9 ms·

Police illegally sell restricted weapons, supplying crime

106 points by throw0101d 2y ago

15155 2y ago
> Some ammunition can take out a helicopter or blow straight through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side, then explode, hitting targets 18 football fields away. I stopped reading here. What magical ammunition is this? An Abrams tank with a DU APFSDS penetrator isn't doing this. No ammunition that can "blow straight through an armored tank" is exploding on the other side. > "Congress knew almost 100 years ago, in the days of Al Capone, that fully automatic weapons were unusually dangerous," ATF Director Steven Dettelbach said a public address on Feb. 28, 2023. "They have no place in our communities." Or, Congress knew they needed a way to prosecute these folks, so they created convenient laws to fit and simultaneously expand their state monopoly on the use of force.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  If you read the entire article, the police officers are sometimes quite directly selling guns to cartels and criminals. That would seem like a worrying pattern, no?
  - Glyptodon 2y ago
    I sent this article to someone a few days ago because it was such a weird mix of outright goofy exaggeration of everything to do with guns and other weapons while at the same time ostensibly being about an actual problem with law enforcement. (We were amused by some of the quotes like one from previous commenter.) It's a very strangely written article. That said, many folks who know things about guns have a tendency to assume that if they wrote wild things about weaponry that don't really make sense, the article overall isn't trustworthy.
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      It might just as well be that cops tell exaggerated shit to journalists and they lack the knowledge to know they're being fed shit. DARE and other anti drug campaigns follow the exact same playbook, just with children on the receiving end - no, smoking 4/20 is not a direct pathway to ending up homeless and with a heroin needle sticking out your arm. Or religious anti-sex campaigns - no, having sex with people will not make you a whore or whatnot.
    - 15155 2y ago
      Perhaps it's actually just a problem with legislation: if there were no artificial scarcity on these devices, they wouldn't be worth selling.
      - Glyptodon 2y ago
        I do think the prices of legal machines guns relative to the simplicity of creating one suggest that there should be some kind of NFA legal way to obtain new manufacture machine guns. Could imagine even a huge tax might strike a better incentive balance for reducing behaviors alluded to in the article.
        15155 2y ago
        A huge tax might prevent undesirable folks from voting, too.
        Glyptodon 2y ago
        I mean "preventing folks from voting" is, at least in normal times, assuming normal methods, clearly on the side of not legal, undesirable, and against the law. Meanwhile, "preventing people from owning machine guns" is widely accepted as legal, at least if they're made after a specific date. I agree that there's probably not a strong reason to assume that moving modern manufacture machine guns to a tax stamp regime with a huge tax wouldn't trigger some kind of litigation, but that seems mostly like a tangent. (And I think by default you'd assume there's no reason for the court to seconds guess the tax level of a tax without questioning the current tax stamp regime too.)
  - icegreentea2 2y ago
    It is, but we should still expect news services to do a good job. The claims about the weapons effects (at least in the context of typical small arms) are on a similar even of magical effectiveness as the Supermicro allegations. It's painful to see reporting something that is obviously (ethically and legally) wrong (law enforcement should not be trafficing firearms, regardless of your stance on 2A rights or automatic weapons bans), intermixed with factually dubious claims (or at least incredibly misleading claims).
- gpderetta 2y ago
  Journalists use the term tank extremely loosely.
- thatcat 2y ago
  I'm not sure why journalists continually feel the need to ruin their own credibility with this sort of hyperbolic nonsense, but the overall story seems legit.
  - BenjiWiebe 2y ago
    I have wondered the same. Do they crank out lots of stories fast, and then the editor picks one to publish? Then I could almost understand. But if they are actually spending some time on each article (which they should) it seems like it wouldn't be hard to actually do their job and talk to -if not an expert- at least a local enthusiast/hobbyist.
  - mp05 2y ago
    It’s worth considering why some writers feel the need to puff themselves up with ridiculous macho fantasies about munitions. It reeks of insecurity like they’re trying to cosplay as Sebastian Junger.
  - pnw 2y ago
    This journalist has written extensively about guns and gun control for the past several years. They have no excuses to be misinformed.
