Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

This really is a full service blog.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

T R E 4 5 O N

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Craigslist(s) for Gun Buyers

Craigslist(s) for Gun Buyers

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The NYTimes has done yeoman work drilling down past the flag-wrapped-Second-Amendment-versus-mail-order-psycho rhetoric recently. After last month’s terrifying piece on the states where gun rights trump orders of protection, there’s a new examination of Armslist.com and its fellows where “Internet Gun Sites Ease Illegal Sales”:

… Seeking a glimpse into the largely hidden online gun market, The Times assembled a database and analyzed several months of ads from Armslist, which has become the dominant player in the arena, and examined numerous smaller sites.

Over the past three months, The Times identified more than 170,000 gun ads on Armslist. Some were for the same guns, making it difficult to calculate just how many guns were actually for sale. Even so, with more than 20,000 ads posted every week, the number is probably in the tens of thousands.

Notably, 94 percent of the ads were posted by “private parties,” who, unlike licensed dealers, are not required to conduct background checks.

Besides Mr. Roman-Martinez, the Times investigation led to Gerard Toolin, 46, of Walterboro, S.C., who is a fugitive from the Rhode Island police and has two outstanding felony warrants as well as a misdemeanor warrant. His legal status bars him from owning guns, but he was recently seeking to buy an AK-47 assault rifle on Armslist and was also trying to trade a Marlin rifle. He posted photos to his Facebook account of an AK-47 he had already purchased, along with a variety of other guns.

There was also Martin Fee, who has a domestic battery conviction in Florida and other arrests and convictions in Florida and New Jersey, including for drug possession, burglary and larceny. He was selling a Chinese SKS rifle on the classified section of another Web site, BudsGunShop.com.

The examination of Armslist raised questions about whether many sellers are essentially functioning as unlicensed firearms dealers, in contravention of federal law. The law says that people who “engage in the business” of selling firearms need to obtain a license and conduct background checks on customers. While the definition of engaging in business is vague, The Times found that more than two dozen people had posted more than 20 different guns for sale in a several-month span….

Then there was Ron Metz, 49, who has advertised more than 80 guns from Anderson, S.C., since February. Mr. Metz said in an interview he had needed money, so he started selling some guns and trading for others. He also bought other guns, which he turned around and sold as well. He said he had no real idea how many he had sold, guessing that it was more than a dozen. He never keeps any records and does not do any background checks, explaining: “I can just sort of read people.”

“You think I broke a law?” he asked…

Reader Interactions

128Comments

  1. 1.

    Trollhattan

    Hey now, no use in picking on an innocent AK-47! It can’t control who fondles it.

    So yeah, great, if the loopholes aren’t already big enough, just shoot them wider. In the meantime we’re toldlectured if we’d “just enforce the laws we already have” we’d be okie-dokie.

    I don’t feel okie-dokie. In fact, I shudder in fear of whatever incident is going to make us forget Sandy Hook.

  3. 3.

    some guy

    read that Times story and was horrified. not sure why these people are not in prison?

  4. 4.

    Bokonon

    Since the NRA shot down yesterday’s background check legislation, claiming it wouldn’t deter criminals – perhaps the NRA would now be kind enough to use its expertise to craft some new, substitute legislation that WOULD effectively deter criminal behavior, and prevent crooks from getting guns. And lend some sanity to this whole crazy shadow economy in firearms that goes with it, undercutting retail gun dealers that actually follow the law.

    Ha. Just kidding.

  5. 5.

    Ben Franklin

    “I can just sort of read people.”

    *chuckle

    Reminds me of a George Carlin schtick on how to avoid jury duty.

    “Just say, ‘I can spot guilty people just like that (snap!)”

  7. 7.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    @Trollhattan:

    Unfortunately (albeit anecdotally), it seems like most people around me are basically parroting the same exact shit, from as tame as ’empty emotional appeal’ to ‘STUPID GUNGRABBING TRATIOR!!!’ to where I’m pretty much the only person I seem to personally know these days who actually supports any modicum of gun control. And some of these people are those who I’d nominally consider ‘liberal’.

    It just makes me feel like this really is just the fucking dead end and the NRA really just just flat out win for-fuckiing-ever

  9. 9.

    Mnemosyne

    @some guy:

    Which ones, the sellers or the criminals buying the guns?

