AP Exclusive: Pentagon gun was from Tenn. police, page 1
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Topic started on 14-3-2010 @ 09:52 AM by ProtoplasmicTraveler

AP Exclusive: Pentagon gun was from Tenn. police


news.yahoo.com
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 19 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Two guns used in high-profile shootings this year at the Pentagon and a Las Vegas courthouse both came from the same unlikely place: the police and court system of Memphis, Tenn.

Law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that both guns were once seized in criminal cases in Memphis. The officials described how the weapons made their separate ways from an evidence vault
(visit the link for the full news article)


reply posted on 14-3-2010 @ 09:52 AM by ProtoplasmicTraveler
This is a pretty interesting story with a fairly novel gun control angle. It appears that both the guns used in the Pentagon shooting and one at the Las Vegas Courthouse were originally confiscated as parts of criminal cases by Tennessee police authorities and then later resold by the state after the cases were over.

The use of guns that once were in police custody and were later involved in attacks on police officers highlights a little-known divide in gun policy in the United States: Many cities and states destroy guns gathered in criminal probes, but others sell or trade the weapons in order to get other guns or buy equipment such as bulletproof vests.


It appears this is but one vital way that cash strapped states make money for their treasuries though reselling what they consider valuable commodities. How valuable?

In fact, on the day of the Pentagon shooting, March 4, the Tennessee governor signed legislation revising state law on confiscated guns. Before, law enforcement agencies in the state had the option of destroying a gun. Under the new version, agencies can only destroy a gun if it's inoperable or unsafe.


Definitely a waste not want not situation!

It’s foolish to think that the gunmen involved wouldn’t have ended up finding weapons through another source but its still a little hard to get around the fact that police organizations and governments supposedly dedicated to stopping crime have no qualms about making money from an existing crime and then to help recycle the elements of those crimes.

Only in America!

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)
]



[edit on 14/3/10 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]


reply posted on 14-3-2010 @ 10:08 AM by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Police and government officials are fairly divided on this practice...

John Timoney, who led the Philadelphia and Miami police departments and served as New York's No. 2 police official, said he doesn't believe police departments should be putting more guns into the market.

"I just think it's unseemly for police departments to be selling guns that later turn up," he said, recalling that he had once been offered the chance to sell guns to raise money for the police budget.

"Obviously, we always need the money but I just said, `No, we will take the loss and get rid of the guns'," said the former police chief, who now works for Andrews International, a security consulting firm.


Interestingly enough when Chief Timmony served as the City of Miami’s police chief when the G-20 was here in Miami a few years ago he rode from the location of one demonstration to another on his Police Bicycle with a megaphone in hand appealing to protestors directly in shorts and a polo shirt not to destroy city, public or private property and to be good tourists!

It was one of the least violent G-20’s on record with very few arrests and a far cry from how the cities of Pittsburgh and Seattle responded when they hosted the most recent ones in the United States since.

I have a funny feeling he would have said no to the use of sound cannons on citizens just like he said no to reselling confiscated weapons from criminal cases.

However he did end up accepting the free use of a brand new Lexus SUV from the largest Toyota Dealership in the area for well over a year after dropping his off for servicing and the owner of the dealership decided he liked the idea of the Chief driving one of his new vehicles as a form of advertisement.

When the scandal hit the papers though the Chief to his credit stroked out a check and bought the vehicle at market value to end the controversy and do the ‘right’ thing.

Is it right though for the state to profit off of crimes by essentially putting the dangerous weapons involved in them right back out on the street to gun dealers who specialize in the sale of used firearms and have the most lax procedures for reselling them at gun shows?


reply posted on 14-3-2010 @ 11:12 AM by MikeNice81
This isn't a case of profiting off of crime. It is a case of ensuring they have the budget to operate properly.

There is no need to destroy these guns. Firearms are used 800% more times for successful defense than murder. I say sell them to the legal dealers. They need to check the dealers carefully though. Make sure the gun dealer isn't under investigation or hasn't been in trouble for illegal practices.

Edit to add a post I used in the What Really Happens In A Gun Fight Thread.




You want stats I've got them.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics

In 2007 nly 15% of all violent crime occurs at school while over 1/3 occurs at home or near the home. 80.7% of the time the offender initiates the violence.