    - Clubber 2y ago
      News as we all think about it, is dead. It's just propaganda now and it's pretty obvious.
- ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
  They're probably talking about the Mk.211 round: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raufoss_Mk_211 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raufoss_Mk_211 Unsurprisingly, the description is exaggerated. It could probably do a subset of those things at the same time, provided the "tank" is using pot metal armor or something.
  - 15155 2y ago
    Must be a thin concrete wall, too, then? Most tanks are low to the ground, as are most concrete walls: it's impossible for any "ammunition" fired at ground level to penetrate a bunch of ground level objects and then fly 18 football fields away ... and then explode. Is this ACME ammunition?
    - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
      Probably a concrete block wall.
vlovich123 2y ago
> Those cases are just the tip of the iceberg, according to interviews with half a dozen former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents who worked directly on these investigations. Several career agents shared anecdotes about letting police departments off with warnings after repeatedly finding their service weapons in the hands of private citizens. The agents explained that prosecutors have been generally reluctant to charge these cases, and the bureau stated that "it is our goal to educate, not investigate," according to a 2017 law enforcement memo obtained by CBS News. "We're not looking to prosecute fellow law enforcement officers," said Eric Harden, former special agent in charge of the ATF's Los Angeles field division. Oh good at least they’re not looking to prosecute crimes as long as it’s fellow law enforcement. No moral hazards there. > Wendt is unapologetic and has appealed his conviction. "If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail," Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term. Wendt's crimes appear to be part of a nationwide pattern. Yup no moral hazard. Of course gun trafficking in untracked war weapons would be something that should be within the purview of every random three person police department and lying on government forms is a-ok. At least this guy is getting persecuted but it’s worrying this is a large pattern: > In 2011, federal agents busted a smuggling ring out of New Mexico involving a police chief, mayor and village trustee who delivered automatic firepower and tactical gear to a Mexican cartel. Oh boy > A decade later, prosecutors uncovered a multistate conspiracy linking a sanctioned Russian arms dealer with three police chiefs, one sheriff and a Delta Force veteran who sold machine guns directly to a criminal trafficker. All of them pleaded guilty. Moral hazards exist but we always act like it’s ok for prosecutors and fellow law enforcement to act like it doesn’t for law enforcement.
- bortimpson 2y ago
  [dead]
parineum 2y ago
Tons of these cases and quotes come from California because they have a goofy law where there is a list of approved guns (that get there by paying a fee) that, for some reason, police are exempt from. Police can legally buy an unapproved gun and then later decide to sell it to a Californian, legally. What they can't do is buy it with the intent to sell it but many do because the police also think the law is arbitrary and useless.
- pnw 2y ago
  Exactly, when you pass laws that create a marketplace for a product which is legally available just over the state line from California, and then exempt one class of citizen from the enforcement of those laws, this is the predictable result. The California law in question has always allowed police to sell those firearms to civilians.
- BurningFrog 2y ago
  In practice, the police can do pretty much anything illegal without the police doing much about it.
- mindslight 2y ago
  > they have a goofy law where there is a list of approved guns (that get there by paying a fee) that, for some reason, police are exempt from Government always excepts itself from gun control regulation. It's why the NRA failing to support Breonna Taylor was so glaringly transparent - the entire point of the supposed lobbying organization is to defend private gun ownership against the conflicting desires of government. But instead they lined right up behind the government oppressors! Like what exactly do they think destruction of the second amendment looks like if it's not government agents invading your home at night and summarily executing you for exercising your purported right of self defense?
  - 15155 2y ago
    Why exactly would the Breonna Taylor incident require the support of the NRA/ILA? How did that issue pertain to firearms law?
hiatus 2y ago
Five years for illegal arms trafficking while pot smokers get the book thrown at them. Sometimes I think the US needs a federalized/nationalized police system—I think there would be fewer instances of reluctant prosecution if the cops were not from the local area.
