Guns used to kill police officers: Where they come from and how they get in the hands of criminals

[RamboLiberal]

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To trace these guns, The Washington Post did a year-long investigation, including building a database of every police officer shot to death in the past decade. (More than 1,900 officers were wounded by firearms during the same period.) Through documents and interviews, The Post was able to track how the suspects obtained their weapons in 341 of the deaths.

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Legal purchase was the leading source of weapons used to kill police officers. In 107 slayings, the killers acquired their firearms legally. In 170 deaths, The Post could not determine how the shooters got their guns, including 29 killings in which weapons were not recovered.

Stolen guns turned up in 77 deaths. Separately, guns obtained or taken from relatives or friends who legally owned them were used in 46 killings. Fifty-one officers were killed when their department-issued firearms or another officer's gun were turned against them. In 41 instances, guns were illegally obtained on the streets through sale or barter. Sixteen times, someone bought a weapon for a person prohibited from having a gun, an unlawful transaction known as a straw purchase. The straw buyers were federally prosecuted in fewer than half of those cases. Three were illegally purchased at gun shows or from private sellers.

The two deadliest situations for police are traffic stops and domestic disputes. Ninety-one of the officers were killed while making traffic stops; 76 were responding to domestic disturbance calls. The officers killed at traffic stops were generally slain by felons wielding illegal guns; the weapons used to kill police in domestic situations were often obtained through legal purchases. Only 13 percent of the weapons in the traffic stops were legal, compared with 47 percent in the domestic calls.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/20/AR2010112002865.html?hpid=topnews

[Crazy Dave]

1. Guns, guns, guns...it gets so tiresome

There's millions of dipshits texting while they drive in cars that can kill people and already have. When people give a shit about that then I'll worry about guns.

[applegrove]

2. The police will pull you over if you are using your blackberry illegally. Why

not make guns more illegal so fewer people will die?

[Crazy Dave]

3. Yeah...it will work as good as the war on illegal drugs

The Mexican drug cartels kill about 5,000 people a month now including police officers and government officials so lets give them another black market for American consumers.

[lawodevolution]

5. Make guns more illegal? Like in Mexico?

You know, Mexico. Where guns are pretty much banned.

[applegrove]

6. Yup. The illegal guns in mexico come from the good old USA too. I meant tighter regulations.

And assault weapon ban.

[friendly_iconoclast]

8. Demonstrate a need for an "assault weapons ban" and we'll talk...

The two words that should occur to everyone hearing the phrase "assault weapons ban": moral panic

[TheWraith]

9. Actually, less than one in five illegal guns in Mexico comes is bought retail the US.

Seriously, do you think that organizations which bring cocaine into the country by the ton need to come in and meekly buy expensive, semi-automatic weapons when they can buy cheap, fully-automatic weapons from China, or South America, or just steal them wholesale from the Mexican Army?

[Crazy Dave]

11. No, they will sell the guns from China, Mexico, etc. to their #1 market

US

Did prohibition work? No and it increased violence.

Has the decades old drug war worked? No and it has increased violence.

So let's ban handguns and assault weapons and let the mass crime, corruption and blood spilling due to black market gun sales begin. That's what we should do right?

When you get right down to it. Anti gun activists really don't give a shit about stopping violence because anyone with common sense knows it won't. Look at the history of anything illegal. All anti gun activists really care about is pissing gun owners off just because they don't like guns. They could care less if thousands more people die here and across the borders due to a gun black market. They really don't give a shit about stuff like that as long as they're happy that no one can buy a gun legally in the US. Screw the rest of the world!

[SteveM]

27. Slight correction, if I may...

You said "...anti gun activists really care about is pissing gun owners off just because they don't like guns."

I say, eliminate the last 6 words. It is culture war, after all.

[lawodevolution]

10. The weapons the drug gangs prefer are the weapons the US sells to the Mexican gov

And because Mexico has corruption at every level of government these weapons are for sale to drug lords, but it's just easier to blame it on gun owners in the US and because of the government's inability to accept blame Mexico's problems will continue to spread.

No the battle rifles ("assault weapons") will not be banned, thanks to the last ban they are now too popular and are under protection by the NRA and other gun rights groups. Many of the people I take to the range who have never shot a gun before after they become more comfortable with shooting they decide to buy an Ar15 or Ak47 as their first gun. The guns y'all go after are the guns I promote the ownership of and people like them.

