Mark Smith of the Four Boxes Diner gives a good break down the oral arguments for DSSA’s temporary injunction appeal against the State’s semi-auto ad magazine ban laws held on March 11th before a three judge panel at the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.
ATF Federal Firearm License Revocations up a Staggering 500%
by: Lee Williams, May 9, 2022
In the years before the Biden-Harris administration took over the White House, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives usually revoked an average of 40 Federal Firearm Licenses (FFLs) per year. But, in the 11 months since Joe Biden declared war on “rogue gun dealers,” the ATF has revoked 273 FFLs — an increase of more than 500%. However, rather than targeting the true rogues, Biden’s ATF is revoking FFLs for the most minor of paperwork errors, which were never a concern for the ATF until Biden weaponized the agency.
“This has nothing to do with the ATF and everything to do with the DOJ,” said John Clark of FFL Consultants. Clark is a firearm industry expert who said the ATF announced the number of revocations at a recent Firearm Industry Conference.
“The vast majority of the ATF don’t like this any more than the industry does,” he said. “It’s Biden.”
Clark and business partner John Bocker crisscross the country to help gun dealers fight back against Biden’s overreach — a service that is free to all members of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Their mantra is: “Get it right the first time.”
“Our goal is to prevent an incident from occurring,” Bocker has said. “Our goal is prevention — get it right the first time. We are the proactive and preventative arm of the NSSF.”
Nowadays, they’re extremely busy. “I had three revocation hearings last week,” Clark said.
Key to the massive increase in revocations is Biden’s zero-tolerance for willful violations policy, which Clark said relies upon a new definition of willful. If a dealer makes a simple mistake, they can now lose their license, because the new definition of willful states that the dealer knew the law, but willfully chose to violate it anyway – regardless of whether it was an oversight, an error by an employee or a simple paperwork mistake.
“They have twisted negligence into willful,” Clark said. “These are not uncommon errors that we’re seeing. Things happen.”
On paper, Biden’s new policy seems clear:
Absent extraordinary circumstances that would need to be justified to the Director, ATF will seek to revoke the licenses of dealers the first time that they violate federal law by willfully.
1.) transferring a firearm to a prohibited person
2.) failing to run a required background check
3.) falsifying records, such as a firearms transaction form
4.) failing to respond to an ATF tracing request
5.) refusing to permit ATF to conduct an inspection in violation of the law
However, Clark and Bocker are seeing these rules pushed far beyond the realm of common sense or fairness, and local gun dealers are paying the price.
For example, the transaction number for a NICS background check requires nine digits. If a gun dealer mistakenly omits a number, their license can be revoked for failing to run a background check. Under the Biden-Harris administration, there is no longer any room for human error.
Similarly, the ATF has started contracting out its trace requests, Clark said. He and Bocker have talked to a dealer whom the ATF accused of not complying with a trace request. They fault, they found, actually belonged to the ATF, which hadn’t updated its records from the contractors. Until this was clarified, the dealer was at risk of losing everything.
Their firm offers a free webinar for gun dealers, which addresses Biden’s policy.
ATF breaking federal law
Biden first announced his zero-tolerance policy for “rogue gun dealers” in June of last year. He claimed these dealers were responsible for skyrocketing violent crime rates in major cities historically controlled by Democrats.
The violence wasn’t caused by weak prosecutors who refuse to hold criminals accountable, or gangs or underfunded police departments or by any combination thereof, he said. It was all the fault of “rogue gun dealers,” who Biden claimed willfully transfer firearms to prohibited persons, and/or refuse to cooperate with a tracing request from the ATF.
To vet Biden’s rogue gun dealer theory, the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project immediately sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the ATF, seeking the following:
Copies of documents that show the number of Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) and their state of residence, who have been prosecuted for willfully transferring a firearm to a prohibited person over the past three years (from June 23, 2018 to June 23, 2021.)
Copies of documents that show the number of Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) and their state of residence, who have been prosecuted for ignoring and/or refusing to cooperate with a tracing request from the BATFE, over the past three years (from June 23, 2018 to June 23, 2021.)
(Note: We did not seek the names or other identifiers of any FFL.)
We’re still waiting for a response.
In the 11 months since the FOIA request was filed, the ATF has not complied with the law. The ATF is in a trick-bag of sorts. They can comply with federal law and provide the documents, which will likely reveal that Biden’s rogue gun dealer policy is just a ruse, or they can continue to deny and delay the FOIA request even though their actions violate federal law.