- Pikamander2 2y ago
  Given the current... circumstances, massively expanding the federal government's policing powers might not be a good idea right now.
  - mp05 2y ago
    Considering that the person nominated for the director of the federal police force claimed he was shutting down the office and putting all 7000 agents in the field, I definitely concur that the last thing they need is more power. “I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state,’” Patel said in an interview on the “Shawn Ryan Show” that aired in September. “Then, I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops — go be cops.” The last part is generally--dishonestly--omitted in the headlines from our favorite and most trusted news sources. (edit: which is done to frame Patel as wanting to fire them all--a pathetic stunt that is no longer surprising from these corrupt tools.) Anyway, what are these "circumstances" to which you refer?
    - TheBozzCL 2y ago
      Well, for starters… the circumstances have appointed somebody who believes in the “deep state” stuff as director of the FBI.
      - mp05 2y ago
        Downvote me all you want, but 'deep state' is just shorthand for the administrative state: unelected bureaucrats with the power to set policy, resist oversight, and accumulate unchecked power. Disliking the term doesn't make the reality any less valid. As for the parent comment, this administration plans to put more agents in the field immediately. Why is that a problem? Perhaps try persuasion instead of vague dogwhistles about 'circumstances.'
Pikamander2 2y ago
> "If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail," Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term. I'm not sure that was the gotcha he seemed to think it was...
- keybored 2y ago
  “If texting while driving is a crime, my whole family’s going to jail!” Things a cop would say but no sane civilian would.
  - gruez 2y ago
    Most sane civilians would, however probably say "if speeding 5mph over the speed limit is a crime, my whole family's going to jail!"
    - keybored 2y ago
      I can get nothing past you guys.
- AzzyHN 2y ago
  What a quote
wl 2y ago
This article is conflating a few different things. 1. Cop buys the kinds firearms regular people can buy using law enforcement discounts and then makes an otherwise legal private sale to profit from this. This violates the terms of these law enforcement discount programs. Also, federal law requires people who buy and sell firearms for profit have a federal firearms license. These firearms sometimes are used in crime. 2. In some jurisdictions like California and Massachusetts, law enforcement can buy certain handguns new that normal people cannot. This isn't about safety as these handguns are not capable of anything that the approved handguns are not. It's solely a measure to harm the market for handguns by restricting the kinds of handguns available and increasing their prices. Cops can legally sell these unapproved handguns to normal people. The problem here, again, is doing it for profit. These firearms sometimes are used in crime. 3. Cops buying "assault weapons" and then making illegal private sales to normal people who can't lawfully buy these weapons. This is nowhere near as common as the first two scenarios. 4. Cops playing games with post-1986 machinegun regulations so that federal firearms licensees who pay a special tax can acquire machineguns to rent to the public at ranges or just for their own personal fun. These firearms, which often are significantly more dangerous than the kinds of firearms normal people can lawfully acquire, have never been used in a crime. Scenarios 1 and 2 have no public safety impact beyond private sales generally. Scenario 3 is only problematic from a public safety standpoint if you believe "assault weapons" are uniquely dangerous, which they aren't. Scenario 4 has not resulted in any violent crime.
- dmoy 2y ago
  Glock switches are fairly commonly used in crime here. But yea it's afaict not cops selling machine guns to people illegally, it's just getting them online or wherever.
  - wl 2y ago
    I'm saying that NFA-registered post samples acquired through dodgy (or not) law letters have never been used in a crime. Yeah, those $30 switches from Temu et al are another issue entirely.
    - 2y ago
mattlondon 2y ago
Kinda worrying in many ways really - police taking guns from their departments and selling them to criminals and then saying "...but but I had no idea this was illegal or wrong!" I doesn't even pass the sniff test. Either the police are total idiots with no concept of right or wrong let alone knowledge of the law, OR they are willingly corrupt and will brazenly break the law to line their own pockets and to fuck with the consequences, which incidentally are pretty negligible because of the corruption and blind-eye turning of their buddies. Both options are pretty troubling.