[RSillsbee]

The easy availability og anti tank weapons and machine guns

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x348504

You might want to take at this thread. The Narco wars are being fought w/ real military grade weapons which are largely unavailable to the general public in America, They aren't getting them here

[SteveM]

28. Yep. This is a real war, courtesy of the War on Drugs and its supporters.

[RSillsbee]

16. The easy availability og anti tank weapons and machine guns

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x348504

You might want to take at this thread. The Narco wars are being fought w/ real military grade weapons which are largely unavailable to the general public in America, They aren't getting them here

[SteveM]

26. ...via the Mexican military and Central American countries...

where the U.S. has had a history of supplying millions of arms for counter-insurgency.

You are obligated to show how "tighter regulations and assault weapon ban" will curtail this violence. BTW, the full-auto weapons and RPGs are not coming from Joe's Gun Shop or the Cordite Gun Show.

Do you know what an "assault weapon" is?

[provis99]

12. that's a damnable lie.

Gun ownership is guaranteed in the Mexican Constitution, and guns are available more freely and with less hassle in Mexico than the US.

[PavePusher]

19. Partly correct.

There is a provision for private arms in the Mexican Constitution, but it is so worded as to be about as effective as a screen door in a hurricane. The Mexican government has passed laws resulting in an effective "ban" on just about everything other than .22 calibre rifles. And the process is either long and difficult, and/or very expensive in bribes.

[Katya Mullethov]

20. Someone needs to tell the sign guys

The resources would be much better used installing guardrail damage ahead signs .

[SteveM]

29. You forgot the sarcasm tag, I hope.

[proteus_lives]

21. Why?

Because of our rights, that's why.

Care to defend the TSA now?

[jancantor]

23. Unfounded assumption

It assumes that by making guns "more illegal" (whatever the hell that means), fewer people will die.

[Straw Man]

25. Ban Blackberries! It's the only way we'll be safe!

The police will pull you over if you are using your blackberry illegally. Why

not make guns more illegal so fewer people will die?

They'll do a whole lot more than that if you're using your handgun illegally. Welcome to your felony stop.

Perhaps we should outlaw Blackberries. Or is it the illegal use that's the problem?

[SteveM]

30. For a moment, I thought you meant the fruit. They do darken stool.

[cleanhippie]

31. How about if we make free speech illegal too?

Hell, lets just rip up the entire Bill of Rights.

[one-eyed fat man]

7. The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again!

Texting-While-Driving Bans Actually Increase Crashes

The bans aren't having the intended effect because drivers - opting to text in spite of the bans - are holding their phones below the dashboard so police can't see them, taking their eyes and attention even further from the road.

The nanny staters strike again! All these 'smart' people are getting exactly the opposite effect.

You want to know what will work?

The ambulance chasers and insurance companies are already subpoenaing the phone records of ALL the drivers in a crash.

There are crooks around here already doing the insurance scams LOOKING for someone on the phone to tangle bumpers. It pays better than hollering "whiplash"

The victim is hard pressed to deny the phone company records and time stamps. Even in a legitimate "accident" phone records are routinely requested anymore, so anyone who persists in texting while driving, law or no law, is as stupid as the moron who writes a hold-up note on the back of his business card.

[one-eyed fat man]

4. figures don't lie but liars figure?

"The Post was able to track how the suspects obtained their weapons in 341 of the deaths."

"In 170 deaths, The Post could not determine how the shooters got their guns"

341-170 = 171

"Legal purchase was the leading source of weapons used to kill police officers. In 107 slayings, the killers acquired their firearms legally.

170 we have no clue guns > 107 legal guns

It might be true if they said of the guns we could trace to a source 107 were legal.

77 stolen guns
46 guns taken from family (sorta stolen?)
51 cop guns
16 straw purchases
3 private sales

193 guns from illegal sources if you add the 107 legal guns that's 300 guns. you add the 170 untraceable guns we come to 470, a number bigger than the 341 they started with.

They need a better explanation of the 107 guns they say were acquired legally cause right now it doesn't add up.