Takeaways
If there is a dealer who transfers firearms to prohibited persons, fails to conduct background checks and ignores requests from the ATF to help trace firearms used in a crime, they should lose their FFL. I don’t know anyone who disagrees with that. However, these are not the type of dealers the ATF is targeting at Biden’s behest. The Biden-Harris administration has ordered the ATF to revoke FFLs for even the most minor of paperwork errors, solely to support its rogue-dealer myth.
There is no doubt Biden will soon hold a press conference touting the effectiveness of his zero-tolerance policy and the hundreds of “rogue gun dealers” whose licenses were revoked as a result. What he won’t mention is that none of the dealers who lost their livelihoods contributed to the skyrocketing violent crime rates of major metros. They were simply law-abiding men and women who made a minor paperwork error, which Biden has now criminalized as part of his ongoing war on our guns.
Not even ATF can verify ATF’s ‘ghost gun’ claims
By Lee Williams, April 6, 2022
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has a unique reputation among federal law enforcement agencies. Quite frankly, the ATF is well known for not always telling the truth. Whether its firearm statistics, after-action reports downplaying the body count of their latest sting to backfire or quotes from senior executives, any information coming from ATF is always suspect and must always be verified.
Verifying ATF information is not easy either. They put up a lot of roadblocks. The ATF ignores Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and its spokespeople rarely answer their phones or return emails. It’s as if the ATF doesn’t want the public to peek behind their curtain, because they too are scared of what will be found.
For example, one senior ATF official — Carlos A. Canino, former Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the ATF’s Los Angeles Field Division — can be credited for jumpstarting the war on homemade firearms, so it is especially important to verify everything he has said. After all, last year the ATF announced notice of proposed rulemaking that could regulate many of the core components of homemade firearms. To be clear, Canino’s quotes caused all of this.
In 2020, activists from the propaganda arm of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun empire asked Canino about the prevalence of homemade firearms in California. An earlier study said 30% of the guns recovered by ATF in California were unserialized “ghost guns,” but Canino said the real numbers were actually much higher. “Forty-one percent, so almost half our cases we’re coming across are these ‘ghost guns,’” Canino told the anti-gun activists. That was all it took. The entire gun-ban industry jumped on Canino’s statement like a duck on a June bug. The war on homemade firearms had officially begun, and ATF’s Los Angeles SAC fired the first shots.
Unverifiable
Erik Longnecker likely will not have a long or prosperous career at the ATF. Longnecker, the program manager for the ATF’s Public Affairs Division’s Office of Public and Governmental Affairs, has a habit of returning emails from investigative reporters. This is rare and not exactly career enhancing at the ATF.
In a lengthy email chain yesterday, I asked Longnecker to verify Canino’s comments, and to add some context. Specifically, how many firearms did ATF’s Los Angeles Field Division seize? Did the 41% constitute five or six homemade firearms or were there hundreds or thousands.
To be clear, Longnecker was unable to verify Canino’s statement or add any context.
“I contacted the Los Angeles Field Division earlier today after your initial email, and their Public Information Officer was unable to verify any figures provided in 2019 by former-SAC Canino without knowing the time-period(s) he used for his comments,” Longnecker said in the email. “For that reason, we rely on verifiable data generally documented on our website or obtained through a FOIA request.”
Longnecker supplied statistics about the numbers of homemade firearms he claimed were recovered by law enforcement at possible crime scenes nationwide from Jan. 1, 2016, through Dec. 31, 2020, which were submitted to ATF for tracing — a total of 23,906 guns during the five-year period, or roughly 13 guns per day.
- 2016: 1,750
- 2017: 2,507
- 2018: 3,776
- 2019: 7,161
- 2020: 8,712
“I am not aware of any other verified PMF (Privately Made Firearm) data that has been published by ATF,” Longnecker wrote.
This is outrageous. The entire war on homemade firearms was based on alleged ATF data, which the ATF now claims it cannot verity. Civil rights are about to be violated, and gunmakers and firearm parts manufacturers are about to be put out of business, all based on spurious data from a former ATF official whom the agency now appears to have disavowed.
Weaponized data
“ATF does not label any firearm as a ‘ghost gun,’ but prefers to use the term ‘privately made firearm,” Longnecker explained during our correspondence Monday.
Whatever. No one seems to have told the Biden-Harris administration about the ATF’s preferred label. Like the anti-gun industry, the White House grabbed onto Canino’s comments and took off.
