it's still good to see it in print.
From today's Beaumont Enterprise:
Guns used in violent crimes - like the seven shootings in the past 30 days in Beaumont and Port Arthur - rarely are obtained legitimately.
The majority are stolen from homes and peddled in clandestine transactions for a song, said Bart Mora, Beaumont agent in charge with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
"A gun stolen out of your nightstand that you paid $400 for, might sell for $25 or $30 on the street corner," Mora said.
Criminals also barter favors and drugs for firearms, he said.
Burglaries at sporting goods stores, pawn shops and gun stores also supply illicit firearms, said Lt. Pat Powell who leads the Port Arthur police gang unit.
...
"(Those licensed to sell firearms) are very rarely the problem," Mora said. "They tend to be a strongly self-policing group, and we'll get called if one of them is selling guns without doing background checks."
Rememeber that the next time you hear one of the various Chicken Little gun bigots talking about manufacturers and dealers "flooding our streets with guns," as Chicago mayor Richard Daley so artfully put it once. Various surveys and statistics all point to the very same conclusion, that is, that the manufacturers and dealers are not the problem, but the criminals themselves.
And here's something to remember the next time you hear one of these nanny-staters bleating about the so-called "lax gun laws" we operate under:
Powell agreed that gun laws are not behind the never-ending supply of street guns.
"I'm in favor of an armed populace. We're not afraid of a good guy with a gun," he said. "It's just that you have people that all they, 24 hours a day, is commit crimes."
Straight from the horse's mouth, folks, there you have it -- from someone who deals with crime perpetrated with guns on a daily basis, the gun laws aren't the problem.
Of course, once again we already knew this, but it's good to see it acknowledged by someone on the front lines...
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