Wow, that study really does say all that, but it’s also geared toward “youth” gang members. I’m not sure what the age is, but 43% store their guns at school, so that’s part of the reason why they can’t make a trip to wal-mart to get ammo.
While the authors paint a pretty grim picture for people wanting to buy an illegal firearm in Chicago, they also note that between 1999-2003, Chicago police averaged 10,000 firearms confiscations per year, “which appears to be far in excess of other large cities.”
So the guns are out there and easy to get, it’s just not a great market if you’re a buyer and most gang members are incredibly stupid kids.
From what I’ve heard, including an interview with the author, most of the Freakonomics book amounts to little more than sensationalist journalism. But as to the paper you cite in particular, I have no intention of reading it. I have better things to do with my time - like taking a nap or tweeting about what I had for breakfast.
If you’re impressed by correct use of argot by supposed academics and think that is synonymous with truth, knock yourself out. I prefer something called “logic”. And when I see supposedly empirical conclusions that are inconsistent with even the most simple and basic logic, as these obviously are, I don’t hesitate to dismiss them as yet another example of pseudo-science.
His work answers the question about why it is such a hassle for criminals to drive to Wisconsin to buy ammo. Most drug dealers don’t make enough money to buy a car. Keep in mind that you need to be over 21 to buy pistol ammo and Walmart will card you and you have created a obstacle for a lot of criminals, assuming they even have a driver’s license. From what Venkatesh says, most criminals don’t even care if the gun they buy even works, much less if they have the correct ammo for it. Having a gun is a status issue.
Joel: I don’t doubt that there are examples of people who deal drugs and live with their mother. I’ve know a few of them. The problem is when you generalize to say “most” drug dealers and you base your generalization on one study which focused on one group of people in one urban area.
Years ago I represented several drug dealers and I can tell you for a fact that “most” do not in fact live with their mothers and have enough cash to pay $10k retainers (in cash) without so much as blinking.
So while the study may be accurate as to its intended target, it is a huge and unjustified leap to take the results of such a study and extrapolate the bejeezus out of it.
Yes, guns can be obtained illegally. But the OP is specifically asking about unaltered, original fully-automatic weapons. I do not believe they are readily available.
[quote=GiantRat**A “gangster” (and most of us are part of some kind of gang, whether nefarious or not) is usually looking to increase profits rather than spend $1500 on an AR15 or similar. SKSs can be had for $75, and easily converted.[/quote]
I have no idea how much an AR-15 clone goes for on the black market, but $1,500 is within the range of a new, legally-obtained one. Would a stolen one cost more?
Just a few data points:
When I lived in L.A., the AK-47 (actually AKM) clones were fairly popular amongst gangs. I saw a documentary where a 12-year-old had an HK-91. (He called it an ‘AK’.) But these are semi-automatic.
My sister told me that in the '70s she was at some guy’s house in San Diego. He had an AR-18 and was passing it around. She didn’t even want to touch it. Turns out one of the guys at the party was an undercover cop.
The North Hollywood bank robbers had fully-automatic AKs, but they were not original, unaltered fully-automatic assault rifles. They were originally legal rifles and were illegally modified by the robbers.
I have built a few AR-15s. They are very easy to convert if you can buy the internal parts. (Note: I did not convert any.) You would have to fabricate a drop-in auto sear. They used to be available by mail order, but now it is illegal to make, buy, or possess one (even if you don’t have the rest of the gun). You could use an OEM sear, but you would have to machine the interior of the lower receiver to make it fit, and drill a hole for the pin. I’ve read a couple of the Full Auto booklets. (Again, just for educational purposes. There’s no way I’d violate the law.) The Mini-14 and the HK-series require machining skills and parts that are not readily available.
STENs and MAC-10s are (said to be) extremely easy to build. The STEN was specifically designed to be easy and cheap to manufacture. I’ll bet even I could make one if I were so inclined. Parts are readily available. The STEN’s receiver is a tube, and the MAC-10’s is a flat piece of metal that you bend. It goes without saying that making the receiver is a federal offence.
