Suspected Aurora Shooter Amassed Huge Arsenal Online With No Background Checks

[sasha031]

DENVER -- In a world where Amazon can track your next book purchase and you must register to buy allergy medicine, James Holmes spent months stockpiling thousands of bullets and head-to-toe ballistic gear without raising any red flags with authorities.
The suspect in the mass theater shooting availed himself of an unregulated online marketplace that allows consumers to acquire some of the tools of modern warfare as if they were pieces of a new wardrobe. The Internet is awash in sites ranging from BulkAmmo.com, which this weekend listed a sale on a thousand rifle rounds for $335, to eBay, where bidding on one armored special forces helmet has risen to $799.

"We're different than other cultures," said Dudley Brown, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, which advocates for firearms owners' rights. "We do allow Americans to possess the accoutrements that our military generally has.
Gun rights activists like Brown celebrate that freedom, but even some involved in the trade are troubled by how easily Holmes stocked up for his alleged rampage.Chad Weinman runs TacticalGear.com, which caters to police officers looking to augment their equipment, members of the military who don't want to wait on permission from the bureaucracy for new combat gear, and hobbyists like survivalists and paintballers. The site receives "thousands" of orders daily, sometimes from entire platoons that are about to deploy to war zones.
On July 2, Holmes placed a $306 order with the site for a combat vest, magazine holders and a knife, paying extra for expedited two-day shipping to his Aurora apartment. The order, Weinman said, didn't stand out. "There's a whole range of consumers who have an appetite for these products, and 99.9 percent of them are law-abiding citizens," Weinman said. But he said that "it makes me sick" that Holmes bought material from him. He added that he doesn't sell guns or ammunition and that he was "shocked" at the amount of bullets that Holmes allegedly bought online.
Authorities say all of Holmes' purchases were legal -- and there is no official system to track whether people are stockpiling vast amounts of firepower.There is no restriction on the sale of bullets in the United States, except for armor-piercing rounds, which can only be bought by law enforcement, said Ginger Colbrun, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Hence the proliferation of websites offering Amazon.com-style wish-lists for hollow-point rifle rounds or tracer bullets.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/james-holmes-weapons-internet_n_1694451.html

[sellitman]

1. Sick country

The gun nuts call it convience.

Fuck The NRA

[sasha031]

3. there seems to be no will to change anything either

[sellitman]

7. There needs to be a third or fourth party

The one we will line up and vote for is bought & paid too. Pathetic

[Fumesucker]

2. Let it be noted that Holmes was a "law abiding citizen" when he purchased the gear..

The order, Weinman said, didn't stand out. "There's a whole range of consumers who have an appetite for these products, and 99.9 percent of them are law-abiding citizens," Weinman said.

[CanonRay]

4. You are correct

a background check would have found a 24 year old college student with one traffic ticket. Here's your AR-15 sir.

[Chorophyll]

5. So what's your solution?

That people keep buying as much ammo as they want online without any kind of check, without any kind of waiting period?

[CanonRay]

6. I didn't say I had one

or at least one that might have a snowball's chance in hell of getting through Congress. Background checks are fine; at least they eliminate convicted felons and a few others, but a seemingly normal person about to lose it slips right through.

[joeybee12]

8. Don't you love the 99.9% are law abiding factoid...

Just like you hear here with nothing to back it up...and NRA talking point. I'd like to know how they came up with that number...it gets repeated ad naseum.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. More poutrage that is fast and loose with facts

not the least of which is that he passed a background check when required for the handguns at a minimum.