Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Blue_Tires

(55,445 posts)
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 12:31 PM Nov 2015

How Gun Traffickers Get Around State Gun Laws



In California, some gun smugglers use FedEx. In Chicago, smugglers drive just across the state line into Indiana, buy a gun and drive back. In Orlando, Fla., smugglers have been known to fill a $500 car with guns and send it on a ship to crime rings in Puerto Rico.

In response to mass shootings in the last few years, more than 20 states, including some of the nation’s biggest, have passed new laws restricting how people can buy and carry guns. Yet the effect of those laws has been significantly diluted by a thriving underground market for firearms brought from states with few restrictions.

About 50,000 guns are found to be diverted to criminals across state lines every year, federal data shows, and many more are likely to cross state lines undetected.

In New York and New Jersey, which have some of the strictest laws in the country, more than two-thirds of guns tied to criminal activity were traced to out-of-state purchases in 2014. Many were brought in via the so-called Iron Pipeline, made up of Interstate 95 and its tributary highways, from Southern states with weaker gun laws, like Virginia, Georgia and Florida.


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/12/us/gun-traffickers-smuggling-state-gun-laws.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=g-artboard%20&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
16 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
 

Eleanors38

(18,318 posts)
1. With minor adjustment, looks like established pot-smuggling routes...
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 01:00 PM
Nov 2015

That TX - LOUISIANA one is cute: Arrows going both ways?

Prohibitionism is like that.

petronius

(26,602 posts)
6. I'm guessing that the map is based on the 2014 ATF trace report, but it's
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 02:15 PM
Nov 2015

not limited to guns that were purchased or moved just in 2014. Many of the guns depicted will have been purchased a decade or more ago - I imagine that if they controlled for migration somehow, a lot of those smaller and back-and-forth arrows would disappear. Or if it was limited to guns that were purchased and recovered in the same year (or a one-year lag).

For example, people probably move back and forth across that TX-LA border all the time, and have family on both sides. Those arrows aren't trafficking I'll bet, they're household relocations...

 

Eleanors38

(18,318 posts)
10. Yeah, probably so. This stuff looks dated in some ways...
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 03:15 PM
Nov 2015

The Orlando-to-points north has been for years an industrial pot-trafficking route requiring the interstates which are in place.

The weed came in from the Texas Valley, went north to Houston, and was hauled by mules to the Big O area and stored in "big rooms" for the consta-flow of vehicles North. I see where the GUN connection to PR is from Orlando. That area of Florida has the most Puerto Ricans in the U.S., behind NYC. Big reason Obama carried FL twice.

Fred Sanders

(23,946 posts)
3. 300 million guns in America, yearning to be free to do what they can only do....kill and maim.
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 01:04 PM
Nov 2015

Why are folks trying to restrict the free movement of the precious Gun?

Waldorf

(654 posts)
7. If the true intention of a firearm is to only kill and maim, why isn't the United States a vast
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 02:24 PM
Nov 2015

wasteland? 80-100 million gun owners having 300+ million firearms, every soul in this Country should be dead if that was the case.

 

beevul

(12,194 posts)
12. Quite the opposite.
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 03:33 PM
Nov 2015

300,000,000 guns in the hands of 80,000,000 resulting in 30,000 gun deaths proves that it is NOT a gun problem.

Less than .1 percent of civilian owned guns in America are misused resulting in death, and less than .1 percent of those who own a gun in America misuse them resulting in a death.

That proves without a doubt and quite unequivocally that it is NOT a gun problem.

You lot just prefer to premise your arguments like it is, because you already have a 'solution' in mind which is based on nothing more than your hatred of guns.

We see you and your solution for exactly what it is, and the number of us who do is growing every day.

The tipping point cometh.

gejohnston

(17,502 posts)
5. smugglers drive just across the state line into Indiana, buy a gun and drive back.
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 02:12 PM
Nov 2015

that might have been a valid argument in 1967, but is illegal under the Gun Control Act. I can not go in an Idaho gun store and buy a gun and walk out with it because I am not an Idaho resident. It is also a federal crime for me to sell a gun to anyone who is a resident of a different state without shipping it to an FFL holder in the buyer's state. Also, the ATF says the trace data does not mean there is large scale trafficking. Also, Chicago's problems are a result of wealth inequality, their failed education system, their political corruption, their incompetent police chief. That should have no bearing on my rights.

jimmy the one

(2,708 posts)
9. guns can be different sizes, j-man
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 02:40 PM
Nov 2015

gejohnston: It is also a federal crime for me to sell a gun to anyone who is a resident of a different state without shipping it to an FFL holder in the buyer's state.

I'm surprised Johnston, you still haven't learned the diff between a handgun & a rifle.