- rytis 2y ago
  IMO the reality is: "the police are total idiots with no [...] knowledge of the law [...]" AND "are willingly corrupt and will brazenly break the law to line their own pockets"
  - SauciestGNU 2y ago
    I don't know what else to expect from a profession that selects for the most violent members of the bottom decile of our society.
spacedcowboy 2y ago
Pretty sure this was an Ali.G sketch. ‘For charity!’
gweinberg 2y ago
Has anyone actually used a minigun in a crime anywhere ever? I'm pretty sure it would be nationwide news if it happened IRL, although it happens on tv all the time.
BadHumans 2y ago
Minorities have known this for years. Everyone else is just playing catch up.
highcountess 2y ago
[dead]
tapper 2y ago
I am sorry people from the US, but you lot are shure strange about your weapons! No other place in the hole world is like you.
- analog31 2y ago
  I'm not so sure about that. A friend of mine from Pakistan said that in his region, you could buy a machine gun at an open-air bazaar. Also, in a lot of countries, the government has little control over firearms, as they have little control over anything.
- ganoushoreilly 2y ago
  I would disagree, tons of countries with large gun ownership. The basis for it in the US stems from our founding and it's codification as a right to bear arms. It's not one granted by the government, but one upheld by it. Some could say that if it weren't for this mindset and approach, much of the world would be worse off. The backbone military for the world that affords much of the stability needed is the US military. The emphasis on national defense capabilities and the government and civilian levels are what make us unique. It's not for everyone, but in the same vein, there's not a lack of people requesting help or intervention either.
mgarfias 2y ago
This whole thread is full of dunning-kruger.
giardini 2y ago
I simply must remark on some details[brackets mine] FTFA: >"Some ammunition can [1]take out a helicopter or [2]blow straight through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side, then explode, hitting targets 18 football fields away."< Concerning [1]: a common .22 handgun can take out a helicopter. Even a well-placed rock can take out a helicopter: https://www.foxnews.com/story/border-patrol-chopper-forced-down-by-thrown-rocks https://www.foxnews.com/story/border-patrol-chopper-forced-d... That, and their inherent complexity and relatively low reliability, are the reasons why helicopters are my least-preferred means of transportation. Concerning [2]: Bullshit. Mostly b/c no knowledgeable person would try to shoot "through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side, then explode, hitting targets 18 football fields away." After all, to hit a target requires that you aim. You cannot aim "through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side". And I've simply got to ask: what munition, after piercing a tank and a concrete building, "then explode[s], hitting targets 18 football fields away."? This article's author is sadly uninformed: no experience, no knowledge of the physical world. Sad.
- acdha 2y ago
  > a common .22 handgun can take out a helicopter. Even a well-placed rock can take out a helicopter: You appear to be arguing that the DoD wasted a ton of money when all they needed to do was give the Ukrainian army lots of rocks. If that wasn’t your intent, consider that effectiveness might be the principal behind the law - there’s a huge difference between being able to get lucky with perfect circumstances and being able to reliably down aircraft. In particular, consider that the Border Patrol commonly uses helicopter rotor backwash as an improvised weapon against migrants which requires them to get much closer to their targets than would otherwise be the case - people can’t throw rocks anywhere near normal firearms distances.
  - giardini 2y ago
    TFA says "Some ammunition can take out a helicopter ..." which is true enough. I merely pointed out that most anything can "take out a helicopter". Attachment of this discussion to the Ukrainian conflict and DOD is your imagination. Of course people can’t throw rocks as far as a firearm can shoot. But to state that "people can’t throw rocks anywhere near normal firearms distances" is contrary to most gunshot assault statistics, especially for handguns: "The True Distance of a Typical Gunfight" https://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/the-true-distance-of-a-typical-gunfight/ https://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/the-true-distance-of-a-ty... (tl;dr - 3 to 5 yards) While a firearm can shoot farther and more accurately than most persons can throw a rock, human encounters usually occur at short ("rock-throwing" or less) distances. Most conflicts occur at distances correlated more with the range of the human voice than with the range of a firearm.

