Where Did the Gun Come From?

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I give this little chance of happening, but it's just another example of
anti-gun types being out of touch with reality... [angry]


Will Massachusetts Gun Owners be Tracked Like Sex Offenders?
Jun 3, 2007

Gun-trace plan faces hurdles

Public online access to gun data opposed

By Milton J. Valencia TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

WORCESTER— The latest strategy in the national war against illegal guns includes a “track and map” system to trace gun ownership, and the movement includes a local campaign in Worcester with a community group’s own tracing proposals.

Worcester is still reeling from the disappearance nearly a decade ago of some 50 guns from the Kahr Arms gun manufacturing company on Goddard Memorial Drive. One gun stolen from there was later discovered by a 4-year-old near his backyard, after it had already been used in a nightclub shooting that left one man dead. The locations of other guns remain unknown.

Nationally, concerns have been growing over trafficking of illegal guns stolen from homes or dealerships. In Philadelphia, a police department is under scrutiny for selling confiscated weapons to a shady gun dealer who later sold the guns to convicted felons, putting the weapons back into street violence circulation, according to a newspaper report.

Yet the gun tracking system, which as proposed would be similar to the tracking of convicted sex offenders, still faces hurdles before information on specific firearms can be found on public databases. Gun rights groups have raised constitutional concerns, and at least one federal law passed each year since 2003 limits the tracking of weapons to law enforcement agencies.

Opposition to the tracking system has only fueled its proponents, who argue that the limits on tracing guns have facilitated gun trafficking. Law enforcement officers will openly say that the limitations of gun laws, specifically differences in gun laws from state to state, have made it harder to track the history of a gun than that of a motor vehicle.

A national effort called Mayors Against Illegal Guns, led by Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, aims to better track guns between states. At the local level, community groups who have called for strong community policing measures say it can only be accomplished with tracking systems that will let them know who in their communities have guns, have lost guns, and have used them.

In Worcester, it’s called “Where Did the Gun Come From?” and it’s part of a grass-roots campaign that encourages the public, media outlets and police to question the origin of a gun used in a crime rather than focus solely on the crime. Too many times, organizers say, crimes such as armed robberies are handled without a deeper look at the origin of the gun used.

“You don’t stop with the violent act, but dig deeper to find out where did the gun come from,” said District 4 City Councilor Barbara G. Haller, who has played a key role in anti-violence efforts in the Main South neighborhood.

“In almost all cases, the weapon that was used was used illegally,” she said.

Perpetrators face charges of having a gun without any permit, but still there are few investigations into the origin of the gun, she said.

An estimated 250,000 guns, from handguns to automatic weapons, that were found or confiscated in crimes now sit in vaults in police departments across the state, their identities unknown and the information exempt from databases, according to a group that has proposed a new gun-tracking data.

The Main South Alliance for Public Safety, a group composed of Ms. Haller and other community leaders, is working with a Seekonk-based computer software maker that has built what it calls futuristic technology to better track weapons. The software is meant for police departments to share information, but community groups say it could also give them a perspective into crime in their neighborhoods.

“It gives them a tool that’s not otherwise available now,” said James LaMonte, lead design engineer for Coloseum Software Corp., which developed the Advanced Inventory Management Intelligence program to track weapons.

The program goes beyond the federal government’s eTrace program, he said, calling it a comparison between a Ford Pinto and a Lamborghini. The software can help track a weapon based on its parts, its make, model, caliber and color. Users of the software can even search for information based on a bullet’s ballistic testing.

It won’t take the detective work out of a crime, he said. Police must still analyze data. But, he stressed, it’s a real-time program that keeps working, helping to track information on a gun beyond programs that are used now.

The software has the support of community groups including the Main South Alliance for Public Safety, which sees it as a community policing tool that will help residents interact and share information with police.

“We want to connect the dots with this type of technology,” said William T. Breault, chairman of the Main South Alliance for Public Safety. Last week, the group sent letters to police chiefs across the state urging them to participate in a Massachusetts-based pilot program to test the new software, with hopes of nationalizing it.

The letter calls community policing “a true partnership between police and the public they serve — as the most effective tool to control crime and the perceptions of danger.”

But public access to investigative material has its opponents, too, and that has been the basis of federal legislation restricting gun tracking information to law enforcement officials. The so-called Tiahrt amendment prohibits the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which maintains the eTrace database, from releasing the information outside of law enforcement. The legislation, an attachment each year to the Department of Justice spending bill, is seen as a way to reduce lawsuits filed against gun manufacturers and dealers and has the support of the National Rifle Association.

James Wallace of the Northboro-based Gun Owners’ Action League supports the legislation and said the gun tracking movement is misdirected, doing little to curb illegal gun use and street violence.

“It’s going to pit lawful people against lawful people,” he said. “If they really want to solve the issue, it’s to attack crime and the criminals.”

He uses the same statistics community groups do in pointing out the increase in gun violence to argue that laws restricting gun rights have done little to reduce gun crimes. Indeed, he said, licensed gun ownership has dropped 85 percent since 1998, when new gun laws were passed in Massachusetts, but gun homicides have still increased 64 percent, and gun-related assaults have increased 500 percent.

“It’s pretty darn clear that the powers that be are headed in the wrong direction,” he said. “The bottom line is crooks don’t care. They’re going to get it illegally.”

He proposes tougher penalties for illegal gun use and possession, and said his group even supports proposals to create a separate gun court, so that gun charges aren’t forgotten or reduced in plea bargains.

