Current events in the UK

A body was recovered, the victim presumably died from injuries to the neck and face. A man died of undisclosed injuries after being attacked, yet another person is in critical condition following an assault ...

So when I was going through my blogroll this morning, I spotted a true gem over at sharp as a marble. Where he spots a news article with something interesting to say:

• Guns are always available and stemming the flow of weapons remains an almost impossible task.

Some people knew this before, some have been saying so all along. Some people have been in denial for some time now. I'd say others have known but keep denying it because of ulterior motives.

Point to proof, a man used a handgun to try and rob a bank just now.

This weeks knife crime alone is enough to fill a blog. One kid was stabbed to death after a party, don't conuse him with the OTHER kid that was stabbed at a party and died. Q:Did you hear about that kid that got stabbed to death at the party - A:Which one?

Two men were stabbed, one died in what is called "not a random attack". Earlier, yet another teen was stabbed to death in London.

If anybody was wondering, arsonists *do* still kill people, large amounts of illegal drugs are still being confiscated and few people bat an eye at either.

Gun control puts gun in hands of 15 year old

Came across this over at marilyns ...

Once upon a time, criminals would buy a gun, use it for their evil deeds, and get rid of it ... junkers were cheap and plentiful, and easy to get, probably why they accounted for roughly 46% of the guns traced by the ATF in 1994.

• "In the 1980s and early 1990s, they were throwing those guns in the river. But they aren't doing that anymore,"

Indeed, 14 years later , guns are treated differently:

• "...gangs across the country stash and share weapons, often in abandoned buildings, in an attempt to circumvent gun control laws..."

So, gun control laws are causing gangs to stash guns rather than get rid of them? What exactly has that resulted in then? Recently, a 10 year old girl was shot to death by a 15 y/o wielding a "neighbourhood gun".
'course it's a neighbourhood, not a gang territory or turf, and the 15 year old who shot the little girl was an "average, normal kid", not a juvenile gang member ... though he did know in which garbage bag to pick up a gun.

Think of the children much?
Gun control -as is- is not working!

ABC about guns in Mexico

You've all heard the PSH before, but this is getting vomit indicing!

From the latest ABC story on how US guns are ending in in the hands of Mexican criminals. Oh how they like to talk about gun shops and "gun shows" without ever providing any solid numbers or sources. Nothing new I suppose. Ahab gave that avenue a proper trashing some time back.

What got to me was this little video they had up. Anybody who dibbels in the matter knows that a "bulletproof vest" will not work when simply hung in the air, this is why they are pressed against ballistic gelatin for testing purposes. For political purposes however, it's perfectly acceptable to simply hang it against a piece of cardboard, and claim that the gun being used to shoot through the vest is a horribly powerful weapon.

Said weapon? Once again, the evil black Belgian Five-seveN pistol. Yes, armor piercing rounds are available for that handgun, but not to civillians, neither is that friggen machine gun they use to tear up a car in the end of the vid. That's right, a genuine fully automatic, belt fed machine gun!
Watch the footage here.

More on Mexican guns.

I discussed some recent events in Mexico before, "Call me Ahab" has now dug up some interesting tidbits, some rather intersting information the CNN chose to leave out of their story.

He finds out how criminals are trying to smuggle guns into Mexico, i.e. the "people willing to break the law" loophole. Guns bought illegally, being transported illegally ... what about that "gun show loophole" then? You want them to pass background checks? They are passing background checks!


Seriously, read the original CNN article, and Ahabs post. Scoop out my previous post on the entire thing if you missed it.

About the black market

The black market ... an amazing phenomenon to say the least. Spawned forth by the entreprising element of society, criminal capitalism at its best and before anything: oppertunism. Given a chance to make bank on a demand artificially generated by government mandate, there are plenty of people willing to risk trouble with mentioned government.

The demand can be for anything. In the Netherlands, smuggling butter was once a very profitable enterprise, much like smuggling cigarettes into the UK these days. Take any commodity, pass a law prohibiting it, and a black market will arise to supply the demand. It was the case when the US prohibited alcohol, it is the case now that many countries around the world have banned certain drugs.

And the black merket, what does it look like? Many may initially imagine a warehouse or similar building with people selling their wares, but quickly realize that is a cartoon image. The black market, it is everywhere. It is the dealer on the corner selling drugs to passers by, it is the appartment out of which a pair of crooks are selling their wares, it are the couriers of a fast-food-style drug delivery service.

The black market is a spontaneously generated organism, whose spores are everywhere and when conditions are met, they settle and grow. An inexterminable lifeform that has no home or ancorage, that has little ties in between, and can remain undetected indefinitely.

In nature, that which grows spontaneously is usually a simple lifeform, but not the black market, and especially not the suppliers to the black market. Recently, we read of semi-submarines used to smuggle drugs, before that, there was the Tennesee pot-cave, there have been many others. With no natural cave, some Britons went as far as to bury eight large cargo units to house an underground (litt&fig) Drug "factory".

The salesmen of the black market and the criminals supplying it are some of the most enterprising people to be found in this world. We will not be able to stop them, even the most opressive regimes have had to deal with smuggling, and often failed at it (underground railroad, the hiding of Jews during WWII) , the black market is eternal.