    As far as I can tell, the sellers are not breaking any current laws, or at least are unaware that those laws might apply to them. There’s no way for the government to trace whether or not an ex-felon buys a gun this way since there’s no background check, so the only way anyone will know is if the ex-felon commits a new crime and is caught with those illegal guns.

    But all we have to do is enforce the current laws, and all our problems will be solved!

  10. 10.

    Short Bus Bully

    Guys, this is the first step towards tyranny, don’t you realize that? The ONLY thing standing between us and a caucasian genocide in the U.S. is Armslist. Take that away and they’ll murder us in our beds.

  11. 11.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    @some guy:

    Because if only one has been proven since Newtown, it’s that ‘GUNS ARE FREEDOM’ and if you try to regulate them one fucking iota, you are officially an America-hating traitor.

  14. 14.

    Mnemosyne

    @The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:

    I forwarded the Gabby Giffords editorial to my friend here at work, and she put it on her Facebook page. So far, only supportive messages, even from her redneck relatives in Missouri.

    There is a tide turning, mostly with women (particularly moms). And turning your back on women voters is a very bad idea, as the Republicans learned in 2012.

  15. 15.

    raven

    So CNN came out TWO FUCKING HOURS AGO and said the guys in the pics were no longer of interest.

  17. 17.

    Dave

    FBI is releasing photos. In an unsurprising twist, they are completely different people that the photos the NY Post was circulating earlier today.

  18. 18.

    Jay in Oregon

    @Bokonon:

    Since the NRA shot down yesterday’s background check legislation, claiming it wouldn’t deter criminals – perhaps the NRA would now be kind enough to use its expertise to craft some new, substitute legislation that WOULD effectively deter criminal behavior, and prevent crooks from getting guns.

    It would kinda defeat their purpose, which is to make sure as many people can buy as many guns as possible. That fox is just guarding the henhouse as best he can.

  25. 25.

    some guy

    who was that asshole ranting away at the FBI press conference?

    btw, Boston.com has the photos up on their website

  31. 31.

    Jay in Oregon

    Then there was Ron Metz, 49, who has advertised more than 80 guns from Anderson, S.C., since February. Mr. Metz said in an interview he had needed money, so he started selling some guns and trading for others. He also bought other guns, which he turned around and sold as well. He said he had no real idea how many he had sold, guessing that it was more than a dozen. He never keeps any records and does not do any background checks, explaining: “I can just sort of read people.”

    “You think I broke a law?” he asked…

    Forward that bit to everyone you know and say “these are the people who won when that gun regulation bill was flushed.”

    I suspect that his “reading” of people is based primarily on the color of the dust jacket…

  33. 33.

    Morzer

    The more I see of the NRA, the more I feel tempted to invest in a bunker, copious amounts of tinned food and enough weapons to keep an armored division in business for a year or so.

  34. 34.

    Keith G

    I think many of the folks involved in that market aren’t evil nor conventionally stupid. They are used to dealing with a product that up until relatively recently had few regulations (at their level of market activity).

    What I am getting at this is another “generational issue”. While in the near term, we might be able to nibble around the edges of significant gun regulation, the bigger successes will come as we continue educating the disengaged while stalwarts on the other side rendezvous with actuarial certainty.

  35. 35.

    lamh35

    is it me or do these mean look distinctly NOT dark-skinned.

    FYI, I fully expect the usual race baiters though to analyze every stereotype they can to try to profile these suspects to their expectations.

  37. 37.

    scav

    @lamh35: I’ve already read comments about how they’re not blond and blue-eyed so who can tell? may have been snark.

  40. 40.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tweety is oddly obsessed with the idea that there should’ve been wanted posters posted on every virtual and actual phone pole in the country for the last twenty-four hours.

  41. 41.

    scav

    @raven: Can I what –read intention? no. No Idea of motivation, religion, taste in bed partners or voting habits. They’re just not the beardy or hoodied swarthy ones so eagerly assumed by some. Nor are they the doughy elderly tea bag wavers assumed by others.

  42. 42.

    wrb

    I read that yesterday, then spent a while cruising armslist.com

    Try the armslist.com listings for Idaho. There is some pretty heavy weaponry available to anyone willing to buy “face-to-face, cash only”

  43. 43.

    the Conster

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Tweety is oddly obsessed with the idea that there should’ve been wanted posters posted on every virtual and actual phone pole in the country for the last twenty-four hours.

    Fixed for accuracy.

  45. 45.

    Violet

    @some guy: He was yelling about InfoWars dot com. Something about pictures on the site or some crap. Glad the FBI guy ignored him.

