Rick Warren Says Late Son Got Illegal Gun on Internet

ABC News ^ | April 12, 2013 | Arlette Saenz

[yongin]

Pastor Rick Warren said Thursday that his son, Matthew, purchased an unregistered gun over the Internet. It was that weapon that he used to take his own life last week after years of battling mental illness. "Someone on the internet sold Matthew an unregistered gun. I pray he seeks God's forgiveness. I forgive him. #MATTHEW 6:15," Warren tweeted Thursday. The Orange County Sheriff's Department told the Associated Press it is trying to identify the seller, but the gun's serial number was unreadable, making it difficult to trace the firearm.

[BlueDragon]

I believe California requires registration.

It didn't used to, but all purchases by law had to go through licensed dealers. No gun show loophole in that State. Private transfers prohibited. Guns through the mail or shipped, if not to a licensed gun dealer prohibited, intrastate, and both into and out of State, if memory serves well enough.

Since when has the government been able to legally retain gun-buying application info? The USED to have to dispose of it, back when we had enough Senators with spine that demanded it, even as FFL's by law had to retain records.

We need a new President, and a new Senate, with both unafraid to kick the asses of enemies to the Constitution, but with more focus on the domestic enemies. Throw those [expletives deleted] UNDER the jail. Make it painful.

[majormaturity]

If the kid could have walked into any store in the state and legally purchased a gun (he was 27 with no record), then went home and blew his brains out with it, would we be seeing this story? I don’t think so. Therefore the only purpose in this story is to sway public opinion toward gun control/registration - to create the impression that doing something he could do with any gun is somehow really bad because he did it with an “unregistered” gun (note they are now using the term “registration” frequently instead of “control”). If that is the only purpose, why is Warren, less than one week after the suicide, deeming it so important that he needs to stress the unregistered/Internet connection? Talk amongst yourselves.

[ptsal]

Who wrote the check for the credit card???? There is the guilty party....

[Lumper20]

You are correct. Blame the gun, blame the seller, blame, everyone and everything, but; never face facts reality that you failed,and/or your son failed, or this generation is a failure. My wife’s son and daughter are 28 and 33. The bastards will steal and have stolen everything that it not locked up in our house. I will not let the punks in this house. Some know exactly what I am speaking of as these punks will steal a gold W off a Thai two baht aviator necklace. One stole the W last week.

[ldish]

who cares anymore...who f’king cares...i have had it with this country, our leaders and all of them liars!!!!!!!
where is “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

[JamesA]

Rick is crazier that an out house rat! He has absolutely no Idea how loony he is.

[Sooth2222]

Although they were required on military firearms and many manufacturers did it anyway, I don't think serial numbers on guns were required by law prior to the Gun Control Act of 1968. The .38 Special cartridge was introduced in 1898. So it's possible the purchase an antique firearm with no serial number that shoots a modern cartridge.

AFAIK, the FBI labs can retrieve practically any serial number unless it's drilled out. I don't believe that "scratching it out" would stop the FBI labs from getting it. So if that is correct, it probably just means the gun was stolen or the seller was naive enough that he thought he could remain unidentified. There are a lot of details to this story that really don't make sense.

[Zhang Fei]

Next thing we know, the parents of people who slit their wrists are going to be forgiving the sellers of the knives they used to commit suicide.

[Finny]

I am NO fan of the media, but it looks like Warren is ‘using’ the media for this own agenda, of course my BS sensor is going off like a Klaxon Horn on a Crash Diving Submarine. I think if my son had just shot himself one of the last things on my mind would be ‘tweeting’ information pertinent to maybe catching the guy that supplied the gun

Perty much. Warren is a putz, his son's misfortune notwithstanding.

[RetiredTexasVet]

Could it have possibly been better if the gun was legal?

[Lancey Howard]

If you decide to kill yourself, it is not your father’s fault.

And it's not the fault of some poor shlub who sold a freaking shotgun over the internet. But it was nice of Rick Warren to "forgive" him.

[PLD]

Obama Invites Warren to Lead Nation in 2009 Inaugural Prayer

In mid-December 2008, Democratic President-elect Barack Obama invited Rick Warren, conservative evangelical pastor and an ordained Southern Baptist Convention minister, to lead the nation in the January 20, 2009 Inaugural Day Invocation.

Obama bestowed this sacred and historic honor on Warren because, “... a couple of years ago, I was invited to Rick Warren’s church to speak, despite his awareness that I held views that were entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights, when it came to issues like abortion. Nevertheless, I had an opportunity to speak.”

I just put this up here to show how Obama and Warren are friends.So to me that friendship has the liar Warren claiming his son bought the gun the way he did..I don’t trust Warren as far as I can spit and it isn’t far..Warren has a lot of people fooled..

http://usliberals.about.com/od/barackobama/a/ObamaWarren_2.htm

[ThePatriotsFlag]

Ok, if it was illegal, then he broke the law, how could more laws help if the ones we have are not enforced. Maybe make it illegal to buy an illegal gun illegally? Makes sense to me.

[ThePatriotsFlag]

Ok, if it was illegal, then he broke the law, how could more laws help if the ones we have are not enforced. Maybe make it illegal to buy an illegal gun illegally? Makes sense to me.

[Not A Snowbird]

Rick isn’t saying that’s what happened. The police department is saying it.

Apparently I wandered onto the wrong thread. I’ll remedy that now and sign off.

Later.

[Chickensoup]

Gun or rope, about the same on the suicide lethality indexes.

[Lancey Howard]

Thanks for the heads up on Warren. I have heard of the book, but it never crossed my mind to read it. I simply have never trusted televangelists, and I don’t trust Rick Warren. Fact is, I never heard of Rick Warren until reading about him here at FR a few years back. I guess he’s a California phenomenom? I forget, is he the guy with the “Crystal Cathedral” church?

[Inyo-Mono]

Totally illegal to buy a gun over the internet without going through an FFL holder, and in California, the sale must be made face to face, both buyer and seller, at the FFL holders business for the transfer to be legal.

[Zhang Fei]

The same way people arrange transactions on Craigslist, except Craigslist is off-limits to weapon sales. Like I said, it may be a forum somewhere such that they arranged to meet and exchange goods for cash. For the seller to avoid being identified by the cops, he would have had to set up a temporary ID and used a disposable phone. All-in-all, too much trouble for a basic shotgun. I suspect they'll locate and identify him in no time, just as the government can locate every single freeper who's posting on these forums while not using a disposable phone from multiple random locations. If the serial numbers were filed off, the seller might be in a world of trouble. Of course, there's no telling who filed the serial number off - the suicide or the seller.

[ican'tbelieveit]

Simple question if he does “testify.” How would the gun control law in question have prevented the situation your son found himself in?