Given that legal fully automatic firearms are A) very expensive; B) fairly rare; and C) tend to be kept by people who tend not to allow their firearms to be stolen, I suspect that the second criterion in the OP would be very difficult to meet.
So an illegal assault rifle will likely be a modified semi-auto one. To make one requires a certain amount of skill and dedication. Any high school student can turn out an AR-15 drop-in auto sear in shop class. I think it unlikely that most gangs are sophisticated enough to set up a modification operation. It’s easier to buy a modified gun from someone else. How often they do it, and how easy it is, I don’t know. Radical ‘militias’ might have some modified weapons cached, but they are not known for treating with urban gangs. Certainly there are illegally-modified weapons out there; but given the reasons mentioned upthread I don’t think they are particularly common. Unaltered OEM ones are going to be very rare.
I remember a guy showing me a very simple trick to convert my (weapon name removed) to full rock and roll. Not that I needed an automatic weapon but knowing that I could have one if ever needed was reassuring I guess.
So to answer the OP’s question, It wouldn’t be very hard at all. I just googled it and there are videos on the net on how to do it - (so I’ve removed the weapon name)
Interesting paper, although because it focuses on gang members many of whom face the limitations of being minors, it’s somewhat skewed. It did raise the interesting point of markets for some illegal goods being “thin”. I did like this quote: “In part because guns are durable goods, repeat business is rare,”
Overall, what I’m taking away from this is that beyond the trade in stolen handguns, more powerful illicit weapons are available within a close-knit group of firearms aficionados. IOW, obtainable if you’re in with the right people, but not if you’re just Joe Stranger. So the answer to my OP question seems to be “hard in some ways, easy in others”.
Huh, let’s apply logic. Drug dealers that are capable of retaining a lawyer rather than a public defender have enough money not to live with their mothers. Clearly a representative sample and triumph of reason.
I’d add to the pool by repeating what pkbites posted : stuff that walked off a military/nat. guard base/armory. I have no stats, but I’d be surprised if that wasn’t the source of most of the full auto hardware in Mexico. How many of those make it to here, is anyone’s guess. I have no stats or cites for the frequency of matériel/ordnance being sold/stolen from the U.S. military. (If you have them, I’d be interested in reading them.) That I can’t remember any recent cases makes me think it’s extremely infrequent. Google is not helping much.
My understanding from talking with local defense attorneys and independent reading was that surprisingly, many of the foot soldiers in the U.S. drug trade didn’t carry firearms at all, much less full-auto stuff: possession of a firearm by a felon or someone underage was viewed as a much harder charge to dodge than possessing dope. I was told that most foot soldiers/low level dealers are known, and harassed frequently by police, making carrying a firearm not a good idea. Of course, someone with a firearm was probably close by…
Re: why would crooks have/want full-auto, I agree with the posters who’ve said the crooks who have it, have it because it’s seen as cool, and so determining whether it’s effective don’t enter into why they own them. I suspect that many of the anecdotes of “gangs with machine guns” going to the boonies/desert to shoot up the place, are actually guys bump firing SKSs and the like, not true full-auto firearms.
FWIW, I can see full auto being useful for suppressive fire when taking a position, a rival’s house say. (Or lately, a police station. Poor Mexico; it’s beginning to read like accounts of Saigon in the late 50s/early 60s.) Or defeating vehicle armor. Accounts of both of these things happening in Mexico are making the news more frequently. For both of those tasks though, it seems you’d want something belt-fed and emplaceable, not a selective-fire battle rifle or SMG, but you fight with the army you have, I suppose.
But here? A gang running around with full auto stuff will attract a lot of attention, which will attract BAFTE (assuming an undercover LEO didn’t commission their manufacture in the first place). When that happens, the fate of the of the jerks in North Hollywood, or Matix & Platt in Miami, should be sufficient deterrent to anyone thinking that rashly using full-auto firearms to commit crimes is a good idea. (Or what happened to the Branch Davidians or Randy Weaver: it’s just a bad idea to run afoul of federal firearms laws.) Not that criminals are historically big on the whole foreseeable consequences thing.