Worcester Police Detective Lt. Robert Rich also argued that gun tracking data should be restricted to law enforcement, saying the release of such information could alert the subject of a trafficking investigation.

He acknowledged that gun tracking is as lax as the faulty record-keeping that occurs, and that a car is easier to track than a gun. But he did stress that the eTrace system allows local police to work with federal agents to identify patterns that could lead to trafficking investigations. He said eTrace allows authorities to share sensitive investigative documents.

He said eTrace, though it doesn’t share information with the public, does serve a law enforcement role. The state Executive Office of Public Safety also said last week that it supports the existing government-used gun tracking programs.

Community groups said they intend no interference with the Second Amendment — Mr. Breault has his own firearm identification card — but stress that the information in a public tracking system would serve community purposes.

Mr. Breault envisions a Web site with a crime blog where residents can share information about neighborhood crime, and particularly gun use. He called that a true form of community policing. Such a program exists in Chicago, he said.

In Baltimore, public officials have unveiled a plan to track gun arrests and court cases and to create a gun offender registry on the Internet. The program would help track gun use, dealership and ownership across Maryland, the officials said.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, with more than 180 mayors representing 50 million Americans, proposes a nationwide database run by police departments that will trace guns from California to Boston.

“These are mayors who represent big cities where, unfortunately, there’s a lot of gun-related crime and they’re trying to get a hold of it,” said U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester. “One of the ways to do it is to track the source of where these weapons are coming from.

“I don’t understand quite why that’s so important to the National Rifle Association.”

He stressed, too, that the national movement is stemming from neighborhood groups such as the Main South Alliance for Public Safety that see gun violence up close.

Contact Milton J. Valencia by e-mail at [email protected].

http://www.goal.org/news/trackinggunowners.htm
 
Cradle to the Grave Accountability.

Cradle to the Grave Accountability. Its all the rage in Just in Time Manufacturing and C.O.T.s Products.
 
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You Goota Read this![/

You Goota Read this!


http://images.google.com/imgres?img...14&prev=/images?q=gun+ID&gbv=2&svnum=10&hl=en


id_adr_concepts.jpg


[rolleyes]
 
A good reason to have a gun safe.

Yeah, but a gun safe may not protect us against overzealous socialists
who succeed in getting "gun owner databases" posted a couple of
URLs away from the diddler lists. It would not surprise me at all if a
commie state like MA tries to pull that off.

I realize the focus of this thing -right now- is "stolen" guns, but eventually
it will progress far beyond that if they get away with passing a law like
this.

-Mike
 
Do they sell that thing in the revenge aisle of the divorcée store?

No, there's no need for those in MA.... as the disaffected female will just
walk down to the local courthouse or whatever and file a 209A against the
target. Why bother clogging all the guns with glue when you can get the
state to just steal them all for you? [rolleyes]


-Mike
 
It would be ironic, if not downright humorous, to see an open list of who has guns. The semi-intelligent crook would be able to cross reference the list with street listing data compiled from the local census, and make a list of who IS NOT armed.

As for that epoxy injector...If I were forced to demill my collection, that method would be my personal favorite. Of course, I would probably also keep on hand a supply of some strong polymer solvents (paint stripper?), long shafted drill bits, and information on how to restore various heat treatment methods. (resins dissolve, machine, and melt far more easily than hardened steel barrels)
 
He thinks women are motivated to eliminate guns because they "suffer greatly from their presence both as victims of gun violence and in caring for loved ones injured by weapons."

But it's not easy to hide guns, or destroy them with standard methods like incineration, crushing, or cutting with hydraulic shears. To disable guns at home, Bosveld suggests using his simple tool: a squeeze bottle containing an epoxy resin and hardener. You remove the cap, push the nozzle into the gun barrel, squeeze in the resin, and leave the weapon upright for 20 minutes. The resin clogs the barrel, and the squeeze bulb marks the gun as useless.
A simple "Honey, I want a divorce" works much better. And the result would be nearly the same once the barrels are replaced. Or drilled out.

A working gun (again) and a single gun-owner.
 
Yikes... well it obviously makes no sense that any woman who'd want to destroy a gun wouldn't be destroying her own gun... it'd be stupid to go buy a gun only to ruin it. So she'd obviously be destroying her husband or boyfriend's guns; isn't that a crime? Multiple crimes actually... destruction of property as well as at least momentarily possessing the gun without a permit (in MA anyway) while the destruction happens. Besides, I'd bet that the gun is still illegal to possess even with epoxy in it... even a simple magazine is a crime to have and that's a separate part that won't be affected by what's in the barrel. Plus its obviously well past time for a divorce if that happens. I can't imagine any woman actually thinking she can go on living a normal life with her husband after doing that to his expensive property.
 
Dumpster Diving!

Do they sell that thing in the revenge aisle of the divorcée store?


Speaking of Trash day!


My Aunt got divorced from My Unkle in Tyngsboro, MA and she took all his guns (A nice 12 GA Browning Auto, A semi 30-06 and at least one .357) and dumped them in the trash barrel out on the curbside. He had a nice collection.

Man the Trash guys must have been happy!


On the same note I found a Brand new Crosman pump pellet rifle with scope sticking out of a trash can in Freeport,ME

Glad I saw it as there was also a brand new Dewalt drill, hardware and other guy stuff that myst have been thrown out by who knows who?

The Recycling centers have some very nice "Gift Shops" [wink]
 
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