Hunting For Guns

Houston Chronicle ^ | 07/30/2009 | Dane Schiller

[FreeSouthernAmerican]

In front of a run-down shack in north Houston, federal agents step from a government sedan into 102-degree heat and face a critical question: How can the woman living here buy four high-end handguns in one day? p>

[Slings and Arrows]

I thought so.

I noticed that Scooter Libby and Martha Stewart, among others, were convicted not of whatever crime was originally being investigated, but for the content of their answers to investigators. If they had kept their mouths shut they wouldn’t be convicted felons today.

[FreeSouthernAmerican]

While I have confidence that most officers are only there doing their job, it is their job to throw us under the jail. Alot of the laws we have are virtually unknown passed in closed door meetings and passed on in secret. It is a matter of pride to make arrests and get convictions.

[ansel12]

This policeman seems pretty laid back about his rifles being stolen.

"The lamest so far came from a police officer: He said he bought a few military-style rifles, left them in his car and — on the same night — forgot to lock a door. He couldn’t explain why he didn’t file a police report or why he visited Mexico the day after the alleged theft."

[freeandfreezing]

This policeman seems pretty laid back about his rifles being stolen.

And it makes me doubt the story. First off, it doesn't make sense for Mexican drug gangs to smuggle rifles across from the USA - they are easy to obtain where they pick up the drugs they smuggle, and they have lots of ties to corrupt Mexican govt. employees who have access to real, selective fire "military style rifles".

Second, it doesn't make sense for a police officer without heavy, inside drug gang ties to be risking imprisonment (and probably death from drug gangsters) in Mexico for a few hundred dollars. A corrupt police officer could earn that in one traffic stop if he wanted to - with none of the risk of trying to smuggle rifles across the border.

If a police officer had heavy ties to a Mexican drug gang he would be way too important to them to allow him to risk exposure and arrest smuggling a couple of guns. That kind of work gets done by stupid teenagers or other low level flunkies. A corrupt cop is a very valuable asset for smugglers - not something they are going to risk losing for a couple of rifles.

More likely the police officer in question bought the two rifles for himself - and then "lost" them. One is probably under the floorboards of his hunting place, and the other, maybe, safely buried at the old family homestead in Mexico - just in case.

[jackmercer]

These ATF agents aren’t trying to seize lawfully purchased weapons or infringe on anyone’s rights. They are doing investigations.

You said “I would never sell a gun, no matter how much profit I could get, to an evil doer.”

That is basically what they are trying to stop, illegal selling of firearms (in large quantities apparently from Houston). So it looks like you and the ATF are on the same page.

[ansel12]

"He said he bought a few military-style rifles, left them in his car and — on the same night — forgot to lock a door. He couldn’t explain why he didn’t file a police report or why he visited Mexico the day after the alleged theft."

You have a very vivid imagination but you didn't explain the above and in your fantasy you even switched "few" to "two".

[freeandfreezing]

Lighten up -- obviously the cops story, if it isn't fiction in the first place (why would the federal agents leak info. about a real conversation and damage their investigation?) is pretty shaky. But given just that information - that a police officer bought a few military style rifles and then says they were stolen - it is just as likely if not more likely that he stashed them, or just didn't want the federal agents to know he had them as it is that he is some secret agent smuggler for a Mexican drug gang. That is a Hollywood style fantasy.

Oh, and the federal agents, having found what would amount to a mole within a US police department, operating on behalf of a Mexican drug cartel, decided the best course of action was to tip the guy and his handlers off by publishing the story. Sure, that sounds like a professional law enforcement strategy to me. /sarc.

How about you explain that for our mutual edification?

[ansel12]

You have the guy owning a hunting cabin and and family homestead in Mexico, buying a few “military style rifles” for personal use, then lying to federal agents telling them that forever, them and their serial number is on a stolen gun list.

You have the guy not willing to face gun selling charges but willing to risk smuggling a military style weapon to Mexico (extremely serious offense, big time Mexico prison time) where he would also have to smuggle ammunition, and willing to lie to federal agents (crime).

You took this “ The lamest so far came from a police officer: He said he bought a few military-style rifles, left them in his car and — on the same night — forgot to lock a door. He couldn’t’t explain why he didn’t file a police report or why he visited Mexico the day after the alleged theft.” and are trying to write a book of fantasies about it.

Personally I think the simpler answer is that it is what it looks like.

[freeandfreezing]

What do you mean by "it is what it looks like"?

A BS story told to some news reporter?

A leak by a federal law enforcement officer about what would be a very serious investigation?

A completely improbably story -- why would a police officer be smuggling weapons to Mexico, which is as you noted an "extremely serious offense"?

Or simply a big coincidence of facts - the guns really were stolen out of the guys car and he just didn't bother to report them stolen -- even though he is a police officer?

Or, to take the story and its implications at face value, the lame excuse of a police officer who is smuggling guns to Mexico?

[ansel12]

Like I said you have a vivid imagination and you want to imagine all kinds of ridiculous possibilities, if you learn anything factual that disagrees with the description by the writer of the cop’s claim as lame then ping me.