[dmallind]

13. ermm i think that's 341 they could trace PLUS 170 they could not... nt

[russ1943]

14. It adds up.

The math works. Too quick to throw out the "liar" crack.
If they were able to determine how the shooters got their guns for 341 victims and they couldn’t determine how the shooters got their guns for 170 then the whole study consists of (341 + 170 = 511) a total number of 511. That’s the number they started with.
Unable to determine 170 from 511 equals 341
Subtract the 107 they determined to be legal leaves 234.

77 stolen guns
46 guns taken from family (sorta stolen)
51 cops guns
41* instances, guns were illegally obtained on the streets through sale or barter
16 straw purchase
3 illegal purchase


Unable to determine (170) and legally sourced (107) combined equal 277
511 minus 277 = 234. The list they categorized in detail as known to be illegal, *you omitted the 41 instances……....
comes to or equals 234.

[Euromutt]

15. However, 170 is still more than 107

What does not add up is the claim that "legal purchase was the leading source of weapons used to kill police officers." Given that a third of the weapons in question were of unknown provenance, far outweighing the number in the largest category of guns of known origin, the WaPo writers seek to create a false appearance of knowledge.

The honest thing to say would be that the leading source of weapons used to kill LEOs is unknown. All the more so because the very fact that the origin of a gun could not be traced makes it less likely that the gun was a police officer's weapon or purchased from an FFL and more likely that it was acquired clandestinely. So it's quite possible that the breakdown of origins of the 170 guns that could not be traced is very different from the breakdown of the 341 that could. Which makes it misleading at best to claim that "legal purchase was the leading source of weapons used to kill police officers," since it is entirely possible that this is not case. One characteristic that distinguishes proper science from pseudoscience is being prepared to admit that you don't know something and cannot (at least for now) find out.

Another misleading claim in the article is the characterization of the Tiahrt Amendment as "a law passed by Congress in 2003 that bars federal law enforcement from releasing information that links guns used in crimes back to the original purchasers." The Tiahrt Amendment prohibits the publication of ATF trace data (except to a law enforcement agency relating to an ongoing criminal investigation), primarily because trace data are not representative of crime guns (not all crime guns are subjected to tracing, and not all traces are of guns believed or known to have been used in crimes), in spite of which, publication after publication presented the trace data as if they were. While the trace data do include "information that links guns in crimes back to the original purchasers," that is not the only thing the trace data are composed of, nor are they an exhaustive listing of "guns in crimes." Why mischaracterize the law? Very likely because it hampered the authors in using and misrepresenting the trace data in precisely the way the law was intended to prevent. In other words, the lady doth protest too much.

No, I don't think "the 'liar' crack" was off the mark. This piece has some definite honesty issues.

[Katya Mullethov]

18. In further news

You weekly chocolate ration will be increased from 30 to 25 grams .

[The Doctor.]

17. What I think about;

If guns were illegal in the US, they would also be almost entirely untraceable.

Then, %100 percent of cops shot will be with illegal guns.

But, I know, once illegal they'll all magically disappear.

Just like abortion would.

[RamboLiberal]

22. The story of two guns that killed police officers

The compact stainless-steel .45-caliber pistol was forged in a factory in Brazil in the summer of 2006 - 4,700 miles and two years away from a fateful encounter on a narrow north Philadelphia street near Temple University.

The gun, a 10-shot Taurus Model PT 145 Millennium Pro, was shipped from Porto Alegre to Miami, and then to a wholesale firearms distributor in South Carolina before arriving at a pawnshop about 80 miles away in rural Lancaster. From there, the $250 firearm began a 680-day odyssey through at least four states, four owners and two crime scenes before ending up in the hands of a 27-year-old parolee who used it to kill police officer Patrick McDonald.

As part of an investigation of the deaths of 511 police officers killed by firearms since 2000, The Washington Post took an in-depth look at the circuitous paths taken by two guns. One is the Taurus. The other is a .380-caliber FEG semiautomatic pistol used in the slaying of an Indiana state trooper.

Both are handguns - the weapon most often used to kill police officers in the past decade. And both deaths occurred after traffic stops, the situation in which officers most often lose their lives.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/21/AR2010112103202.html?hpid=topnews

[Kennah]

24. What do we know about the human accomplices the guns used?