  49. 49.

    scav

    @raven: What are you going on about? Is pointing out how wrong some initial reports were somehow now a deep plot to assume the outcome of some eventual trial of some eventual people who may or may not be the ones in the photographs?

  52. 52.

    Trollhattan

    I presume they’ve already cross-checked videos from Logan, Manchester, etc. for these guys attempting to fly out. Hopefully they’re still around and available for arrest. They have murders to answer for and I don’t want any faux-noble “you’ll never take me alive, coppers!” from their yaps.

  57. 57.

    Hal

    @lamh35:

    is it me or do these mean look distinctly NOT dark-skinned.

    I cannot tell, and that’s what is bugging me the most. People are going to project their own biases and those two will end up looking like whoever each individual is most likely to be a terrorist. Plus, when I think of manhunts for suspects in Boston, I always think of that incident with the husband who shot his pregnant wife and then blamed a black man. Hopefully calmer heads will prevail in this hunt.

  58. 58.

    lamh35

    CNN Fail again: CNN: “You cant tell if these are Americans or not.” Um how do “Americans” look?

  59. 59.

    Keith G

    @raven: It seems we live in a society where “too soon” is not an important criteria.

    Lord, now I sound like my grandma.

  61. 61.

    Violet

    @MomSense: Hadn’t occurred to me. What did occur to me is that it’s not that hard to change your profile or various facial figures with stuff actors use to do just that. Relatively easy to come by and all they have to do is change a key feature, like the nose, and it’ll send people off on a wild good chase.

  62. 62.

    maya

    I don’t know. Prime suspect in white, south facing bb hat has dark curly hair. Could be Arab, Jewish, Greek, Italian or mix&match blend. I think we can eliminate Icelandic.

  63. 63.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I guess there’s nothing for a TeeVee host to do but keep talking while the video runs over and over again, but lord a mighty I wish they had someone other than Tweety filling that time on MSNBC. Terrible case both for his arrested adolescent junior-G-Man fantasies and his rolodex. Tom Ridge?

  66. 66.

    Violet

    @lamh35: Well, they’re not wrong about that. You can’t tell one way or the other from just looking at them. But then, you can’t really tell that about anyone, so, yeah, the CNN comment is full of racist undertones.

  67. 67.

    protected static

    @Mnemosyne: It depends on the seller. The guy with 80 guns listed for sale? Breaking the law. Anyone who sells out of state without transferring through a licensed dealer (who would do a background check as part of the transfer) is breaking the law. Any seller who arranges a face-to-face deal across state lines is breaking the law.

  68. 68.

    Violet

    @raven: I didn’t see anything from another night, but read something here about it. The guy was loud. I wonder who let him into the briefing and allowed him near a microphone.

  71. 71.

    raven

    @Violet: It might have been someone else from that outfit? Oh, and if you are worried about fracking John just put up a post in that topic.

  72. 72.

    scav

    @Violet: A lot of slicing and dicing of “White” (dark curly hair, probably mediterranean) going on as well. Funny, I thought suspect black hat was the one people would seize on as ambiguous.

  73. 73.

    Keith G

    BTW, if there were safety short-cuts that allowed 35 of my fellow Texans to be snuffed out in that inferno, I pray that those perps are treated no better than a captured Boston bomber. Such a crime should not be considered less severe.

  75. 75.

    lamh35

    wow. here’s how you can distinguish white people from people of color on this “dark-skinned” subject.

    Majority of white people are saying, we you can’t really tell.

    People of color are saying “Shit, I’m darker-skinned than these” guys!

    White privelege?

  76. 76.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: The article raises the possibility that:

    many sellers are essentially functioning as unlicensed firearms dealers, in contravention of federal law. The law says that people who “engage in the business” of selling firearms need to obtain a license and conduct background checks on customers. While the definition of engaging in business is vague, The Times found that more than two dozen people had posted more than 20 different guns for sale in a several-month span….

    Worth looking into on the part of the Feds.

  77. 77.

    Hal

    Hey wait. Why isn’t the FBI using the special filter and zoom tech they use in CSI which provides a perfectly clear image?

  78. 78.

    scav

    @Hal: Didn’t something happen to the underground base in Cardiff with all the fast photo- face-matching technology?

  79. 79.

    lamh35

    somebody called it elsewhere, but Mitt Romney’s on CNN and guess what he brought up?