“In May 2021, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of “ghost guns,” which are unserialized, privately made firearms that are increasingly being recovered at crime scenes and have been identified by law enforcement officials as a serious threat to public safety. Today, criminals are buying kits containing nearly all of the components and directions for finishing a firearm within as little as 30 minutes and using these firearms to commit crimes,” according to a White House Fact Sheet published last week, in the section titled: “Reining in the proliferation of ghost guns.”
The Chicago-Sun Times is the latest media outlet to glom onto the fact-free ghost-gun cavalcade, in an editorial titled “‘Ghost’ guns are a gift to criminals. It’s time to ban them.”
“Ghost guns are firearms purchasers assemble themselves without serial numbers, making them easy to obtain and hard to trace. Some are ‘printed’ on 3-D printers and include no metal, allowing owners to carry them through metal detectors undetected,” the paper’s editorial board wrote.
Note: If some of their readers try to carry a “ghost gun” through a TSA checkpoint, they and the editorial board will likely be very surprised at the outcome.
The Chicago newspaper cited Canino’s fictional statistics and used the tired attempt at attribution — police say.
“Police say ghost guns are a growing problem,” the newspaper wrote. “Last year, they confiscated 455 ghost guns in Chicago. In 2019, law enforcement agencies recovered 10,000 ghost guns nationwide. In 2020, 41% of the ATF’s cases in Los Angeles were ghost guns.”
Police don’t say
None of the senior law enforcement officers I’ve interviewed about homemade firearms have said they’re a problem. Most haven’t seen any — not one. Several had their staff check their property rooms for homemade firearms recovered from crime scenes. None were found.
Several top cops accused the ATF of conflating homemade firearms with factory-made guns that have had their serial numbers illegally altered or removed, which could account for ATF’s high number of trace requests. I asked Longnecker about this. His response was somewhat vague:
“ATF investigates the criminal possession and other criminal misuse of both commercially manufactured and privately made firearms. These privately made firearms can be made from multiple sources and frequently lack serial numbers and other markings which generally make the firearms more difficult to trace,” he wrote. “ATF also investigates the criminal possession and other criminal misuse of firearms that have had serial numbers altered or obliterated. Firearms that have had serial numbers partially or fully obliterated usually have other markings that assist in the positive identification and tracing of the firearms. ATF uses this information to identify firearms trafficking patterns and related crimes.”
Takeaways
The war on homemade firearms — like the war on guns itself — is based on false claims, skewed statistics, faulty logic and lashings of media hype. Both seek to demonize an inanimate object and punish legitimate gun owners for the sins of a few bad men. Whether you own a homemade firearm or not, we must all push back against what is an assault on our civil rights. Clearly, the gun-ban industry is using their bumpstock template to target yet another legal product. Their move was expected, similar to their ongoing effort to ban pistol braces.
ATF’s role was expected too. They’re clearly assisting the anti-gunners by pumping up the number of tracing requests by combining homemade firearms with factory guns with altered serial numbers. How else could they claim “ghost guns” are a growing problem, right?
I have said before no one makes a better case to abolish the ATF than the ATF.
Then, as now, the country would be safer without them.
Special Report: Red-flagged at age 14
By Lee Williams, May 25
Eli Pagunsan one year before he was red-flagged as a potential school shooter by the Riverside County, California School District. (Photo courtesy Eli Pagunsan.)
It’s not easy for Eli Pagunsan to talk about the ordeal that began seven years ago, when he was a high school freshman in Riverside County, California.
His life was destroyed. He briefly considered suicide as a way out.
When he looks back, the now 22-year-old feels a mix of “anger, anguish and fear.”
“There’s a part of me that needs this story to be told,” he said. “I’ve been trying to tell people about it. I didn’t understand that what happened to me was wrong until I went to therapy.”
Life has never been easy for Pagunsan. He has always been an outsider and somewhat of an introvert. His parents immigrated from the Philippines. Pagunsan was born in Arkansas. He says he grew up the victim of frequent abuse, which was meted out by his father.
“We’ve reconciled now. I’ve forgiven him, but I remember whenever he was mad at us, he’d strip us naked and beat us with whatever was closest – a vacuum pipe, electrical cord or belt,” Pagunsan said.
At one point, he said, his father made him tell his teachers he was “worthless,” and that he wouldn’t be coming to school anymore.
After his parents divorced, an ex-Army officer who was helping raise Pagunsan told him he would either be a heroin addict or shot by police, and that he would be a “juvenile delinquent.”
All three assessments were wrong.
