A murder weapon's trip from Mississippi to Chicago

[RamboLiberal]

The .45-caliber handgun found feet from the body of Officer Thomas Wortham IV passed through three states and many hands before a chance encounter at a convenience store set it on its tragic course for Chicago.

The weapon was among several brought to Chicago's streets as part of a gun-trafficking scheme orchestrated by an Englewood man who had risen from a tough upbringing but couldn't shake his criminal ties back home when he arrived at a Mississippi college.

The scheme depended on young Mississippi residents who were willing to illegally buy the guns for him, then blindly hand them over for $100 or less in return.

With the Smith & Wesson used in Wortham's homicide, the trafficker preyed on a young father whose infant daughter was dying of a brain tumor and was fearful of losing his job.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-gun-officer-wortham-20100830-98,0,727808.story?page=1

[ManiacJoe]

1. Nice to see that the DOJ is taking a more active role

in prosecuting the straw purchasers.

[Mandell]

3. Yea several laws were broken...

..and these laws were enacted to stop just this kind of transaction from going on. You are legally responsible for a transfer of a firearm you own, if you are obviously helping someone avoid the NCIS system that is fraud and you should be prosecuted. Tough for the kid, but he was breaking the law and he knew it.

In fact if you make a face to face sale with me, normally this is an uncontrolled sale however I will want your personal information including your driver's license # or SSI and if you refuse I won't complete the sale.

[lawodevolution]

2. This shows that

When you establish prohibition of an object that is popular you create crime. Prohibition creates crime from thin air. Things will change in Chicago, but for a while the legacy of Daley's idiotic gun ban will continue to generate crime in other states.

[sharesunited]

4. What is needed is fewer guns and less ammo everywhere.

Daley's gun ban wasn't idiotic. Abundance and easy access in places other than Chicago are what is idiotic, and are obviously what cause the underground gun problem Chicago suffers from.

Same damn problem with fireworks.

[lawodevolution]

5. The gun bans were racist

There were a disproportionate amount of African Americans compared to whites living under total gun bans. Most people in inner cities are good, law abiding people who deserve to have the same rights as others.

[sharesunited]

6. The inner city is a danger to children and other innocent bystanders

thanks to your support for the production and sale of guns and ammunition.

Look in the mirror.

You are the problem.

[X_Digger]

7. "The inner city is a danger"???

We should ban inner cities then, obviously.

:sarcasm:

[lawodevolution]

8. Yes I am your problem

I promote policy that reduces violent crime and if there are fewer victims of violent crime, your gun control group has fewer members and money. This is why the Brady campaign and other gun control groups go against the Eddie eagle program from the NRA, that teaches kids that if they see a gun to "stop. Dont touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult" you see if they succeed in reducing the number of gun accidents among children it will hurt the Brady campaign, MAIG, VPCs bank account. Gun control groups only work today to rationalize their existence.

But despite your efforts

[sharesunited]

9. Accidents? What about target practice in which a child or other bystander is the bullseye?

Yes, the NRA is definitely the problem, to the extent they implicitly cluck:

Such A Tragedy, Now Carry On Dying Y'all.

And you are a worse problem than I thought if you pay NRA dues or otherwise give them succor.

[lawodevolution]

10. that is covered in the top graph, which shows down trend.

Are you serious? Based on that last post I can see you are kind of lost in this argument.

[Katya Mullethov]

11. He's a talkin 'bout when we get into the corn squeezins

and goes to shooting cans off'na each others shoulders wither double barreled shotguns .

[cleanhippie]

18. Dude, thats an understatement.

He is TOTALLY lost in la-la land with his ideas and arguments. You will tire of him rather quickly and learn to ignore most of his posts.

You are spot on on your posts.. Nice job!

[lawodevolution]

13. What about Nigeria, Russia, Jamaica, and Mexico

In these nations guns are Banned to normal people, but their violent crime rates are out of control. Lots more individual sob stories per 100,000 than here and those countries already have done what you want, sharesunited. Nigeria has the lowest gun possession rate on earth at 1 per 100 people, so limiting supply of guns doesn't really seem to reduce violence

[Pavulon]

15. MMM Dillon 650 in the box..

just waiting to be set up. 600rds per HOUR I can now make. Much cheaper than shooting UMC.

I look in the mirror and see a smiling son of a bitch..

[cleanhippie]

17. By your (lack of) logic, inner cities need to be banned.

Your ideas get even more whacky as the days go by.

[spin]

12. Daley's gun ban was racist, elitist, foolish and a failure ...

and now is unconstitutional. May it rest in peace and may Daley finally attempt to do something serious about the crime problems in Chicago before he leaves office.

[cleanhippie]

16. Not only was it idiotic, it was unconstituional.

Strange how you support unconstitutional acts. Any other parts of the constitution you want to erase?

[Euromutt]

14. I'd say it shows the market for crime guns is driven by demand, not supply

The Tribune article states that Quawi Gates was able to sell the guns he acquired in Mississippi via straw purchases at a 100% markup in Chicago. It's a safe bet he wasn't selling them to people who would have been eligible to purchase them legally elsewhere in Illinois. As Daniel Polsby rightly observed fifteen years ago (http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/PolsbyFirearmCosts.htm):

Illicit retail customers <...> are seeking to invest in capital plant for which there exists no ready substitutes. <sic>
<...> The price sensitivity of firearms buyers will diminish as their motive for owning a firearm becomes more sinister.

Accordingly, business opportunities for people like Gates don't exist because of the Chicago handgun ban, but despite it; the ban didn't create the demand, but neither did it do anything to reduce it. And as long as the demand exists, some enterprising spark is going to run guns to Chicago, no matter from how far the guns have to come.

[Tejas]

19. translation:

"Evil gun seeks out otherwise normal frappe-consumer and converts him into a murderous hydra."

Thank you for your efforts at furthering reducing the obligation of personal responsibilty in our country.