I’m not going to read it because I simply don’t care. I am offering another perspective. If you wish to impugn and speculate upon my motives, that’s fine. I could not possibly care less what your opinion of me might be.
While I have some interest in the original topic, this tangent is of little interest. In such cases I may choose to express my opinion or I may not. The mere fact that you challenge me does not oblige me to waste time researching the topic. It also does not bar me from saying whatever I think might be appropriate to the conversation - regardless of whether or not it satisfies your purportedly high standards of veracity.
/threadjack
Have y’all ever had a problem with Wal-mart ammo refusing to fire? I actually pulled the trigger on some of this ammo twice-THEN it went off. I own a .38sp revolver-and it appears to be in great working order.
threadjack over/
In General Questions, when one makes an assertion, and that assertion is challenged, one is expected (obligated) to provide an appropriate citation to back up his assertion. ‘My post is my cite’ isn’t good enough.
If the mods want to ban me for not doing my homework, that’s fine. If this topic were directly, rather than only tangentially related to the OP, I might also feel differently. However I do appreciate your taking a moment to give me some guidance as to appropriate decorum. Thank you.
Maybe linked ammo? But you’re right, I didn’t think that one through. I guess what I was thinking of was some odd caliber only used for full-autos of Italian or Scandinavian origin, that ordering the ammo for them would be conspicuous.
One time I did get a squib round out of a bulk box (250 ct) of Remington .40 S&W bought at Wal-mart. Hasn’t happened since but I’d still rather pay a couple of bucks more for Winchester.
Anyway as I was going to say, it looks like the fact that illegal full-auto possession is a federal offense is the main deterrent to owning them. Doing federal hard time for getting caught riding dirty just isn’t worth it for most criminals.
?? Since when do criminals give a rats ass about the law or the time they do? Especially drug dealing gang bangers. For most of them it’s already illegal to possess any firearm. A lot of these guys are more than willing to commit murder. Why would they sweat a gun charge over that? Most of them I dealt with didn’t think more than 2 minutes ahead.
I grew up on the south side of Chicago, and have heard automatic gunfire multiple times (and one time it was so close in the back alley to my house I ducked low in case something came through the window).
I have heard stories from gang members that they got some automatic weapons from corrupt soldiers in the armory. Could just be a story, but it doesn’t seem that unlikely to me. It’s honestly surprising to me that people in this thread think it is that unusual for criminals to have them.
The low level members probably aren’t entrusted with them, and they wouldn’t need them anyway. And non-automatic weapons? What a joke how easy they are to get in Chicago (where handguns are completely illegal). I’ve been offered guns on the street just walking home by STRANGERS, there is no way in hell you will convince me that illegal pistols are hard to get if you are a gangmember who isn’t ridiculously broke or not allowed to have one by his higher-ups.
A popular rejoinder around here is “The Plural Of Anecdote Is Not Data”. I don’t always agree with that, but the point being made in this thread is a fairly simple leap of logic: If every Homeboy Q. Gangsta had ready (or reasonably attainable) access to full-auto hardware, there would- by extension- be a fairly high number of reported shootings involving said full-auto firearms.
But there aren’t. Which suggests that full-auto weapons just aren’t that easy to obtain on the black market in the US.
If one gangsta shot up another gangsta’s place with his Great-Great-Grandfather’s WWII Thompson or MP-40, or a smuggled AK-47 or Uzi or something like that, it’d be all over the front page of every major news service in the country and would be international news within hours. Some guy in Kentucky just killed his wife and several of their neighbours (with a conventional firearm) because his wife served him cold eggs, and the BBC had a story on it. So, if the Beeb is reporting on something like that, you can bet that a crack house being riddled with automatic weapons fire is Going To Get Noticed.
I have read an article about how gang members are getting into the military, now that gang membership is not an auto disqualification. But that’s recent, and may change now that the economy’s gone bad.
This suggests to me that there isn’t a NEED for full auto weaponry. Something like only 5-6% of cargo containers entering the US are randomly inspected. I can’t imagine what use automatic weaponry has for streetgangs other than prestige, even in the military they have limited useage. It is utterly easy and legal to buy a crossbow without a liscense and use it in gang warfare, we don’t see it because it isn’t the most cost effective tool for the job, which goes to concealed semi automatic pistols.
