Stolen property in the case of guns that are traced leads back to the person that it was most likely stolen from and not the criminal since criminals don't bother to register their guns.
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ATF Firearms Trace Data report for Massachusetts 2009
- Thread starter GSG
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Stolen property in the case of guns that are traced leads back to the person that it was most likely stolen from and not the criminal since criminals don't bother to register their guns.
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Which leads to suspects......... stolen property was just one example. It can also lead to UPS workers, truck drivers, gun shop employees and other sources of where guns are either lost/stolen and/or otherwise diverted. It can also lead to identifying straw purchasers.
My point is that the ATF can make an argument that this info can prove beneficial.
Which brings us back to the (incorrect) argument that government should be able to infringe on civil rights for the sake of making law enforcement easier.
That's the problem. If given a choice between some data, regardless of how incomplete it is, and no data, the government will always want more data even at the expense of violating our rights or potentially incriminating the wrong person. Which is of course, why we must remain vigilant in our efforts to limit the power of government as our interests are not always/often aligned with those in power.
How can it lead to this if the person it was stolen from has no idea who has stolen it and the local police have not arrested anyone and the average time to crime is several years? If a UPS worker, gun employee etc. is stealing then the person expecting the firearm would be calling where is my firearm or the owner of the store would notice in their inventory the gun/s missing and would report it. I would think that taking fingerprints on the gun if any are available and checking the fingerprint database would be more effective.
If you catch the criminal with the gun then they may lead you to UPS workers, truck drivers etc. but otherwise there really is not much to go on.
Yes, the ATF can make the argument that this info could prove beneficial but it is not a valid argument no matter what they may argue.
As the saying goes it's not about gun control it's about control.
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Let me simplify this for you......... If the ATF conducts traces of firearms recovered from a drug house in Boston and finds that all of the guns had been sold to John Smith at a gun store in Georgia and a week earlier ATF conducted traces of firearms recovered from a drug house in Manchester NH and finds that all of the guns had been sold to the same John Smith at the same gun store in Georgia and John Smith never reported any guns stolen...... do you think that might be a clue?
It is called an investigative lead................
![[rolleyes]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/042.gif "Roll Eyes [rolleyes]")
There is a lot more going on with firearms than just some law abiding gun owner having a handgun stolen from his house.
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Completely separate argument....
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Because there wasn't?
No, I don't think it is at all. The argument I thought you were presenting was that even in the face of not having data from the "bad guys" (because they don't usually leave their name on the paper trail) that the ATF could show that the information that they do have served a valuable purpose in solving crime. It shows at least some point in the process where they can start looking. The last "known good" point in a failure can provide value in reconstructing what happened, even if where it went after that is not known.
My point is that, as argued in the MacDonald opinion and other cases before it, the "positive" outcome of infringement of fundamental rights is not sufficient to support that infringement. There can/should not be a "balancing" argument made in the context of fundamental rights between the right and the convenience of government. Even when/if that means "the guilty go free" in some instances.
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That is the seperate argument......... whether they should.
ahh... in that case, they should not...
![[wink]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/002.gif "Wink [wink]")
More importantly, this only reflects the number of traces that were successful.
John Dillinger stole guns & ammo from police departments back when anyone could buy a machine gun through the mail. Criminals still do it today, there's been plenty of high profile cases both in the US and abroad. Guns sell because people want them, but even if they're completely de-regulated they will still be stolen, and there will still be a black market to run those stolen guns.
It doesn't mean that they'll get caught right away.
http://www.northeastshooters.com/vb...Police-Professor-Had-Hundreds-Of-Guns-In-Home
Obviously there are straw purchases and illegal gun sales of that sort, but most of the guns used in crimes in MA have been reported stolen, and I'm willing to bet that there's a lot more that were stolen but never got properly reported. I posted about that in this thread.
http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/102929-MA-straw-purchases
While it certainly can be a good investigative tool, it's a very limited tool IMO, and it definitely shouldn't be used as an accurate guage of where all the crime guns are coming from.
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My point is that overall tracing will very seldom lead to the criminal that stole the gun and on straw purchases I believe if someone purchases 3 or more guns at one time the ATF is notified and can investigate if they choose to.
GSG, Yes, guns were stolen before but when made illegal it creates a much larger market. Also I didn't say that they would get caught right away just that if someone is expecting something and it does not arrive they most likely would report it and a gun shop owner would report any missing guns also if they are doing their inventory which would or at least should lead to an investigation.
GSG, Yes, guns were stolen before but when made illegal it creates a much larger market. Also I didn't say that they would get caught right away just that if someone is expecting something and it does not arrive they most likely would report it and a gun shop owner would report any missing guns also if they are doing their inventory which would or at least should lead to an investigation.
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Must have been a gunshow loophole...
![[laugh]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/012.gif "Laugh [laugh]")
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Must have been a gunshow loophole...
Or they trace every single firearm they take in.
Must have been a gunshow loophole...
I don't know for sure, but my guess is that they arrested one collector and ran all the guns confiscated by the PD thru BATFE. They might do the same for 209A confiscations as well.
These numbers do NOT represent guns used in crime, only what the PD was curious about. Similarly, if a PD recovers a gun, they may run a trace to determine who the real owner is.
Again, speculation on my part as I've never been involved in any such activities even when I was with the PD (sleepy town back then).
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