At 01:59 AM 6/7/99 -0500, Joe E. Dees wrote:
>There is an article in the July issue of Playboy about a squad of
>Chicago cops masquerading as bikers and gang members and
>asking to buy guns with which to commit crimes. The firearms
>dealers were most helpful, and in just two months, the police had
>purchased 171 weapons for $65,000, all for the explicit purpose of
>aiding in the commission of criminal acts. One particularly
>enterprizing gun shop, nestled in the midst of a suburb with a
>population of 14,000 souls, sold 6500 weapons which were
>subsequently confiscated by Chicago police after being used in the
>commission of crimes. In fact, of the 32, 909 people who died of
>bullet wounds in 1995 (cars kill more, but not many more), most of
>these were suicides (18,503), and of the remailing 14,406
>homicides, only 616 were ruled justifiable and the rest (13,790, or
>about 96%) were murders. One out of every five
>purchased in the US is used to commit a crime within four years of
>purchase.
Did they close down this shop? No. They would rather allow the illegal sales to continue so that Mayor Daley could be the big man and sue gun manufacturers, etc. - and make lots of media attention for himself.
If the police and prosecutors refuse to take action against illegal sellers, they are more responsible for the carnage than the sellers themselves. These officials should be prosecuted for malfeasance in office.