106 points by throw0101d 2y ago

> Some ammunition can take out a helicopter or blow straight through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side, then explode, hitting targets 18 football fields away. I stopped reading here. What magical ammunition is this? An Abrams tank with a DU APFSDS penetrator isn't doing this. No ammunition that can "blow straight through an armored tank" is exploding on the other side. > "Congress knew almost 100 years ago, in the days of Al Capone, that fully automatic weapons were unusually dangerous," ATF Director Steven Dettelbach said a public address on Feb. 28, 2023. "They have no place in our communities." Or, Congress knew they needed a way to prosecute these folks, so they created convenient laws to fit and simultaneously expand their state monopoly on the use of force.

vlovich123 2y ago
If you read the entire article, the police officers are sometimes quite directly selling guns to cartels and criminals. That would seem like a worrying pattern, no?
- Glyptodon 2y ago
  I sent this article to someone a few days ago because it was such a weird mix of outright goofy exaggeration of everything to do with guns and other weapons while at the same time ostensibly being about an actual problem with law enforcement. (We were amused by some of the quotes like one from previous commenter.) It's a very strangely written article. That said, many folks who know things about guns have a tendency to assume that if they wrote wild things about weaponry that don't really make sense, the article overall isn't trustworthy.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    It might just as well be that cops tell exaggerated shit to journalists and they lack the knowledge to know they're being fed shit. DARE and other anti drug campaigns follow the exact same playbook, just with children on the receiving end - no, smoking 4/20 is not a direct pathway to ending up homeless and with a heroin needle sticking out your arm. Or religious anti-sex campaigns - no, having sex with people will not make you a whore or whatnot.
  - 15155 2y ago
    Perhaps it's actually just a problem with legislation: if there were no artificial scarcity on these devices, they wouldn't be worth selling.
    - Glyptodon 2y ago
      I do think the prices of legal machines guns relative to the simplicity of creating one suggest that there should be some kind of NFA legal way to obtain new manufacture machine guns. Could imagine even a huge tax might strike a better incentive balance for reducing behaviors alluded to in the article.
      - 15155 2y ago
        A huge tax might prevent undesirable folks from voting, too.
        Glyptodon 2y ago
        I mean "preventing folks from voting" is, at least in normal times, assuming normal methods, clearly on the side of not legal, undesirable, and against the law. Meanwhile, "preventing people from owning machine guns" is widely accepted as legal, at least if they're made after a specific date. I agree that there's probably not a strong reason to assume that moving modern manufacture machine guns to a tax stamp regime with a huge tax wouldn't trigger some kind of litigation, but that seems mostly like a tangent. (And I think by default you'd assume there's no reason for the court to seconds guess the tax level of a tax without questioning the current tax stamp regime too.)
- icegreentea2 2y ago
  It is, but we should still expect news services to do a good job. The claims about the weapons effects (at least in the context of typical small arms) are on a similar even of magical effectiveness as the Supermicro allegations. It's painful to see reporting something that is obviously (ethically and legally) wrong (law enforcement should not be trafficing firearms, regardless of your stance on 2A rights or automatic weapons bans), intermixed with factually dubious claims (or at least incredibly misleading claims).
gpderetta 2y ago
Journalists use the term tank extremely loosely.
thatcat 2y ago
I'm not sure why journalists continually feel the need to ruin their own credibility with this sort of hyperbolic nonsense, but the overall story seems legit.
- BenjiWiebe 2y ago
  I have wondered the same. Do they crank out lots of stories fast, and then the editor picks one to publish? Then I could almost understand. But if they are actually spending some time on each article (which they should) it seems like it wouldn't be hard to actually do their job and talk to -if not an expert- at least a local enthusiast/hobbyist.
- mp05 2y ago
  It’s worth considering why some writers feel the need to puff themselves up with ridiculous macho fantasies about munitions. It reeks of insecurity like they’re trying to cosplay as Sebastian Junger.
- pnw 2y ago
  This journalist has written extensively about guns and gun control for the past several years. They have no excuses to be misinformed.
  - Clubber 2y ago
    News as we all think about it, is dead. It's just propaganda now and it's pretty obvious.
ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
They're probably talking about the Mk.211 round: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raufoss_Mk_211 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raufoss_Mk_211 Unsurprisingly, the description is exaggerated. It could probably do a subset of those things at the same time, provided the "tank" is using pot metal armor or something.
- 15155 2y ago
  Must be a thin concrete wall, too, then? Most tanks are low to the ground, as are most concrete walls: it's impossible for any "ammunition" fired at ground level to penetrate a bunch of ground level objects and then fly 18 football fields away ... and then explode. Is this ACME ammunition?
  - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
    Probably a concrete block wall.

