Concerns about gun stores misguided

Houston Chronicle ^ | Jan 19, 2004 | DOUG PIKE

[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).

[philman_36]

Thanks, some good links there. I saw/read a whole bunch of related links during my search. I just tried to give some starting points. Sometimes too much information is just as detrimental as too little information. I don't want to overload people and those who are truly interested will continue of their own volition due to personal interest.
I don't want to overwhelm others.
I noticed the Soros and RWJF tie ins myself as well as the other numerous organizations connected with the Tides' groups. Thus my bolding of "a network of the loony left" that "has to be seen to be believed.” in #20 above. I can't, and won't, do it all for people.
BTW, one other that I saw of interest...UNDUE INFLUENCE
Drummond Pike, founder of The Tides Foundation is
President of Highwater, Inc., private real estate company which is a general partner of the Thoreau Center Partners, LP, from which the Tides Center and Tides Foundation rent office space
How convenient is that?!

[philman_36]

Thanks Joe. Not meaning to gripe or complain. I'm like a roller coaster with this BS sometimes.
After years of finding things I'm still amazed at the amount of new things I still find. I don't even post all of the stuff I find any more. I got too tired of the "get out the tinfoil" criers.
Tin foil ain't gonna save 'em when the SHTF for real. Gonna be a hell of a "I told ya so" day then! Won't be time for gloating then though will there. We'll all be too busy just stayin' alive.

[philman_36]

Nice quote, but IIRC, this was a white devil affiliated with the local office of VPC, HCI, etc.
Did you want me to try and find it?
It would be something if the Dems and the UN had all of this "there are no weapons of mass destruction" thrown back in their faces by the POTUS. Under the definition of some there are plenty of WMD which have been found in Iraq.
Small weapons prove the real threat in Iraq
In just four months, coalition forces uncovered 102 large caches of small arms throughout Iraq and seized hundreds more smaller caches. To qualify as "large," a weapons cache must require at least 10 tractor-trailer loads to remove it.
Outta start playing out of their playbook for a while and watch them eat some sand.

[philman_36]

IIRC, some clown in the Pacific Northwest, maybe Seattle, said that or something like it without any sarcastic intent not too long ago. I believe he said guns are WMD.
Gettin' close... Latest Democrat Extremism: Guns Are Weapons of Mass Destruction
Defenders of the Second Amendment are on the lookout for a new Democrat campaign, already attempted in one state, to brand handguns as “weapons of mass destruction.” Washington Gov. Gary Locke, picked by the Democrats to give their response President Bush’s State of the Union address just a couple of months ago, urged his state's Legislature to create six terror-related crimes that would bring guns under the legal definition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Though the legislation offered by the governor and Attorney General Christine Gregoire did not mention specific weapons, Join Together Online, an anti-gun group, reported the legislation defined a weapon of mass destruction as a “device, object, or substance that a person intends to use to cause multiple human deaths.”
Here is how the Seattle Times on March 15 led its story on how the Legislature dealt with the issue: “An anti-terrorism bill has spurred a debate among lawmakers: Is a gun a weapon of mass destruction?”

[philman_36]

Seattle times article Terror bill stirs debate over status of firearms
An anti-terrorism bill has spurred debate among lawmakers: Is a gun a weapon of mass destruction?

[neverdem]

Woe is me. I didn't remember correctly, but it's close enough for gov't work. I believe that's the story. Gary Locke is not a white devil, but that Jointogetheronline.com is close enough. It's not like I got Alzheimer's disease.

[Joe Brower]

Roger that! If you get into our AO, Laz, look us up if you want to participate in one of our occasional "blast-a-thons". Doubling up on the hearing protection highly recommended! $;-)

[ought-six]

We appreciate your efforts.

[ought-six]

When the blue hats show up, you'll know its time.

[Teacher317]

Concerns about gun stores misguided

I don't tihnk it is "misguided"... I think it is very intentionally put forth by those who hope to misguide others.

[in the Arena]

BTTT..philman, thanks for the research...

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

...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.

I heard reported on our local news that 'my' gun dealer also made this list.

I shall of course, continue to purchase my firearms from Ron Peterson without so much as any hint of hesitation.

[neverdem]

Which reminds me, I need to renew my membership in the NRA.

Why not become a life member, especially if you're young? Then they only dun you for nondeductible donations.

[Blue Collar Christian]

"A 31 page report...shakes and accusing finger at 120 U.S. gun dealers who sold at least 200 firearms traced to some sort of criminal activity from 1996-2000."

That's an average of 50 firearms a year for the entire nation. Or one per state per year.

Maybe I'm way out of touch, but those seem like such low numbers as to be not worth mentioning by the gun grabbing whiners, and they're trying to make this sound as though blood is flowing in the streets.

I'm sure all on this thread would agree that "reasonable guncontrol" is a contradiction of terms.

[fire_eye]

AGS is "Progressive" megamillionaire Andrew "Monster.com" McKelvey's brainchild. McKelvey was upset that HCI et. al. weren't "Making Any Progress" in "The Fight Against Guns", which he (probably correctly) attributed to their appearing "too extremist" (Sarah's habit of going into Congressional offices and going on a crying jag didn't help much either, of course). So, he decided to spawn a gungrab organization which would "Appear More Mainstream". In order to do this, what he did was to offer big cash incitements to existing clutches and covens of gungrabbers in the various states, to be "absorbed" into his organization. He also funded the organization of the various chapters of the Commie Mommies.

The presence of Senator "Treason" McPain on his website is no accident. McKelvey has contributed *big* bux to McPain. He also paid for McPain's anti-gun TV ad campaign here in Oregon, which resulted in the passage of the gunshow regulation bill with which we are now suffering.

Don't underestimate McKelvey. He understands media manipulation, he's a completely self-centered, smug, arrogant, supercilious, elitist "Progressive" slimeball (Use a search engine to verify my claim, if you can stomach it), and he *is* able to be effective where covens of whining urbanite gun-grabbers have failed in the past.

Personally, I'd like to see a full-court press on the part of firearms owners to put his "Monster.com" out of business. It would send a message, even though I doubt if it would affect his personal fortune or his pathological misuse thereof to any great extent at this stage.