478.29 Out-of-State acquisition of firearms by nonlicensees. No person, other than a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector, shall transport into or receive in the State where the person resides any firearm purchased or otherwise obtained by such person outside that State: Provided, That the provisions of this section:
(a) Shall not preclude any person who lawfully acquires a firearm by bequest or intestate succession in a State other than his State of residence from transporting the firearm into or receiving it in that State, if it is lawful for such person to purchase or possess such firearm in that State,
(b) Shall not apply to the transportation or receipt of a rifle or shotgun obtained from a licensed manufacturer, licensed importer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector in a State other than the transferee's State of residence in an over-the-counter transaction at the licensee's premises obtained in conformity with the provisions.. and
(c) Shall not apply to the transportation or receipt of a firearm obtained in conformity with the provisions of §§ 478.30 and 478.97. [/i
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/27/478.29

And I'd already caught you on this before, tsk tsk:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172176469#post11

gejohnston

(17,502 posts)
11. since most crime guns are pistols
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 03:25 PM
Nov 2015

and we are talking about guns to criminals, your clarification isn't really relevant to the discussion. However, if you read the complete statute, it also says it is legal ONLY IF you buy it from an FFL holder and you can legally own it in Illinois. In other words, you would still have to show the Indiana FFL holder your IL FOID if you are buying a long gun.

 

DonP

(6,185 posts)
14. Absolutely right, I just bought a Remington Nylon 66 in Hammond last week
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 04:11 PM
Nov 2015

Had to show my Illinois drivers license and FOID card, do the NICS check and observe the 24 hour long gun waiting period required in Illinois before I could pick it up.

When I bought a used Uberti .45 Long Colt SAA a few months ago, I had to do the background check in Indiana, have it shipped to my local Illinois gun shop/FFL, pay the additional transfer fee and wait three days, show my FOID card and Drivers license again to pick it up.

I love the experts/idiots who still claim I can just drive over and pick up anything I want and drive home with it.

Sure, if I'm buying it out of a car trunk in an alley in Gary.

But then again any criminal can do that in any state.

 

Kang Colby

(1,941 posts)
13. Wrong again.
Fri Nov 13, 2015, 03:55 PM
Nov 2015

gejohnston is correct. Interstate long gun sales can only be made via an FFL, and must be legal in the buyers home state. The Brady Act applies so a 4473 and NICS check is required. The 4473 must be retained for a minimum of 20 years unless the FFL goes out of business then it is stored by the ATF permanently at its records center.

For such an advocate of gun laws, you don't seem to know much about the existing laws.

jimmy the one

(2,708 posts)
15. where are these expert idiots
Tue Nov 17, 2015, 12:59 PM
Nov 2015

johnston: .. since most crime guns are pistols and we are talking about guns to criminals, your clarification isn't really relevant to the discussion

Trying to wiggle out johnston? you are the first person on the thread to date that limits the discussion to pistols.

johnston: ..if you read the complete statute, it also says it is legal ONLY IF you buy it from an FFL holder and you can legally own it in Illinois. In other words, you would still have to show the Indiana FFL holder your IL FOID if you are buying a long gun.

Of course. Duh>>> in a State other than the transferee's State of residence in an over-the-counter transaction at the licensee's premises obtained in conformity with the provisions.

So here we have it folks, johnston contradicting himself when he wrote this in his post 5, & post 3 different thread: johnston: smugglers drive just across the state line into Indiana, buy a gun and drive back. that might have been a valid argument in 1967, but is illegal under the Gun Control Act. I can not go in an Idaho gun store and buy a gun and walk out with it because I am not an Idaho resident. It is also a federal crime for me to sell a gun to anyone who is a resident of a different state without shipping it to an FFL holder in the buyer's state..... the 1968 Gun Control Act prohibits interstate sale without a dealers license in the buyer's state from getting involved. http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172176469#post11

donP: I love the experts/idiots who still claim I can just drive over and pick up anything I want and drive home with it.

Which expert/idiot on this thread said that? Johnston said it was undoable to do what you did, buy your remington out of state:

johnston: ATF also said that the tracing data is not and should not be used to support claims of trafficking or straw purchasing since DC residents can not legally go to those states to buy guns.. the 1968 Gun Control Act prohibits interstate sale without a dealers license in the buyer's state from getting involved. http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172176469#post11

Kang: Interstate long gun sales can only be made via an FFL, and must be legal in the buyers home state.

So you essentially agree with me that johnston was wrong that rifles & sgs can be purchased out of state, thanks.

A licensed dealer may not sell or deliver: (1) a handgun to a resident of another state; (2) a handgun or handgun ammunition to a person the dealer knows or has reasonable cause to believe is under the age of 21; or (3) a shotgun or rifle or ammunition for that firearm to a person the dealer knows or has reasonable cause to believe is under the age of 18.
A dealer may sell a rifle or shotgun to a resident of a different state if the sale is conducted in person at the dealer’s place of business and the sale complies with all of the legal conditions for sale in both states.
A dealer may not deliver a handgun to a purchaser through the mail however a dealer may mail a handgun in the course of a customary trade shipment to a firearms manufacturer or other FFL
http://smartgunlaws.org/dealer-regulations-policy-summary/

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Gun Control & RKBA»How Gun Traffickers Get A...