vlovich123 2y ago

> Those cases are just the tip of the iceberg, according to interviews with half a dozen former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents who worked directly on these investigations. Several career agents shared anecdotes about letting police departments off with warnings after repeatedly finding their service weapons in the hands of private citizens. The agents explained that prosecutors have been generally reluctant to charge these cases, and the bureau stated that "it is our goal to educate, not investigate," according to a 2017 law enforcement memo obtained by CBS News. "We're not looking to prosecute fellow law enforcement officers," said Eric Harden, former special agent in charge of the ATF's Los Angeles field division. Oh good at least they’re not looking to prosecute crimes as long as it’s fellow law enforcement. No moral hazards there. > Wendt is unapologetic and has appealed his conviction. "If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail," Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term. Wendt's crimes appear to be part of a nationwide pattern. Yup no moral hazard. Of course gun trafficking in untracked war weapons would be something that should be within the purview of every random three person police department and lying on government forms is a-ok. At least this guy is getting persecuted but it’s worrying this is a large pattern: > In 2011, federal agents busted a smuggling ring out of New Mexico involving a police chief, mayor and village trustee who delivered automatic firepower and tactical gear to a Mexican cartel. Oh boy > A decade later, prosecutors uncovered a multistate conspiracy linking a sanctioned Russian arms dealer with three police chiefs, one sheriff and a Delta Force veteran who sold machine guns directly to a criminal trafficker. All of them pleaded guilty. Moral hazards exist but we always act like it’s ok for prosecutors and fellow law enforcement to act like it doesn’t for law enforcement.

bortimpson 2y ago
[dead]

parineum 2y ago

Tons of these cases and quotes come from California because they have a goofy law where there is a list of approved guns (that get there by paying a fee) that, for some reason, police are exempt from. Police can legally buy an unapproved gun and then later decide to sell it to a Californian, legally. What they can't do is buy it with the intent to sell it but many do because the police also think the law is arbitrary and useless.

pnw 2y ago
Exactly, when you pass laws that create a marketplace for a product which is legally available just over the state line from California, and then exempt one class of citizen from the enforcement of those laws, this is the predictable result. The California law in question has always allowed police to sell those firearms to civilians.
BurningFrog 2y ago
In practice, the police can do pretty much anything illegal without the police doing much about it.
mindslight 2y ago
> they have a goofy law where there is a list of approved guns (that get there by paying a fee) that, for some reason, police are exempt from Government always excepts itself from gun control regulation. It's why the NRA failing to support Breonna Taylor was so glaringly transparent - the entire point of the supposed lobbying organization is to defend private gun ownership against the conflicting desires of government. But instead they lined right up behind the government oppressors! Like what exactly do they think destruction of the second amendment looks like if it's not government agents invading your home at night and summarily executing you for exercising your purported right of self defense?
- 15155 2y ago
  Why exactly would the Breonna Taylor incident require the support of the NRA/ILA? How did that issue pertain to firearms law?

hiatus 2y ago

Five years for illegal arms trafficking while pot smokers get the book thrown at them. Sometimes I think the US needs a federalized/nationalized police system—I think there would be fewer instances of reluctant prosecution if the cops were not from the local area.