    You guessed it, his time running the Olympics

    SMDH

    Mittens just talk about your love of the city as a former governor and such.

    how hard is that?

  80. 80.

    Bobby Thomson

    @lamh35: Oh, I can tell that they’re “white.” But that’s about it. They could be Brazilian, Lebanese, Italian, or some sk8er bois from Brooklyn (or Brookline). And I’d have a hard time picking at least one of them out of a lineup.

  82. 82.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rachel: My favorite review, from I forget which British newspaper: “If only these people would stop weeping and bring on the monsters!”

  83. 83.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Trollhattan: Old Jamaican proverb: when you throw a stone into a sty, the pig that cries “whee! whee!” is the one the stone hit.

  85. 85.

    danielx

    Armslist.com is but one of many sites that provide bulletin board-type ads for list members, and none are regulated in any way. State laws vary on legality of such boards, wiht some states (e.g., New Jersey) regulating such sales more strictly than under federal law. In other states, all totally legal for instate sales since the seller can have no way of knowing the purchaser’s criminal history or lack thereof. As noted, sales across state lines without going through a federally licensed firearms dealer (at both ends of the sale) are illegal.

    The biggest public online gun sales web sites (gunbroker.com and gunsamerica.com) offer nationwide listings of guns of all types but do require a federally licensed firearms dealer at both ends, with the dealer at the buyer’s end charging a fee for the background check. However…literally anything short of an actual artillery piece is available for sale, from semiautomatic ARs and AKs to collector grade pieces.

    There are, btw, more fully automatic weapons out there than one might think. Sales of anything manufactured after 1986 are illegal, but there are lots of people out there who do have class III firearms licenses and a properly maintained gun will last virtually indefinitely if replacement parts are available. I once saw (and heard) a man in his seventies firing an honest-to-god Thompson submachine gun on an indoor firing range, which he said he owned personally…he said it was fun to shoot but too expensive to shoot too often, since it went through .45 rounds at the rate of 15 per second or so…

    There are too many guns out there and they are too easy for anyone to obtain, in most states being a lot easier to purchase than a car. Period, end of story.

  86. 86.

    Violet

    @MomSense: That nose is so distinctive, it makes me wonder if it’s fake. Seems like the kind of thing that would make identifying someone pretty simple.

  87. 87.

    Keith G

    @Violet: Given the quality of the pictures that I just saw on CBS, anybody who knows these two and has seen the pictures will be able to ID them.

  88. 88.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Mnemosyne: Better evidence based gun control measures than hysteria-based anti-video game crusades…

    Before this gets all Hilary Clinton/Tipper Gore/Sheila Brozlovsky

  93. 93.

    Trollhattan

    Also, too, they are coming for your gunz.

    A day after Congress rejected a package of bills aimed at tightening restrictions on gun ownership, California lawmakers moved in the opposite direction, increasing funds for a program that confiscates weapons from people who are prohibited from owning them because of mental illness or violent criminal pasts.

    The state Assembly voted 57-10 to approve Senate Bill 140, which devotes $24 million to the state Department of Justice for its Armed Prohibited Persons Program. The program compares databases of gun buyers to others listing people who have committed crimes that make them ineligible to own guns. Law enforcement agents then go to the homes of people on both lists and confiscate their weapons.

    http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/04/california-lawmakers-approve-funds-to-take-guns-from-prohibited-owners.html#storylink=cpy

    Hippies.

  94. 94.

    lamh35

    Aww, John King’s fee-fee’s are hurt.

    @JohnKingCNN: Source of description was senior gov’t official. I asked, are you sure? But I’m responsible. What I am not is racist.

  95. 95.

    Yutsano

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Worth looking into on the part of the Feds.

    Would this be the same Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms that just took a big cut out of their budget just like every other federal agency*?

    *Except meat inspectors. Apparently safe steak is all that matters to Congress.

  96. 96.

    maya

    Male decedents of Sacco and Vanzetti, my guess. Sigh! Them good old simpler days when guilty being brown in Boston didn’t involve Mooslims.

  99. 99.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tweety speculates the POI’s were foreign because they’re overdressed. He figures they dressed “overseas” a few days before when it was cooler in Boston, and they were smart enough to build mini-claymoors out of pressure cookers, but incapable of a) reading a weather forecast b) ditching a layer/

  104. 104.