I have heard automatic weapons go off on the streets twice in my life, neither made the news. Since it didn’t show up in an academic paper or on automatic weapon crime stats, it didn’t happen. :rolleyes:
Or you heard a string of firecrackers, or heard something else, or it did make the news, or it wasn’t criminals, or any number of other possibilities. Systematically collected evidence from a variety of sources is more reliable than you are.
Your choices are:
pistols are actually easy to get in the Chicago area, and that paper’s conclusions were wrong, in which case you need to provide better evidence than anecdotes;
pistols are hard to get, but automatic weapons are easy to get, in which case you need to provide better evidence than anecdotes to counter the obvious problem with that scenario;
that two times in your entire life, someone possibly shot off automatic weapons. But, that doesn’t translate to “automatic weapons are easy to get”. In fact, it seems to show they are probably pretty difficult to get.
that pistols, at least in the Chicago area, are tough to get, and that automatic weapons are going to be even harder to get. In this case, I’ve provided the cites for you already.
I’m not unfamiliar with guns, it definitely was not firecrackers. Who shoots automatic weaponry after midnight on the south side of chicago other than criminals? Or at any time?
How many gang members did the paper’s author interview? (I actually HAVE read quite a bit about this guy, but it’s been years so I don’t remember). If he was only talking to some chump gang members, maybe they didn’t have any because they were scrubs.
My experience with illegal weaponry in Chicago (and I have never been in a gang, or a criminal myself, so it’s not like I go out of my way):
Held up at gunpoint on the L going home at 3am. Touched the revolver to confirm it was real before giving up my money (the robber had 3 friends at the end of the car, which is why he felt confident enough to let me confirm it).
A relative kept a sawn off shotgun in our closet.
automatic gunfire overheard
authomatic gunfire overheard
offered to sell me a gun on the street
A good friend of mine got expelled from highschool for bringing a gun to walk home safely after a gang threatened to jump him.
I am sure I could think of more, too. I am either a liar, or some sort of statistical anomoly. My money is on, that study was at a different time, with different people in a different neighborhood.
No, as I said a reasonable explanation is that they are not that difficult to get, but that they are unneccessary because they are not the most efficient tools for the job. The fact that they aren’t used more often in streetcrime is NOT a good indicator of their difficulty to get- How often is someone killed with a tire iron? But you can buy them anywhere. It is not convenient to keep an automatic weapon on you when selling drugs on street corners, it would only really be that useful during a drivebye shooting (which is when I heard both of the automatic weapons).
Anyone with money could get automatic weapons, it just is a waste of money even for gangsters. Pistols are very easy to get. I would love to take anyone who doubts this to my old neighborhood and walk around and watch people laugh at them because some academic study says that guns are hard to get in Chicago.
I did read the study, I believe I read about it from a thread on the SDMB years ago.
And I don’t really care who anyone believes, I am just offering what I can offer because I disagree. Besides which, if this is the study I am thinking of, it was mainly the first one to ever go into the economics of street level drug dealing, correct? If so, I agree quite a bit, most drug dealers I know are incredibly broke.
So the scrub broke drug dealers can’t buy a gun, big surprise? That doesn’t mean they’re hard to get.
I guess if I see something that is RADICALLY different than my life experience, I should just keep it to myself?
Would the average Walmart cashier risk antagonizing the second ? Gangsters (esp. juvie punks looking to prove themselves) are not exactly known for their calm and collected nature, nor their peaceful handling of rejection
If you re-read the OP again, there was a fairly strict criteria: Unmodified automatic weapons; ie, “Made from the factory with a full-auto option”. The OP and several other posters acknowledge that it’s possible (with varying degrees of difficulty, technical know-how, and illegally obtaining parts) to convert a number of semi-auto longarms to full-auto. That’s not being disputed. Nor is the fact that illegal handguns are available on the black market.
What’s being disputed is that actual, genuine, made-as-such automatic weapons are hard to get, especially for “The Average Gangsta”.
? Since when do criminals give a rats ass about the law or the time they do? Especially drug dealing gang bangers. For most of them it’s already illegal to possess any firearm. A lot of these guys are more than willing to commit murder. Why would they sweat a gun charge over that? Most of them I dealt with didn’t think more than 2 minutes ahead.