Here is the good stuff. 65% of the time when the victim uses self protective measures they help or improve their situation. The result of using self protective measures is the avoidance of injury or greater injury 52.4% of the time. 18.4% of the time it scares away the offender. That means that over two million victimizations are avoided or nuetraulized due to the ability to use force. 2.3% of those that resisted used a weapon.

That means more than 40,000 people protected their life with a weapon. Of the 40,000 people that used a weapon 13,920 used a fire arm. If you add in the 607 justifiable homicides in the same year you have conservatively 14,727 cases of firearms stopping violent attacks. That is a significant number more than the 10,129 lives taken with guns that same year.

That is my conservative reading using the statistics. I know some people that report higher numbers. I count only threatened with or attacked offender with weapon. Some people include things like captured, scared, or persuaded attacker. If you add in those numbers it gets to be hundreds of thousands of people. Because of the vauge nature of the reporting I feel those categories can not be included even though guns are some times used in those situations. (The number 40,000 makes my numbers even more conservative. However, it makes the math much simpler.)

So how does the simple truth that more people are saved by guns than killed strike you?




If I hadn't intentionally limited myself the number would be 88,147 people that sucessfully used a gun to defend their self or another person. That is found using the BJS data available here. Plus I added the number of justifiable homicides according to the FBI's statistics for the same year.

Also I only counted incidents with a single attacker. I completely forgot to add in the incidents with multiple attackers.







[edit on 14-3-2010 by MikeNice81]


reply posted on 14-3-2010 @ 12:17 PM by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Originally posted by Novise
Why shouldn't they sell the guns back to the populace? Statistically having an armed populace lowers crime and gives good people a way to protect themselves. Make guns rare or illegal and the criminals will slowly become more armed than the law-abiding. He would have gotten a gun one way or another. But don't throw the guns away, at least give them to the police officers - that would be a nice perk, a small gesture in a job they don't get paid enough to do. Edit: Throwing the guns away would be a total waste (unless Oblama wants to give you a tax write-off for it) but then again, that's just another form of waste - being paid to throw useful things away, sounds right up Obama's alley.

[edit on 14-3-2010 by Novise]


Actually it's pretty clear some juristictions have a long standing practice of destroying them and others have a long standing practice of selling them.

Which kind of predates the current President.

I believe in the right to bear arms as strongly as anyone but I also believe in limiting government in what it does and how it operates.

For me its simple if you are taxing us then do not operate as a private enterprise for profit.

If you are operating as a private enterprise for profit then don't tax us.

We are in fact paying to then give government wide latitude in how it then chooses to further profit itself.

That's just a bad idea in my humble opinion. And a pretty costly one too. Thanks for posting.


reply posted on 14-3-2010 @ 12:26 PM by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Originally posted by jackflap

Where do we draw the line though? Imagine if an auction was held to sell the knives that the Manson clan used in their horrific rampages? You know some sicko would pay handsomely for that type of memorabilia. Or what about a bat that was used in a grisly crime? Do you see what I am getting at. I don't think I would want a firearm that was used in a crime before I owned it. If they are allowed to put firearms back into circulation then they should have to disclose how that gun was used in a crime before.


I do JackFlap and I for one wouldn't want to own the gun that was previously used to kill someone's loved one in a haneous crime.

It's not like the military industrial complex has gone out of business and there are no new guns to purchase.

Scrap metal and plastics have value as scrap. There are other ways to recycle weapons for a benefit of those who follow a waste not want not phillosophy.

The truth is handguns have very limited uses, sport (an expensive sport since ammunition is costly and has fallen oddly into short supply) self defesne (most people who have a gun for self defense are never ever going to use it) or agressive activity that having a gun can further.

There are a lot more uses for scrap metal than that!

How many businesses do we really want the state to be in, especially considering they are now in the car business, the banking business and soon to be health care business?

The state it seems is more and more looking to profit financially off of the problems and tragedies of others and do it by having the tax payers fund the initial effort for the state to collect all the eventual rewards.

Is that the system we really want, and by the way there have been a few people who found themselves in serious trouble with the law after buying a vehicle at government auction that still ended up having drugs or other contraband secreted in them.

Hardly a bargain!


reply posted on 14-3-2010 @ 01:06 PM by Novise
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


I see more what you mean now.

Now that I think about it we can rest assured knowing that these guns will always be handled in a manner most fitting to beauracracy and inefficiency, and control. I don't know why we bothered to consider common sense ideas, they rarely benefit the state, the government.

