Why is the gun industry consistently in the clear when gun crimes spike in a certain area? Who made the confiscated piece – who first bought it – how did it get to Boston? If these questions can’t be answered, the system is broken.
They can make laser printers that write a code that can’t be seen by the user on each page that can tell investigators exactly where it came from. Are we to believe that in the year 2005, a control system that works can’t be put into place? The guns are made legally, and from the time the thing comes off the assembly line to when it’s used in a murder, something illegal takes place.
Where’s the political will to figure out how these guns are making it to the streets? In Baltimore and Boston right now, prosecutors cannot get convictions because witnesses are being intimidated. The money and investigatory muscle is heavy when it comes to drugs, but nobody cares about gun crimes in this country.
The reality of what our gun laws mean to a rural or urban community need to be examined. Everything doesn’t boil down to the 2nd ammendment. The right to bear arms doesn’t give you the right to commit a crime. Why then can the gun manufacturers make and sell guns without the same standard being applied?
Doctors who hand out painkiller prescriptions to drug dealers get locked up.
City looking to stem flow of guns from northern N.E.
Uptick linked to street crime
By Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | November 25, 2005Guns are being brought into Boston from Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine at a stepped-up pace, according to city officials, who are grappling with a significant rise in shootings and firearms arrests this year.
The guns from northern New England tend to be old and hard to trace. And as long as buyers have enough cash, they can purchase as many handguns and shotguns as they like, authorities say.
In the early 1990s, people trying to circumvent tough Bay State laws that required a state permit to buy a handgun would travel to North Carolina or Georgia in search of guns, police said.
But in the past six months, police have recovered more and more weapons from New England states, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said.
”We can’t just put our heads in the sand and say there is no problem,” Menino said. ”There is a problem. We have to address it.”
The trend has troubled police, who recently joined forces with agents from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to investigate gun crimes. In the coming weeks, Menino said he wants to hold a round-table discussion with other big-city mayors in Washington, D.C., to work on solutions. And he is planning to reach out to mayors from New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont to discuss how the city can work with the neighboring states to stop illegal gun trafficking.
Boston police officials have said that there are more guns on city streets now than at any time in at least six years and that many of them are being brought in illegally from out of state. The number of seized firearms was up 34 percent through Nov. 12 compared with the same period last year, and the number of firearm-related arrests rose by 39 percent through Nov. 16.
Through Nov. 16, there had been 40 firearm homicides and 262 nonfatal shootings recorded citywide.
Shorter distances are a big factor in the flow of weapons, and another is the availability of older guns, which tend to change hands so often that they are difficult to trace, police said.
”The proximity of New England states with less restrictive [gun laws] makes firearms more accessible to people here in Massachusetts,” said Sergeant Thomas Sexton, a Boston Police Department spokesman. He said illegal guns are still coming from other states.
No official statistics are available on how many guns are coming from northern New England. Police said they are still trying to understand exactly how the weapons arrive on the street and why many are coming from there.
”You’d have to go back to specific trafficking cases in the past,” said Boston Police Superintendent Paul Joyce. ”There may have been particular connections to that state.”
Officials say more lenient gun laws in other states pose an ongoing problem.
”Massachusetts has excellent gun laws,” said Larry Mayes, the city’s chief of human services. ”But . . . if the neighboring states around us are lax, then we need to look at some strategies to strengthen our state borders.”
Federal law requires a five-day waiting period in all 50 states for anyone seeking to buy a handgun from a federally licensed dealer, to allow for a criminal background check. In Massachusetts, in addition to passing the background check, a resident who wants a handgun must also pay $100 for a state-issued permit. Such permits are not required in New Hampshire, Vermont, or Maine, where people buying handguns need only identification that shows they are state residents.
It is against federal law for a Massachusetts resident to buy a gun out of state, then return with it. But a determined buyer can circumvent the law by going through a ”straw purchaser” — a resident of Maine, Vermont, or New Hampshire who can easily purchase several guns from a dealer, then sell or give the guns away, said Daniel Kumor, an ATF agent in charge of the Boston office.
In many states, including Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, a private gun owner can legally sell a gun without conducting a background check, and there is no waiting period, Kumor said.
That loophole can allow a criminal to get a handgun from a private seller, said Jerry Madden, chief of the Concord Police Department in New Hampshire.
”That would be the crack in the door that would allow those things to happen,” he said.
Those familiar with illegal gun trafficking say the process is simple. A person interested in buying a gun gets in his car, drives to a state where a permit is not required, then purchases as many guns as he can afford from a straw purchaser at a gun show or store. Then he returns to Boston, where he may tell a confidant to spread the word to prospective buyers.
”I know one person who took a trip about four times in a month,” said a former drug dealer. ”Each time, he brought back six to 12 guns.”
The dealer, a 26-year-old man who now volunteers with a Dorchester group that helps at-risk youth, asked for anonymity to protect his identity from the street criminals who confide in him.
The seller did not care who bought a gun from him, the man said. ”Anyone who had the money got it,” he said.
The problem goes beyond Boston. In the past year, Hartford police have noticed that more guns from the streets were obtained in New Hampshire, said Matt Hennessy, chief of staff for Mayor Eddie A. Perez. The uptick followed a tightening of regulations that now require handgun buyers to obtain certification from Connecticut’s Department of Public Safety.
”We’ve noticed it and we’ve been working on it,” he said.
Law enforcement officials in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont acknowledge that their looser restrictions may lead to an influx of guns in cities like Boston and Hartford. But Madden, of New Hampshire, said tightening gun laws to stop the flow would be difficult because of strong lobbying from groups that advocate the right to bear arms.
I believe in the right to keep and bear arms. You could take people’s guns away and criminals would still get them.
Guns are tough issue, partly as paul says criminals are still going to have them. I grew up by Columbine High School which is probably the most anti-gun area in the US. I think it is wrong to base an entire policy on what was probably an anomalous incident.
One thing that they should do is start enforcing existing gun laws better, for example, make it harder for convicted felons to get guns. Also, maybe allow gun safety glasses in school, I go to the range sometimes and you would be amazed how many bad habits you see there, safety classes would cut down on the number of accidents.