Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
We know for a fact that most criminals get their guns through illegal means, namely the black market.
However, where there’s often a great deal of disconnect between people is just how to prevent guns from getting there in the first place. Anti-gunners seem to believe if they control the guns of law-abiding citizens hard enough, they’ll somehow become immune to theft or anything else which might lead to them ending up in the hands of the criminal underworld.
Those of us with fully-functional brains, however, understand that the bad guys are inventive in how they get guns. Take a couple of drug dealers from Boston, for example.
Two men who said they were members of the Latin Kings street gang could face 15 years in federal prison for bringing cocaine to Vermont in exchange for firearms intended for use in a “war” in Boston, if a judge accepts a plea agreement.
If the judge rejects the agreement reached Monday, John Guerrero, 27, and Darwin Medina, 35, both of Boston, could each be sentenced to life in prison on the drug charge and 20 years on the gun charge.
Sentencing is scheduled for February.
Court documents say that between November 2017 and March 2018, the two men traveled between Boston and northwestern Vermont. They would give locals money; the locals would buy firearms from a dealer; and the firearms would then be given to the two men in exchange for drugs, authorities say.
…
At least five Vermonters were charged by federal authorities with illegally purchasing about 30 firearms on behalf of Guerrero and Medina and then exchanging them for drugs.
None of this is legal, for the record, yet they managed to get about 30 guns which they could use for their gang warfare.
Please, explain to me just how gun control is going to stop this? Don’t tell me we’re going to drug test people before buying a gun, either. If you refuse to drug test people receiving public assistance–something there’s no constitutional right to, I might add–then you’re never going to get anyone to agree with testing people exercising a civil liberty like gun ownership.
So what, then?
Criminals who want guns will get guns. They’ll find all kinds of ways to get them, including getting others to buy the guns in exchange for drugs. They know they won’t pass a test, so they basically coerce a drug customer with a clean criminal record into committing straw purchases for them. Please, tell me how you’re going to combat that?
You’re not.
Instead, you’re better off focusing on ending gangs like the Latin Kings by trying to cut off their supply of new members. If you do that, the gang–and a key demand for illicit firearms–drops off considerably.
What’s not going to happen, though, is some new gun control law that will come in and suddenly end criminal access to firearms. It cannot and will not happen, if for no other reason that these guys were able to get cocaine easily enough, and that’s not sold over the counter to anyone in this country. If they can get drugs, they can get guns.
Which this case sort of proves, doesn’t it?
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/