing public of the Right To Keep and Bear Arms is significantly more difficult when they have been "educated" by such devious websites. I can picture having to debate with someone who gained knowledge from this site, as they will believe that the site is harmless and actually provides good information. Having debated people who buy into the "reasonable" theory before, I know what a heck of a time one can have trying to get any ideas across, for even the simplest RKBA arguments come off as extreme to someone thus informed.

Again, thanks for the heads up, it is now, more than ever, necessary to "Know Your Enemy".

Keep the Faith for Freedom

Greg

14 posted on 01/21/2004 1:02:54 PM PST by gwmoore (As the Russian manual for the Nagant Revolver states: "Target Practice: "at the deserter, FIRE")
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To: AAABEST
"I've been happy with the way our lawmakers have for the most part left us alone. I think the 2000 election scared many of them off."

Then too, the '94 elections sent a lot of the worst of 'em home for good, and the survivors remember what happened, and how Sarah Brady was nowhere around when the Gun-owners came knockin'!

15 posted on 01/21/2004 1:12:24 PM PST by Redbob
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To: gwmoore
I went to their website, and it reminded me a lot of the old Communist disinformation technique...

Yes. Gun control propaganda techniques are derived straight from Marx and Lenin.

16 posted on 01/21/2004 1:14:48 PM PST by elbucko
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To: Joe Brower
Nothing like a little "Who's Who"...The Americans for Gun Safety Foundation
The Americans for Gun Safety Foundation, a project of the Tides Center, a Section 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, seeks to educate Americans on existing gun laws and new policy options for reducing access to guns by criminals and children and to promote responsible gun ownership. The AGS Foundation supports the rights of individuals to own firearms.

About Tides Center
Tides Center is part of the Tides family of organizations--a group of nonprofit organizations linked by a commitment to positive social change, innovation, and environmental sustainability. The Tides family--which includes Tides Center, Tides Foundation, Thoreau Center for Sustainability, and Groundspring.org--collaborate as partners, sharing ideas, technical systems, and an office complex.

And there is this tidbit from another site...ActivistCash.com
Now comes the Tides Foundation and its recent offshoot, the Tides Center, creating a new model for grantmaking -- one that strains the boundaries of U.S. tax law in the pursuit of its leftist, activist goals.
"Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with." Tides Foundation founder Drummond Pike, quoted in The Chronicle of Philanthropy

17 posted on 01/21/2004 1:31:19 PM PST by philman_36
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To: Joe Brower
How Ford Funds the Left By William Bacon FrontPageMagazine.com | May 15, 2003
In part...For example, if someone wants to fund a left-wing movement, they make a fully tax-deductible donation to the Tides Foundation, for which the Foundation will take its share as mentioned. The Foundation will pass the funding along to the Tides Center, which will manage the organization, including hiring program and support staff, providing office space, financial management, employee benefits and legal advice; all for an 8 percent fee.
It becomes very easy to see how the Tides group can accumulate assets of almost $190 million (based on the combined 2001 annual reports). For a non-profit without a permanent endowment, relying almost entirely on contributions for its operations, the Tides group has done incredibly well for itself, financially.

18 posted on 01/21/2004 1:45:25 PM PST by philman_36
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To: gwmoore
Again, thanks for the heads up, it is now, more than ever, necessary to "Know Your Enemy".
And did anyone else besides myself even bother looking up and posting any information about this organization and its origins. NO!
How sad.
19 posted on 01/21/2004 1:48:05 PM PST by philman_36
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To: neverdem
FYI...
Subversion in Bush Country
The Center for Consumer Freedom recently revealed that the Tides Foundation and Tides Center are major supporters of anti-war and left-wing causes. One of their projects is the Institute for Global Communications, a clearinghouse for leftist propaganda of living-wage advocates, anti-war protesters, slave-reparations hucksters, and a wide variety of extreme environmentalists. In February 2002, Orange County Register columnist Steven Greenhut termed it "a network of the loony left" that "has to be seen to be believed.” One alert posted in an IGC member bulletin board calls for financial support for the Earth Liberation Front, which has committed numerous documented acts of domestic terrorism. Another posting warns readers against cooperating with the FBI.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that the Tides Center had given the Independent Media Center $376,000, ironically, from its "9/11 fund." The Independent Media Center serves as an organizing outpost for protests and was the virtual staging ground for the April 20, 2002, anti-war protest in Washington.

I'm seeing. It's hard to believe, but there it is. Maybe others will see too.

20 posted on 01/21/2004 1:53:25 PM PST by philman_36
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