How can anyone say that we can effectively ban an object? We've spent so much money and effort, shed so much blood to stop drugs, and what do we get? Pot grown in underground shipping containers delivered to your door by what essentially amounts to a pizza delivery service for narcotics.
Do we really want to go through the same mess with guns? I'm not saying we mustn't seek to reduce the damage that gun abuse is causing, I'm saying that a head on prohibition simply will not work.
Didn't work for christianity in ancient Rome, didn't work for alcohol in the twenties, it's not working for drugs, it will not work for guns.

Straight of a movie?

This four barreled shotgun was turned into anamnesty program in Manchester, 2006.
The obvious product of a home-workshop gunsmith, this weapon is a clear reminder that we will never be able to get rid off guns as long as there's people willing to break the law.

Brittish police cry for judges to enforce the law.

In the UK, they've got issues.

• "... our porous borders allow weapons to simply flow into the country while the Government's failure to combat the scourge of drugs also fuels so much violent crime."

Gangs, of course, gangs and other criminals are thriving in an atmosphere of prohibition. A large market for illicit drugs has spawned forth a large amount of people willing to break the law in order to meet the demand. But the gangs of today, aren't those of years past:

• There will always be gangs and criminals but today it is the fact that they carry guns which makes them truly intimidating.

One would suspect that guns would be less available then during the period when they were still legally available, no? Unfortunately, the prohibition of guns has also led to a large black market dealing with this £500 (pounds) a pop commodity.

And now, much like in the USA, the flaw in handling this situation lies not in the lack of strong anti-gun laws, but in the failure toact on them. The illegal posessio of a firearm carries a mandatory 5 year sentence. Though it's not really mandatory, because a lot of judges are refusing to hand them out, to the great dismay of certain law enforement officials.

I personally dislike mandatory sentences, as I believe in a case-by-case review of individual crimes, and before anything I believe in rehabilitation. So here's the problem I'm concerned with: the cops and courts aren't on the same wavelength! This is a much bigger issue, a far more important and dangerous one, than the sentencing of individual criminals.

Unless you can get all bodies and branches of the government to move in the same direction, you're in for a lot of trouble.
Don't say I didn't warn you!

Bomb offered for sale ...

Another law enforcement success story.

Staying withing the "sting" scene, undercover police forces were hoping to crack down on copper theft when they initiated operation meltdown in San Jose California. Little did they know of the catch they were about to make.
(1,2)

Sure enough, people started dropping off stolen copper at the "recycling business", but that wasn't all. Dozens of guns were sold as well, and one man ever tried to sell the officers explosive devices which can be activated by a cellphone.

There's a couple of important lessons to be learned here:
Law enforcement officers are often hard-working man and women, who can do a real good job!

There are plenty of guns out on the street, on the criminal market. They weren't even trying to go after guns, so even with it's very harsh gun legislation, Californian ganglands are still riddeled with firearms.

Explosives are available as well. I've been over this in the past: the internet is full of information concerning the manufacture of explosives and explosive devices, some of which is accurate.
Just like banning drug related chemicals has proven to be a daunting task, banning explosive chemicals and their precursors will be nigh-impossible. Doesn't keep them from trying.

One thing that bothered me, one of the officers involved said that every gun taken was lives saved ...
I went over this before as well, one out of 21 000 guns taken of the street doesn't save a life, but hey, it's the thought that matters. This was an avtual buyback that worked!



to be noted: this post will be labeled under "PRK" for geographic reference, and does in no way mean any disrespect to the officers involved in this succesful operation.

Soldiers caught trying to sell guns to criminals

It's not the first time the militairy was found fueling the black market. I've read and written about it before, now again:

It would appear that Brittish troops routinely take guns back with them as trophies. These are not to remain in their personal posession and have to be deactivated. But smuggling live weapons and explosives back from Afghanistan isn't a unique event either, nor is "misplacing" ammonution and trying to sell it off later something that doesn't happen.

One royal marine was found to be in posession of various rifles, at least one AK-74, a rocket propelled grenade and a mortar.
Another one, Christopher Trussler, of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment was caught trying to sell issued ammonution and claimed he could also get a re-activated AK-74 ...
The list goes on and can be found here.

If only the police and the military can legally have guns, criminals will still have them as well. A black market will ALWAYS rise to suply the need created by a prohibition; wether it's drugs, underage pornography or firearms.

Assault rifles and grenade launchers, stolen from the military

Here's a little something for those who believe that only law enforcement, the military and a select few government agencies should be the only ones to be trusted with access to firearms:

"Police seized a haul of military weapons, including grenade launchers and an SA 80 rifle, in a raid on a house in County Durham. Officers found 16 weapons, together with ammunition, component parts and manuals, in the search at Chatsworth Terrace, Darlington, on Wednesday."
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/6983406.stm)

As long as guns exist, criminals WILL be getting their hands on them.
And the harder you make that process, the more profitable it'll be, providing only more incentive for them to attempt and corrupt "the only ones we should trust with firearms."