You are right it's just another example of government getting into things it shouldn't. Though that might not have seemed the major issue at first it is certainly one here. I'm not really sure they could do anything with the guns without somehow profiting, and I don't think they should waste them. But I do see your point.

A good example of this is the trash service. In my city all the politicians talk good about the trash service and how since everyone is forced to recycle they are also saving the environment. They must thank God every night there is a such thing as trash. See what I mean, government wants problems so it can swoop in and be needed. But obviously, waste disposal can be handled by private entities as well.



reply posted on 14-3-2010 @ 01:21 PM by ProtoplasmicTraveler
reply to post by Novise


Exactly my friend and in many municipalities if you put the cardboard in the plastic container by accident be prepared for a code violation ticket and a fine from 35.00 to a 115.00 dollars for failing to recycle properly, as if the guy collecting it being paid 12.00 an hour plus benefits really spent that much time taking the plastic mil carton from one receptacle and placing it in the next.

Yet amazingly we are already paying a tax for the service that they then turn around and profit off of directly through selling the refuse to recyclers and fining citizens that fail to partake in that process to maximum effeciency.

It gives real proof to the addage one man's trash is another man's treasure!

It would be one thing if the proceeds from such sales and fines went to charities other than the policeman's ball, but the reality is it goes into corporate government coffers and most often is used to pay attorneys to pursue even stricter forms of code enforcement for even more profit!

Meanwhile the money they earn doing this is usually money some poor citizen needs to buy a new trash can and part for their car or shoes for their kids.

They sell it to us as being for our benefit and people really believe that but its anything but to our benefit. Governments just like corporations just grow bigger and more powerful and they do it always at our expense.

Do you have any idea how much money is made every year just in the items that are collected by the TSA at airports that they take away from people that are in theory to dangerous to fly with but not so sinister as to turn around and sell in bulk to private dealers who then resell them for big profit?

Pure profit to the state and its usually at the citizens expense. They don't ever use those profits to lower taxes, they use those profites to grow the state enterprise to profit more at our expense.

Thanks for posting.


reply posted on 14-3-2010 @ 02:16 PM by jackflap
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


It's almost sickening when you really think about it. Take for example the requirement of a fishing license. We actually said yes charge us for this recreational activity and if someone doesn't pay, fine them even more! It is insane.

Now we have the police confiscating and I'm sure fining perpetrators, then making a profit with the wares they have taken. Yes charge us to excersise our constitutional right to bear arms but definitely take them arms away when seen fit and profit from them as well. We not only advocate this but demand it.


reply posted on 14-3-2010 @ 02:23 PM by ProtoplasmicTraveler
reply to post by ANNED




Some old lady wanting to get rid of her deceased husbands guns.

Girl friends, wives or others mad at the guns owner taking there guns and turning them into the cops "to get even"

In Calif during a divorce the ex if the gets a restraining order the cops can come take the guns even if there has never been any domestic violence report. or any threat of trouble.

When the law first went into effect there was a number of EXs that had not seen there ex spouse in many years and were still mad that filed restraining orders just to get there ex spouses gun collections taken.




That’s a pretty insightful and very relevant post and information because what it does display is the State itself looking to employ creative laws and codes to actually supply itself with the guns to be in the gun business all often at the law abiding citizens expense.

One has to wonder where gun owners rights are being infringed upon in this fashion if it is truly being done ostensibly as a better safe than sorry form of protection and security or if its just a way to take guns away from law abiding citizens to then resell them for a State Profit.

There is no way to actually tell, but there is one way to limit the potential for the State doing such things and that is by denying them the privilege to function as a private enterprise and to profit off of it.

Eliminate the motives and opportunities then you eliminate the questions as to what motive and opportunity really constitute.

Keep government small and simple and designed to truly serve the public.

The proof that it serves itself in this endeavor is in the pudding because in reality they don’t actually divide the proceeds of these sales as direct payments or tax rebates to the citizens. Rather they keep them as a windfall profit to expand and enrich and further empower an enterprise that serves itself instead of the people it was meant to serve.

Amazing a number of members might not be looking down a level or two at the bigger picture here and are so quick to dismiss it as much to do about nothing more or less out of hand.

In reality this practice could well in fact be leading to fewer law abiding citizens having guns for protection and redistribution through unscrupulous but licensed used gun dealers purchasing from the state to the criminal element.
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