As a young man, Pagunsan found solace in reading, video games and history.
“I used to be a big fan of World War II films like ‘Band of Brothers’ and ‘The Pacific,’ he said. “I played a lot of ‘Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault.’ I found out that my family fought as guerillas against the Japanese, and I’m very proud of that.”
Pagunsan’s great-grandfather was a carpenter on Luzon when the Japanese invaded.
“He had a choice to either run or fight. He fought with the Americans. He was captured and survived the Bataan Death March. He lived until 1978, when he died of lung cancer,” Pagunsan said.
While most kids his age were socializing and interacting with others, Pagunsan was playing video games, reading in the library or writing.
He joined a writing club when he was only 12 years old.
“I still get a weird, cathartic feeling creating characters that are based off of experiences I have had,” he said. “I get satisfaction from writing — being able to improve upon it feels good.”
All of Pagunsan’s hobbies and interests would play a role in what was to come.
Potential shooter
Rather than becoming a juvenile delinquent as the Army officer had predicted, Pagunsan gravitated toward law enforcement.
He became a police explorer — a hands-on program for kids interested in making law enforcement a career, which offers training, competitions, character development and physical fitness.
One evening in 2014, Pagunsan received a call from his police explorer instructor – a sworn law enforcement officer.
“The first thing he asked me was, ‘Are you going to shoot up your high school?’” Pagunsan recalled.
The instructor ordered Pagunsan and his mother to report to his school’s main office the next day, promptly at 8 a.m.
There, they were met by another police officer, who told them Pagunsan had tripped the “Kids with Guns” protocol, and that he was now “red-flagged” as a potential school shooter.
They were also told officers would be searching Pagunsan’s bedroom.
Pagunsan knew his rights — especially his Fourth Amendment rights — and he told his mother that police would be looking for anything to support their conclusion that he would become a school shooter. He was particularly concerned about his screen plays, his video games and the fact he enjoyed reading about World War II.
He pleaded with his mother not to allow police to search his room.
Pagunsan’s mother grew up in the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos was in power. Marcos, a notorious and bloody dictator, ruled with an iron fist until he was deposed in 1986. His military and police had authority to kill anyone who disagreed with the dictator’s policies, so the thought of refusing to comply with police was something Pagunsan’s mother would never do.
“When she grew up, if the police knocked on your door that was the warrant,” Pagunsan said. “If you refused to let them in, you’d be taken out and shot.”
She let the officers in.
“That sealed by fate”, Pagunsan said.
(Photo courtesy Eli Pagunsan.)
The search
Officers tore Pagunsan’s room apart. They found no firearms or other weapons. Neither Pagunsan nor his family owned a gun.
Instead, police focused on his screenplays and books.
One of the officers threw a manuscript onto a table in front of Pagunsan.
“What’s this? Is this your kill list?” he demanded.
“It was a list of characters I’d created,” Pagunsan recalled. “None of them were real people. It was titled: ‘Character sheet.’”
Another officer ordered the youth not to move from the couch.
“What’s in your room that’s got you so nervous?” he asked, menacingly.
By this time Pagunsan was dying inside.
Police interrogated him about his books: an old Army field manual on infantry tactics and books about World War II and other military subjects.
They tried to make him admit he was a danger to himself and other students, and that the best place for him was behind bars in a juvenile correctional facility.
The officers eventually left emptyhanded, and Pagunsan believed the ordeal was finally over, until he was ordered to report to the school district’s main office the next day.
There, he attended yet another disciplinary meeting, with the vice-principal who had red-flagged him and the school district’s chief disciplinarian.
They explained that Pagunsan had been red-flagged under the district’s “Kids with Guns” protocol, even though he had no guns, and that the school district had acted to “stop a potential school shooter.”
Pagunsan instantly felt shame sweep over him. He began to question himself – he still does – even though he had never even considered violence. These were adults and authority figures, after all. He was a 14-year-old.
The district’s disciplinarian looked at the reports in front of him, which had been written by school and police officials, and told Pagunsan he was going to be expelled.
Pagunsan was never charged with a single crime.
The protocol
The School Threat Assessment and Response (STAR) protocol used by schools in Riverside County, California was created by officials from the school district, probation department, District Attorney’s Office, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, social services, the courts and the county’s behavioral health department. Dozens of other agencies have signed on.
The 10-page document, which was last updated in 2018, has a list of 25 “High Risk” Indicators:
- Typically between ages 11-16.
- May not have ever been arrested or been to Juvenile Court for a law violation.