Again, I’d love to see stats, if anyone has them, of the frequency of illegally owned automatic weapons, crappy home-grown conversion or otherwise, being used in crime in the U.S. I had a difficult time finding any that didn’t just list crimes committed with a firearm.
Did it ever occur to you that drug dealers that can pay 10k cash retainers are even less typical that the drug dealers in the study? Obviously the people in the study would not be your clientèle. An attorney in the public defender’s might have a different perspective.
Quite true. And just as it would be inaccurate to extrapolate from my experience (having worked for the public defender, private pactice and pro bono), it is incorrect to make generalizations about subjects not covered by the study; i.e., what “most” drug dealers are like or what “most” drug dealers do.
So your attitude is now indistinguishable form protesters that say: “I haven’t seen that movie/TV show/video game/book, but I know it’s bad.” You won’t take the time to read even the abstract that ivn1188 so helpfully posted (which takes all of 30 seconds, btw) but you do have the time to post another 6 times without considering the cite he provided?
Playing the anti-intellectualism card? really? Here?
And your logic means diddly-squat without evidence. And, just lookee here, ivn1188 did provide evidence, as did the authors of that article. In fact they address your very point:
Then then spend the remainder of the article essentially refuting that supposition. For example, your hunch about demand for cocaine and guns:
So demand for guns is far, far, far less than demands for coke. About easy and quick availability:
And about driving to WI:
This was published in the oldest and most prestigious economics journal out there. There’s a wealth of good, actual, real science in the paper. Read it before you call it pseudo-science out of hand.
Of the 17 interviewees in this group, only one person said they could find a gun in less than a week. And about driving to WI:
Quote:
One gang leader notes:
“Most of us, we never been outside these four or five blocks, our neighbourhood. Now, how can you bring the guns here if you don’t even know how to get to other places?”
so that’s what counts as evidence? Unverified anecdotal accounts provided by supposed “gang” members?
OK, fine. Look. You can believe whatever you want. I have no obligation to dissuade you - nor any interest. I’ve seen the phenomena spoken of first hand. I am willing however to admit that does not constitute evidence. However when gross generalizations conflict with my experience, my experience wins - at least as far as my perception of what constitutes reality. You can use whatever standard or criteria you choose.
They’ll only card those that look under age. I bought 4 boxes of handgun ammo there 2 weeks ago and nobody asked me for anything. Admittedly it’s been almost 30 years since I’ve been under 21.
Drug dealers routinely drive from Chicago up to Milwaukee to do business, meet with acquaintances, etc… This mythology that they’ve never left their own neighborhood is nonsense. A large number of the gang members I’ve had contact with had Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan DL’s or ID’s.
In 28+ years of law enforcement in the Milwaukee metro area, neither myself nor anyone I can recall took a full auto weapon off anyone.
Sorry for my mostly navel-gazing post earlier, not very GQ-like.
For actual stats on the worldwide economics and prices of black market small arms, it looks like the Norweigian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers is a good place to start. It’s a private database, but those with academic credentials (I don’t) might be able to gain access. Reading their blog, does not give me confidence concerning the bias of their data, however. Uncritically quoting large chunks of VPC press releases as fact concerns me. The same would be true if they were the same thing with NRA materials.
For actual stats on firearms used in crime, BATFE has very nicely broken out the numbers for each state, by type, including “machine guns”. E.g: Texas’s 2009 traced firearms used in crime .pdf can be found here None of which gets us closer to answering Lumpy’s question; still, I thought it would be interesting to see what the numbers were. 41 machine guns recovered in Texas in 2009 was, I thought, rather high. No info on whether they were OEM.
I’m guessing the experience of anyone dressed like a middle-aged white dude is probably different than the experience of a gang-age kid dressed to the left in Fubu, and sideways hat, a puffy coat, with gang tats.
It’s more evidence than the unverified third hand “experience” of a “lawyer”, especially when you admit you didn’t even bother to read the paper, because you know it counters your own beliefs (which is a behavior seen in a lot of groups who aren’t looked upon fondly here). The only remaining question is why you keep telling everyone else they are wrong.