Pikamander2 2y ago
Given the current... circumstances, massively expanding the federal government's policing powers might not be a good idea right now.
- mp05 2y ago
  Considering that the person nominated for the director of the federal police force claimed he was shutting down the office and putting all 7000 agents in the field, I definitely concur that the last thing they need is more power. “I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state,’” Patel said in an interview on the “Shawn Ryan Show” that aired in September. “Then, I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops — go be cops.” The last part is generally--dishonestly--omitted in the headlines from our favorite and most trusted news sources. (edit: which is done to frame Patel as wanting to fire them all--a pathetic stunt that is no longer surprising from these corrupt tools.) Anyway, what are these "circumstances" to which you refer?
  - TheBozzCL 2y ago
    Well, for starters… the circumstances have appointed somebody who believes in the “deep state” stuff as director of the FBI.
    - mp05 2y ago
      Downvote me all you want, but 'deep state' is just shorthand for the administrative state: unelected bureaucrats with the power to set policy, resist oversight, and accumulate unchecked power. Disliking the term doesn't make the reality any less valid. As for the parent comment, this administration plans to put more agents in the field immediately. Why is that a problem? Perhaps try persuasion instead of vague dogwhistles about 'circumstances.'

Pikamander2 2y ago

> "If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail," Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term. I'm not sure that was the gotcha he seemed to think it was...

keybored 2y ago
“If texting while driving is a crime, my whole family’s going to jail!” Things a cop would say but no sane civilian would.
- gruez 2y ago
  Most sane civilians would, however probably say "if speeding 5mph over the speed limit is a crime, my whole family's going to jail!"
  - keybored 2y ago
    I can get nothing past you guys.
AzzyHN 2y ago
What a quote

wl 2y ago

This article is conflating a few different things. 1. Cop buys the kinds firearms regular people can buy using law enforcement discounts and then makes an otherwise legal private sale to profit from this. This violates the terms of these law enforcement discount programs. Also, federal law requires people who buy and sell firearms for profit have a federal firearms license. These firearms sometimes are used in crime. 2. In some jurisdictions like California and Massachusetts, law enforcement can buy certain handguns new that normal people cannot. This isn't about safety as these handguns are not capable of anything that the approved handguns are not. It's solely a measure to harm the market for handguns by restricting the kinds of handguns available and increasing their prices. Cops can legally sell these unapproved handguns to normal people. The problem here, again, is doing it for profit. These firearms sometimes are used in crime. 3. Cops buying "assault weapons" and then making illegal private sales to normal people who can't lawfully buy these weapons. This is nowhere near as common as the first two scenarios. 4. Cops playing games with post-1986 machinegun regulations so that federal firearms licensees who pay a special tax can acquire machineguns to rent to the public at ranges or just for their own personal fun. These firearms, which often are significantly more dangerous than the kinds of firearms normal people can lawfully acquire, have never been used in a crime. Scenarios 1 and 2 have no public safety impact beyond private sales generally. Scenario 3 is only problematic from a public safety standpoint if you believe "assault weapons" are uniquely dangerous, which they aren't. Scenario 4 has not resulted in any violent crime.

dmoy 2y ago
Glock switches are fairly commonly used in crime here. But yea it's afaict not cops selling machine guns to people illegally, it's just getting them online or wherever.
- wl 2y ago
  I'm saying that NFA-registered post samples acquired through dodgy (or not) law letters have never been used in a crime. Yeah, those $30 switches from Temu et al are another issue entirely.
  - 2y ago

mattlondon 2y ago

Kinda worrying in many ways really - police taking guns from their departments and selling them to criminals and then saying "...but but I had no idea this was illegal or wrong!" I doesn't even pass the sniff test. Either the police are total idiots with no concept of right or wrong let alone knowledge of the law, OR they are willingly corrupt and will brazenly break the law to line their own pockets and to fuck with the consequences, which incidentally are pretty negligible because of the corruption and blind-eye turning of their buddies. Both options are pretty troubling.

rytis 2y ago
IMO the reality is: "the police are total idiots with no [...] knowledge of the law [...]" AND "are willingly corrupt and will brazenly break the law to line their own pockets"
- SauciestGNU 2y ago
  I don't know what else to expect from a profession that selects for the most violent members of the bottom decile of our society.

spacedcowboy 2y ago

Pretty sure this was an Ali.G sketch. ‘For charity!’

gweinberg 2y ago

Has anyone actually used a minigun in a crime anywhere ever? I'm pretty sure it would be nationwide news if it happened IRL, although it happens on tv all the time.

