Shooting at the Empire State Building

RB, for what it's worth, MD has a shell casing search system. For all its years in existence, millions of dollars spent, and all the legal requirements imposed on gun owners, it has helped maybe one investigation. (The very definition of over inclusive).

If you're only about creating a log book of purchases, I still fail to see how that would prevent crime. Isn't the idea behind ammunition tracking to prevent crime (as much as I hate the entire idea of 'pre-crime.') So how do you make sure this program is effective without also hampering legal gun use? Take this for example--I buy 800 rds of 9mm to take a class. Same day, in the city, there's a shooting involving 9mm caliber weapons. Does that give law enforcement probable cause to search me? I would submit to you that the connection is tenuous at best.

Again, the idea here is Reasonable. Words lawyers love to litigate over.

It's unreasonable to suspect a hispanic man is guilty of a crime simply because he's hispanic. It's similarly unreasonable to suspect ammo purchasers of crimes simply because they purchase ammo. What's being inserted here, and not being brought to the surface, is that guns are somehow indicative of a crime. They're not.

 

Thanks for the education, Snake Eater. Don't agree with you on some points but can't dispute your obvious knowledge of certain things I know little about.

As to how modern soldiers operate in the field these days, I'm comforted to hear that they are considerate of the civilian population to the point of feeling protective. I suppose I've fallen victim to the news reporting about bad behavior on the part of some American soldiers towards locals though I've never held the belief they were not the exception to the rule.

I assure you I am not nuttier than the pro-gun people but may be as nutty.
--- merged: Aug 27, 2012 at 5:56 PM ---

Wow! I mean, did you actually read his post, Kirstang or any of the other posts on this subject?

 

I assume there's a point in there somewhere?

 

Of course there is. Luckily nobody was suggesting the latter. Reductio ad absurdum.

Regarding your first question, you clearly didn't read (or understand) what I was saying. Of course you wouldn't become a suspect.

 

Well, how do you propose the "police take a closer look" at where ammunition is going? Surveillance?

 

At least one. Who has even hinted at the SWAT scenario? Last time I checked, due process was still alive and well in the US. No one is saying it shouldn't continue to be so.

 

But your point is, ammunition purchases give reasonable articulate suspicion to begin an investigation. Yes?

 

If the sale/purchase is deemed unusual or suspect by way of a variety of different factors, I imagine they have quite a few options. If it's just you buying ammo for target practicing and you have a history of doing that activity and aren't purchasing 8ooo rounds from 4 different suppliers when your purchase history reveals you've never bought more than 1000 at a time, all from the same place, and you haven't recently been served with a protection order by your ex-wife or checked yourself in to the local hospital complaining of urges to kill someone, I predict you'll never know.
--- merged: Aug 27, 2012 at 6:19 PM ---

Nope, never said that or even inferred it.

 

Again, my problem is what is "unusual" or "suspect." Propane tanks and fertilizer and gasoline can all be thrown in to the tracking regime, I suppose.

As I'm sure you're away, I disagree with the entire scheme. There's going to be a lot of false positives, and that's what I'm most concerned about.
--- merged: Aug 27, 2012 at 6:21 PM ---

Then what would be the legal basis for an investigation? If there's no RAS, then the investigation might as well be illegal.

 

In some cases, maybe. In some cases, by knocking on the door and asking a few questions (maybe even inspecting where the guns are stored?). It will vary.

I can't help but feel that this is a 3.6 billion dollar industry (and that's just the ammunition for small arms) and a little regulation may be in order. Right now, I can order over the internet without even proof of ID, let alone proof that I am licensed. It seems that there is no way anyone should be allowed to know ho many guns I own. Any kind of tracking is seen as somehow an infringement of privacy. And yet "someone" should focus on those criminals with guns. How, exactly? Wouldn't some intelligence be useful?

Of course, this thread has gone way off topic. This might have more to do with the 19 shootings in Chicago the night before this took place.

I'm off to bed now, anyway.

 

Sleep well.

FYI, every time I've purchased ammo off the internet, they've made me send in a form of ID.

 

Licensed dealers have been required to report multiple sales of handguns to an individual since the '68 gun law.

Is this a 4th amendment issue? profiling?
--- merged: Aug 27, 2012 at 6:53 PM ---
One can also reasonably wonder how many online sales at gun classified sites slip the cracks as "private sales"

 

If the data reveals probable cause, how is this not legal....now....after 9/11...after the Patriot Act gave permission to Homeland Security and the FBI to open investigations on US citizens based on little more than a key word hit on the internet?

The game has changed. They changed it. I say we use some of it to our advantage and get guns out of the hands of those who wish to cause unprovoked harm to others. Inner city drug dealers with illegal weapons would struggle to do jack with them if they couldn't go down the corner shop and buy a box of ammo unless they could at least show their gun permit matching the ammunition they were shopping for. If they magically had all that, they might be a tad reluctant to purchase ammunition with their ID associated with it. Ruins the whole illegal gun fun.
--- merged: Aug 27, 2012 at 7:06 PM ---

It's just fodder unless someone is paying attention, no?

 

Probably so; although the form is sent to the state/local law enforcement as well as the atf.

Or fodder at least until after the occurrence of a crime w/ a weapon from such a multiple sale.

 

Too late for purposes of this discussion.

 

It is an existing database of some owners of multiple handguns.

...backing away unarmed.

 

Some owners and only handguns.

Surrounded by technology and sometimes I feel as if I'm living in the Dark Ages or pre-revolutionary America. Mostly it feels like the Wild West.

 

kirstang

the*obvious* problem--with data like log books is that it doesn't get collected. if it does get collected, it gets snared in the rat's nest of reporting systems at local, state and federal levels and the problems of communication between them. that's why it's not obvious what overall crime numbers mean.

so that there is the possibility of such data (numbering or barcodes) and some ad hoc collection doesn't mean that it's correlated anywhere or being used for anything.

i would think it quite simple to introduce a basic automated system that would transfer the data once scanned to a central system. but that does not exist now. so there's no necessary relation between the fact that elements that might at some future date be useful for such systems exist now and any preventive outcomes in a different system of gathering and correlation--should it come to pass that people determine that the reduction in levels of gun violence is a reasonable policy objective.

secondly, there's no logical connection between gathering such information about ammunition and other weapons-related transactions and criminalizing anyone simply because the data itself wouldn't allow for it to be more than an ex-post facto tool.

what it *would* do is enable the construction of a sort of map of the gun underground. it would enable a connection of legal purchases and the subsequent circulation of that material. i would support quite strict limits on the information that was gathered, btw---a separation of name/address from mode of purchase. it seems to me that would prevent the data from being used to profile.

if it turned out, however, that you were inclined to sell guns on the d.l. and guns that you bought kept turning up in criminal investigations, then it'd be different. the usage of the data would still be reactive---you wouldn't emerge from the mass of unweighed data unless your actions caused you to emerge. and your 4th amendment figleaf would be out the window.