NSSF Calls Out Real Threat to Public Safety, and It’s Not Guns
To hear the urban elite tell it, the problem in our country is that there are just too many guns. We need to curtail that, to discourage people from exercising their right to keep and bear arms, and make it so that only certain, approved parties have firearms lawfully.
It’s funny how they keep saying it despite the fact that we’ve got more gun ownership than ever before, more people carrying guns than ever before, and violent crime is down over the last few years. Weird.
Yet it is an unfortunate fact that horrible things do keep happening. There are bad people out there who want to hurt others.
And yeah, something needs to be done about them. As the NSSF’s Larry Keane recently pointed out, though, the problem isn’t lawful gun owners. It’s the people who refuse to prosecute those who provide guns unlawfully.
NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, could not be more serious about preventing the crime of illegal straw purchasing. That’s when someone who isn’t prohibited from owning a firearm lies on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive (ATF) Form 4473 when buying a firearm and declares they are purchasing the gun for their own use when they actually intend to sell or give it to someone else who is prohibited or is an illegal firearms trafficker who does not want their name associated with the transaction. That is a serious crime and should be treated as such.
Illegal straw purchases are not victimless crimes. The recent lone wolf terrorist tragedy at Virginia’s Old Dominion University demonstrates why prosecutors should be held accountable when their lax prosecutions directly lead to greater tragedies involving criminal firearm misuse — especially when guns are obtained through illegal straw purchases.
Maddening Development
Nearly three weeks ago, Mohamed Jalloh, walked into an ROTC training session at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., and opened fire, shooting a .22-caliber handgun he purchased the night before for $100 from an acquaintance who is a serial straw purchaser. Tragically, Army Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, who was teaching the class, was murdered. Two other students were wounded. According to The Virginian-Pilot, “several students tackled Jalloh, with one of them pulling a knife and stabbing him to death.”
The entire incident is a tragedy. But then more information immediately came to light regarding how exactly Jalloh obtained his firearm after law enforcement officials began their investigation. Using text message and phone call records, authorities linked Jalloh with Kenya Chapman, who provided the alleged murderer with the .22-caliber handgun the night before the shooting. According to an ATF affidavit, Chapman obtained the particular firearm by stealing it from the glove box of an unlocked car last year.
Chapman is now in police custody and facing several charges. But it’s his long criminal history of illegally providing firearms to would-be criminals and prosecutors’ soft treatment of him that is truly enraging.
A lot of people in the gun rights space aren’t fans of the idea of enforcing existing gun laws because they’re all unconstitutional. I get it, and I agree.
However, there’s a flip side to that argument, and that’s how it’s ridiculous to demand new gun laws when you’re not doing anything with the tools you previously demanded and are refusing to utilize now. It’s like your kid saying they desperately need a new bicycle when they’ve got a perfectly good one that’s been sitting in the garage unused since the day it came home.
If they refuse to prosecute people for straw buys, all while trying to blame the gun industry for allowing straw buys, there’s a disconnect that needs to be addressed here.
Would guns evaporate off the black market tomorrow if straw purchasers were more vigorously prosecuted? Hell no. Most of the guns on the black market are stolen guns, for one thing. Even if every straw buyer suddenly went to prison, there would still be an illicit gun trade. That’s not going anywhere.
Plus, there’s no way you’d catch all the straw buyers in the first place. There’s always someone with a clean background check but no morals who is willing to buy a gun for someone who shouldn’t have it.
Yet the problem, as I’ve already alluded to, isn’t that straw buys can be stopped. It’s that the people who are refusing to do anything about those caught doing it are the same people demanding more and more gun control. They’re the same people who put criminals back out on the streets after their 87th felony arrest as if there wasn’t some hint that maybe they won’t walk the straight and narrow.
Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.
But prosecutors who refuse to do their damn job on things like straw buys, but also on other violent felonies, sure as hell don’t help.