BadHumans 2y ago

Minorities have known this for years. Everyone else is just playing catch up.

highcountess 2y ago

[dead]

tapper 2y ago

I am sorry people from the US, but you lot are shure strange about your weapons! No other place in the hole world is like you.

analog31 2y ago
I'm not so sure about that. A friend of mine from Pakistan said that in his region, you could buy a machine gun at an open-air bazaar. Also, in a lot of countries, the government has little control over firearms, as they have little control over anything.
ganoushoreilly 2y ago
I would disagree, tons of countries with large gun ownership. The basis for it in the US stems from our founding and it's codification as a right to bear arms. It's not one granted by the government, but one upheld by it. Some could say that if it weren't for this mindset and approach, much of the world would be worse off. The backbone military for the world that affords much of the stability needed is the US military. The emphasis on national defense capabilities and the government and civilian levels are what make us unique. It's not for everyone, but in the same vein, there's not a lack of people requesting help or intervention either.

mgarfias 2y ago

This whole thread is full of dunning-kruger.

giardini 2y ago

I simply must remark on some details[brackets mine] FTFA: >"Some ammunition can [1]take out a helicopter or [2]blow straight through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side, then explode, hitting targets 18 football fields away."< Concerning [1]: a common .22 handgun can take out a helicopter. Even a well-placed rock can take out a helicopter: https://www.foxnews.com/story/border-patrol-chopper-forced-down-by-thrown-rocks https://www.foxnews.com/story/border-patrol-chopper-forced-d... That, and their inherent complexity and relatively low reliability, are the reasons why helicopters are my least-preferred means of transportation. Concerning [2]: Bullshit. Mostly b/c no knowledgeable person would try to shoot "through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side, then explode, hitting targets 18 football fields away." After all, to hit a target requires that you aim. You cannot aim "through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side". And I've simply got to ask: what munition, after piercing a tank and a concrete building, "then explode[s], hitting targets 18 football fields away."? This article's author is sadly uninformed: no experience, no knowledge of the physical world. Sad.

acdha 2y ago
> a common .22 handgun can take out a helicopter. Even a well-placed rock can take out a helicopter: You appear to be arguing that the DoD wasted a ton of money when all they needed to do was give the Ukrainian army lots of rocks. If that wasn’t your intent, consider that effectiveness might be the principal behind the law - there’s a huge difference between being able to get lucky with perfect circumstances and being able to reliably down aircraft. In particular, consider that the Border Patrol commonly uses helicopter rotor backwash as an improvised weapon against migrants which requires them to get much closer to their targets than would otherwise be the case - people can’t throw rocks anywhere near normal firearms distances.
- giardini 2y ago
  TFA says "Some ammunition can take out a helicopter ..." which is true enough. I merely pointed out that most anything can "take out a helicopter". Attachment of this discussion to the Ukrainian conflict and DOD is your imagination. Of course people can’t throw rocks as far as a firearm can shoot. But to state that "people can’t throw rocks anywhere near normal firearms distances" is contrary to most gunshot assault statistics, especially for handguns: "The True Distance of a Typical Gunfight" https://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/the-true-distance-of-a-typical-gunfight/ https://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/the-true-distance-of-a-ty... (tl;dr - 3 to 5 yards) While a firearm can shoot farther and more accurately than most persons can throw a rock, human encounters usually occur at short ("rock-throwing" or less) distances. Most conflicts occur at distances correlated more with the range of the human voice than with the range of a firearm.