Dumb question. If a number of legally brought guns are getting into the hands of street criminals via straw buyers, how does one stop it? Are petty criminals using their girlfriends to buy handguns at gunshows? As a gun owner I think it behooves the gun community to come up with a common sense technique to shut off this illegal avenue for guns. The last famous female straw buyer armed the two underage boys who did the Columbine shootings, which gave liberals the political ammunition for the AWB. The Consitution alone does not prevent gun confiscations, smart politics and public relations is also needed.
Do you mind the government knowing how many guns you have?
A lot of people don't even know it it illegal to buy a gun for another. For that matter a parent who buys a gun for their Son's Christmas present might be considered a "straw purchase" by many.
These agents weren't going after people they had any reason to suspect. They were going after all of the women.
First, provide the proof that this is happening. That's a pretty big "If."
If if if.
Where is your proof? Prove it, and then we will talk.
F-Troop should be disbanded completely. Read, "Unintended Consequences."
Just remember, "Gun Show Loophole" is Brady Bunch code for "Eliminate Private Sales".
From http://www.tsrapac.org/gnshtalk.htm
According to the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice (NIJ), study released in December 1997, less than 2 percent of criminal guns come from gun shows. The same study found that twenty-five percent of crime guns came from gun stores, even though FBI permission is required for every purchase from a gun store. (Homicide in Eight U.S. Cities, page 99.)
A June 2000 federal study, Federal Firearms Offenders, 1992-98 likewise finds only 1.7% of federal prison inmates obtaining their gun from a gun show. (Plus 1.5% from a "flea market.")
That finding is consistent with a mid-1980s study for the NIJ, which investigated the gun purchase and use habits of convicted felons in 12 state prisons. The study (later published as the book Armed and Considered Dangerous) found that gun shows were such a minor source of criminal gun acquisition that they were not even worth reporting as a separate figure.
At the November 1999 meeting of the American Society of Criminology, a study of youthful offenders in Michigan reported that only 3 percent of the youths in the study had acquired their last handgun from a gun show.
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Even for the tiny percentage of criminal guns acquired at for gun shows (and the 25% figure for gun stores) does not mean that the criminal necessarily purchased the gun himself at that location. Many persons with criminal records use a “straw man” purchaser--someone with a clean record who buys the gun, and then transfers it to the criminal.
“Straw man” purchases have been classified a federal felony since the Gun Control Act of 1968; the federal law against straw purchases was strengthened in 1986 by the NRA-sponsored Firearms Owners Protection Act.
According to the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (the legal/educational arm of Handgun Control, Inc.), the group's own survey of major-city police chiefs found only 2 out of 48 who said that guns from gun shows (both “legal and illegal sales” according to the questionnaire) were a major problem in their city.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms produced a paper in early 1999 which said that 10% of gun traces (not crime guns) came from gun shows (included purchases made from licensed dealers, and purchases from private individuals). As the Congressional Research Service has explained, BATF gun traces reveal no meaningful information about gun use in crime; traces are initiated at the request of local police, and can be requested for all sorts of reasons (e.g., to aid the recovery of a stolen gun, for curiosity). Most BATF gun traces do not involve crime guns taken from violent criminals.
That is easy; imprison the criminals. The problem is that we must properly define "criminal" to mean someone preying upon the life, liberty, or property of another individual. The reason that distinction must be made is for many liberals "criminal" is anyone who has a gun in the first place.
The premise that prior restraint should be used as a solution to the "gun problem" is fundamentally flawed. Some people advocate such views because of a lack of understanding of what it means to be an American; they don't want to be "free", they just want to be "safe" and foolishly believe granting government power can achieve this goal.
The remaining gun control advocates are racists who don't want black or Irish people to have guns. Historically, most gun control advocates fall into this latter category.
The solution to gun crime is pretty simple; it is the same solution to any other crime. Lock up the criminal and leave regular people alone to do whatever they want.
"The last famous female straw buyer armed the two underage boys who did the Columbine shootings, which gave liberals the political ammunition for the AWB."
Uh, the AWB was signed into law in 1994
Columbine happened in 1999.
Your rhetoric and 'facts' are in line with a gun grabber.
Yep pass a law........ all the rest seem to be working really well......< /sarcasm>
Dumb answer. The only people breaking the law here seem to be ATF agents. Criminals will be able to get guns regardless of what the ATF or anyone else does. I never seem to hear about the ATF taking weapons from actual criminals. All I ever hear about them is stuff like this, or the mess in Waco, or that they are making life difficult for people who are licensed to sell firearms. The ATF is another one of those unecessary federal agencies that need to be dissolved.