- Few or no friends.
- Withdrawn, excessive feelings of rejection.
- May have moved frequently.
- Feelings of being picked on and persecuted.
- Depression.
- May have difficulty coping with significant losses or personal failures.
- May have suicidal comments or self-mutilated.
- May be a victim of violence/abuse.
- Pattern of angry behavior.
- May have history of tantrums, explosive rage.
- May have felt bullied, persecuted by others.
- Violent or dark themes.
- Discussion, drawings, writings, fantasies, video games, posters, music, computers, internet, text and cell phone activity.
- Preoccupation with guns, explosive devices or possibly other dangerous weapons.
- Animal cruelty.
- Torture or mutilation of animals in the past.
- Past history of setting fires.
- Verbal cues.
- Talks about something “big” happening.
- Talks about being noticed/becoming famous.
- Makes specific threats against a person or group.
- Access to guns and knowledge of their use.
- Parents may minimize or deny.
“A youth may have more than one high risk characteristic and never commit a violent offense,” the document states. “However, we all want to be aware and to do everything possible to immediately assess a threat to prevent a tragic situation from occurring.”
Pagunsan believes the list is far too broad.
“If you look at that list — other than hurting animals or setting fires — almost every kid in America could be considered high risk, especially boys,” he said.
The aftermath
Pagunsan’s alternative school was 100% online. He worked remotely from his computer at home.
“I loved it,” he said. “I did far better than in public school.”
There was, of course, no socialization with other kids.
“Most of my friends were online anyway,” he said. “We kept in touch.”
During breaks, he would play video games and read history books.
Despite his newfound academic success, he could not come to terms with being branded as a school shooter.
“I was scared to tell anyone what happened to me,” he said.
He still suffers the effects today. He has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, severe depression and general anxiety disorder.
His counselor told him that his young age — he was only 14 when he was red-flagged — may have increased the severity of his disorders.
“I get nervous talking to cops. I’m very polite, but the hair stands up on the back of my neck. I try hard to please other people, because I don’t want to be labeled, again, as the guy who wants to shoot up a school or a business.
“I don’t trust people my own age. They’re too quick to judge,” he said.
He now has a better relationship with this mother.
“She didn’t get it. Now, she does,” he said. “She’s proud of me. She understands what happened and why it was wrong.”
Nowadays, Pagunsan doesn’t trust anyone in authority.
“I did,” he said, “once upon a time.”
Pagunsan is a licensed security guard in Arizona. He’s single and lives alone, except for his puppy Kelsie, a 50-pound German Shepherd.
Before the recent ammunition shortage, he enjoyed shooting at a nearby range, especially when he could take someone who was new to the sport.
“I loved taking new shooters out there,” he said.
He wants parents to know that if their child is ever confronted by officials as he was, they should not let police into their home.
“They will try to pressure you. They’ll tell you the search will be quick. It won’t take long. They’ll use every trick in the book,” he said. “Get a lawyer immediately.”
He wants lawmakers to consider the human toll of red-flag laws.
“Think about how this affects someone. Maybe the next person this happens to won’t be as strong as me. Think of how this person is going to feel in a world that they already believe is pushing down on them,” he said. “Think about what that does to someone, especially long term.”
Pagunsan has spoken to a few local Second Amendment groups about his ordeal, but he is not sure if this will continue. Nowadays, his primary goal is getting better.
Said Pagunsan: “Despite everything that’s happened to me, I am doing a lot better than I used to. No one thought I would be, and that’s given me a sense of pride. I’m at a place where people are interested in what I have to say, and that’s a great feeling.”
Cause and Effect – An Essay
By Defender O’Freedom
Below is a recent headline from the Wilmington News Journal (December 14, 2020):
At least 17 people shot in 5 days in Delaware
According to the story:
“More people have been shot in Delaware in the past five days than in any five-day stretch since at least 2017, the earliest year in Delaware Online/The News Journal’s statewide shooting database. Of the 17 people shot in the past five days, six have died.”
Further, it goes on to report:
“More people have been shot in Delaware in 2020 than in any year since Delaware Online/The News Journal began tracking shootings statewide in 2017. This year, 238 people have been injured and 65 have been killed by gunfire in Delaware.”
This level of gun violence is, unfortunately, not an exception. In major city after major city – Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and others – crimes committed using firearms are increasing at alarming levels. The answer, according to many of the progressive elected officials, is more gun control – increased requirements for background checks, permits to purchase, background checks for ammunition purchases, limitations on number of gun purchases per month, restrictions on magazine capacity, and outright bans on whole classes of commonly-owned and constitutionally-protected firearms.