    Suffern ACE

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: lol. Maybe they’re from Florida? Maybe they’re arms are covered with tattoos? Maybe they weren’t planning to run a marathon so wearing shorts seemed out of place? They were wearing khakis so maybe they work in a business casual office. The evidence points there. These guys worked in tech support for Carnival Cruises.

  106. 106.

    beltane

    @Kay: There really aren’t too many heat of the moment bombings. Unless we’re talking Zeus and his thunderbolts.

  108. 108.

    GregB

    Any chance a Max Blumenthal type can do a reverse James O’Keefe on some of these gun buyers?

  109. 109.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tweety opines someone is going to recognize them from a local “rooming house”. I’m hugely relieved to know all this is happening in a 1947 B-movie

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @Suffern ACE:

    She’s personally invested in this “planning” point she keeps making. I don’t get it. Why is this so
    important to her?
    White hat is “COCKY because this was PLANNED”

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I give him credit for hammering Romney on “apartments” though.
    Remember that? People in apartments had to go to the emergency room.
    Good catch! So true, too. Romney was such a sneaky speaker. He was always inserting these nasty little class markers.

  115. 115.

    beltane

    @Suffern ACE: If only the Elvis impersonator guy was there at the Y with them. He missed out on a good time, having a good meal and hanging out with all the boyz because it’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A.

    Fran Townsend is big on the planning angle, because as the good Bushie she is, the whole concept of contingency planning is foreign to her. A Bush administration person plan? You’ve gotta be kidding.

  117. 117.

    beltane

    In the Soviet Union the public would be treated to nonstop patriotic music and military marches at times like these. I have to say, even that would be an improvement over these blathering morons.

  118. 118.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: Tweety was fantastic on Romney’s race and class baiting, and there are times when his bluster is a refreshing break from the Broderism of his tribe, but he absolutely should not be commenting on law enforcement and investigation.

    @beltane: I can’t resist reposting Fran Townsend’s farewell letter to The Shrubb:

    In 1937, the playwright Maxwell Anderson wrote of President George Washington: There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, til all men walk on higher ground in their lifetime.
    Mr. President, you are such a man.

    She wrote that in 2007.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I sometimes think they exaggerate the genius of criminals because it makes them feel safer.

    Only a genius could get through our defenses. Like that.

    We got burglarized once. The police came and took pictures. The county prosecutor viewed the pictures and asked me why I had a picture of a cop over the fireplace. It’s a mirror. The other cop was reflected in the mirror.

  120. 120.

    YellowJournalism

    @Kay:

    We got burglarized once. The police came and took pictures. The county prosecutor viewed the pictures and asked me why I had a picture of a cop over the fireplace. It’s a mirror. The other cop was reflected in the mirror.

    That made me lol.

  121. 121.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Kay: When I was a teen a neighbor was getting a security clearance. The FBI came by to talk to all the neighbors. We weren’t home so he rang the doorbell a few times and left. When he talked to our next door neighbor he said; “Those people next door are strange, I know they’re home but don’t answer the door because every time I ring the doorbell someone is playing a song”. My dad had put in a doorbell that played a tune instead of a bell.

  125. 125.

    Kay

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    He’s gone now, he lost an election, but I never felt the same about him after that. I’d be walking behind him and I’d have to suppress the urge to say things like “you wanna PUSH on that door. Opens OUT”

  127. 127.

    Ed Drone

    Does the name and history of Al Capone mean anything? These guffs selling dozens of weapons probably don’t report all that income, I’m betting. So the IRS, in conjunction with ATF, should be on the doorsteps of these clowns by next Tuesday, if not sooner. And if the IRS investigation shows that they sell as a regular practice, then they’re dealers and breaking the law (hence the partnership with ATF).

    It may not stop them, but it’ll sure as shit cost ’em.

    Ed

  128. 128.

    dww44

    @Keith G: I know that I am late to this thread but I just have to disagree with this bit. I am close to 70 and all of my peers, raised in the rural South, are definitely not hung up on guns. We grew up where guns were used for hunting and mostly not needed for protection. We definitely didn’t use them for sport. SO is a Viet Nam Vet, an infantry platoon leader who lived with and used his M-16 the whole time he was there, until he was shot. He cares nothing for guns and we’ve never owned a hand gun. Indeed we’ve lived weapon free for 40 plus years.

    My anecdotal observations are that the ones who are all into guns and gun culture are 20 to 30 years younger than us. One friend went out and bought an AR-15 immediately after Sandy Hook as he believed they would be outlawed and it was an investment whose value would go up.

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