Unfortunately, none of these proposals will have any positive effect in reducing the levels of gun violence currently plaguing our communities. Why not? The answer is simple – none of these measures will affect anyone intent on committing a crime with a gun. Criminals do not go through background checks to obtain the tools of their trade. Criminals could care less what guns are “legal.” Criminals will ignore any and all of these so-called “common-sense restrictions.” Take Chicago, for example. That city already has some of the strictest restrictions on firearms purchase and ownership in the entire country, and yet, they also are a perennial leader in shootings and gun-related homicides. Isn’t it ironic that the highest levels of gun violence are in jurisdictions which already have the tightest restriction on firearms and that those jurisdictions with “the most liberal gun laws”
typically have far lower levels of gun violence?
It is a matter of cause and effect, but the cause of more crime is not more guns – at least not in the hands of law-abiding citizens. In fact, competent statistical analysis shows just the opposite – more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens equals less crime. If you want the details, I suggest that you check out two books by noted economist and researcher John Lott, Jr., More Guns, Less Crime and Gun Control Myths.
So, if more guns is not the cause, what is?
The answer, at least in part, may be found in another article which appeared that same day in the News Journal:
Wilmington teens arrested after chase
Several shots fired during pursuit
This story references one of the shooting incidents mentioned in the first story. In this case, Pennsylvania State police identified a car traveling on I-95 as potentially being one reported stolen in a car-jacking incident in Delaware several days earlier. They attempted to pull the vehicle over, but the driver attempted to escape, resulting in a high-speed pursuit which continued back over the PA-DE state line. In Delaware, two pursing patrol cars attempted to force the suspect vehicle over, but the driver, apparently with intent, deliberately drove into the side of one of the police cruisers. When troopers opened fire, he tried it again. The chase ended with the suspect car crashing into a berm and the driver attempting – unsuccessfully – to flee on foot. Turns out that there were four teenagers in the stolen vehicle, including the 17-year-old driver, a 13-year-old who was found to be in possession of a handgun and ammunition, a second 13-year-old, and a 15-year-old wanted on two capiases.
Note that NONE of the individuals taken into custody was legally allowed to have possession of a handgun. They were found to be in a stolen vehicle. The driver attempted to use a deadly weapon – in this case, the vehicle itself, to ram two PA State Police cars. So, what happned in the aftermath?
The 17-year-old driver of the stolen vehicle was “charged with multiple felonies before being released on $4,000 unsecured bond.” The 13-year-old who was found to be in possession of the handgun was “charged with multiple felonies and was released on $2,000 unsecured bond.” The other 13-year-old taken into custody was not charged and was released. The only person retained in custody was the 15-year old, who “was arraigned on two capiases and committed to the New Castle County Detention center, in lieu of $1,000 secured bond.”
This is a classic example of the “catch and release” policy in effect in Wilmington and many other urban communities being plagued by gun crime. The criminal justice system is doing nothing to deter repeat offenses. In case after case, perpetrators of gun crimes, when they are arrested, are found to be persons already prohibited from the possession of firearms due to prior criminal history. Yet, they were out in society and able to obtain a gun to commit yet another crime. This only serves to highlight that the cause of gun crime is not the gun – it is something much deeper in the socio-economic fabric of the communities from which the perpetrators come. More gun control laws which will only affect the law-abiding will do nothing to address the true underlying issues. In the meantime, the offenders are put back on the streets to strike again, while elected officials only want to further infringe on the rights and abilities of potential victims to defend themselves.
It is time to stop the “revolving door” on our criminal justice system, putting dangerous felons back on the streets with a slap on the wrist. It is time to deter gun crime by giving the perpetrators sentences of sufficient severity to serve as a deterrent to potential future crimes. It is time to stop trying to pass more restrictive gun laws which will only serve to further infringe on what is already the most heavily regulated of all of our Constitutionally-protected basic freedoms – the right to keep and bear arms!
Instead, it should be time to identify and resolve the true root causes of the gun violence epidemic, including things like lack of economic opportunities, a failing public educational system, and breakdown of the stable family unit, just to mention a few.
It is time for each and every one of us to pick up a phone, write a letter or send an email to each and every one of our elected officials and tell them, in no uncertain terms, that we expect them to do their jobs and find real solutions to the real problems – which does not include advancing a fatally-flawed, rights-infringing, gun control agenda!!
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