Over 1,000 firearms & one person arrested for 30600(a) PC, in one of the largest recoveries in LAPD history. How did this happen?
The LAPD & ATF received info that a person was selling & manufacturing illegal firearms, which led to a search warrant in a Holmby Hills residence. pic.twitter.com/9kWq4vuFnb
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) May 9, 2019
A man was arrested Wednesday after authorities seized more than 1,000 guns from a home in Holmby Hills, authorities said.
Officials received an anonymous tip about a person illegally manufacturing and selling guns in a home in the 100 block of North Beverly Glen Boulevard, said Officer Mike Lopez, a spokesman with the Los Angeles Police Department.
As part of an ongoing joint investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the LAPD served a search warrant at the home at 4 a.m., he said.
The ATF said in a statement that its agents searched the home after discovering an individual illegally selling firearms “outside the scope of the federal firearm license that the individual possesses.”
Over a thousand guns of various types and ages were found. A second home was searched on North Bunker Hill Avenue in Los Angeles, but apparently nothing found there.
ICYMI: booking info on LA man accused of violating state gun laws, arrested yesterday in a house containing 1000+ guns & ammo. @LAPDHQ #HolmbyHills #GirardSaenz #nbc4you pic.twitter.com/HpeMnTgEoz
— Beverly White (@BeverlyNBCLA) May 9, 2019
A 57-year-old man identified in court records as the longtime companion of Los Angeles real estate mogul Cynthia Beck was arrested Wednesday after authorities seized more than 1,000 guns from a home in Holmby Hills. https://t.co/7LLhnm2G55
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) May 9, 2019
This is a developing story. Not much on it that I’ve seen. Of course, guns are no longer news. We’ve already moved on from the two shootings in Colorado this past week.
Open thread!
lgerard
How is this guy not the new president of the NRA?
Jeffro
“One gun is a tragedy; one thousand guns is a statistic.” So are a thousand school shootings, apparently.
Steeplejack (phone)
Anybody have any experience with Apple Music (not iTunes)? I got a free account when I upgraded my cell-phone plan, but I haven’t fired it up yet. Any advice appreciated.
ETA: Just realized there are no other comments so far. Hope it’s okay for an early one to be “off topic,” even though it is an open thread.
ThresherK
Now, I know the term “real estate mogul” has taken some lumps this decade, but how does Beck end up here? Being a real-estate mogul is just too squeaky-clean, like she’s running Bailey Bros. Building and Loan*, and she has to keep time with a small-time (sic) arms dealer just to make her feel accomplished?
(*Everything in the world can be described through the lens of this movie.)
MomSense
Not sure if anyone caught the story about the Highland Ranch kids protesting the vigil at their school. It was taken over by adults/politicians and they want it to be their voices that are heard. I’m so proud of those students.
Ohio Mom
How much did that all cost?
Seriously, I have no idea, ask me how much a pair of women’s shoes cost, that I know.
Cacti
@Jeffro:
The latest school shooting was barely a blip on the media radar until days after the fact.
Low body count school shootings with minimal reaction are now our new normal.
MomSense
@Ohio Mom:
I know how much shoes cost because I watch the sales until they are priced somewhere approaching affordable.
MomSense
@Steeplejack (phone):
I begrudgingly got a family subscription to Spotify a few years ago because my kid had a long bus ride and wanted to be able to download music for his commute. I don’t have any experience with Apple Music but I think it is a similar subscription type service to Spotify.
khead
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No, really. This question was actually asked in an LAPD tweet. What fucking planet do they live on?
Brachiator
This is sending locals all aflutter because Holmby Hills is in the liberal rich part of Los Angeles.
Who dis Cynthia Beck?
She has some strange friends.
Adam L Silverman
@ThresherK: Some of the reporting indicates this guy is one of the Getty heirs.
Steeplejack (phone)
@MomSense:
Thanks, I know the basics. I was wondering if anybody had any hot tips or warnings about unexpected features, like, say, the account is free but somehow you get charged add-on fees or something. Or like the app is a terrible memory hog, etc.
Ohio Mom
@MomSense: Me too. And sometimes when at the mall, while taking the shortcut through Nordstrom, I will stop and gawk at the $500 dollar shoes. They all look horribly uncomfortable.
I am convinced that Nordstrom does not stock them, that they only have one shoe in one size for display purposes.
But back to my question, how much did that stash cost? I assume a LOT.
Alien Radio
@Brachiator: this is like that human traffiking raid in florida, street investigation leads to extremely sketchy criminal conduct with some of the wealthiest people in the world connected to it. Smells of parrallel construction.
MelissaM
A white guy, I see. Casually sitting by. Of course. A black person would have been shot.
Brachiator
@Alien Radio:
Or it might just be that some wacky rich people have equally wacky friends and hangers-on.
Harbison
It’s very disturbing to see this.
Why are all of these firearms just piled up like this? They are going to be dented/scratched/etc. if not handled properly. I really doubt that the owner just kept them in piles like that.
I’m all for enforcing the gun laws, but many of those guns do not appear to be obviously illegal.
Jeffro
@Cacti: oh I know
This is the same country where a guy lived up over 500 people, killing something like 60 or 70, and we were all back to normal in about 48 hours.
This country is so desensitized at this point that yeah, a 2- or 3- victim school shooting could happen most every day and not even register…wait did I say ‘could’? I meant ‘does’
Mnemosyne
Well, that can’t be possible, because I’ve been assured by gun nuts that all legal gun owners are law-abiding and the only real problem is criminals with illegal guns.
I mean, the facts and statistics are against them, but they still believe it 100 percent.
Adam L Silverman
From looking at the pictures of what he was hoarding, for lack of a better term, and from reading the articles on the arrest, there appear to be three alleged crimes here. The first is what was indicated in the article, that he was in violation of his Federal Firearms License (FFL). Since he was working from his home, he most likely had what is referred to as a Kitchen Table FFL. Unlike the regular commercial FFLs that are held by the owners of commercial gun stores, colloquially known as Legal Gun Shops/Stores (LGS), the regs for a kitchen table FFL places a limit on how many firearms the holder can sell each month. However, that number is considered to be nebulous and unclear.
The second, also referred to in some of the reporting, is that he was in possession of fully automatic weapons or the parts to create them, like an auto sear. Unless he has the National Firearms Act (NFA) paperwork for those items, he’s in a lot of trouble.
The third, based on the pictures, is that he’s allegedly in violation of California state firearms law, which prohibits the sale and/or ownership/possession of .50 BMG (Browning Machine Gun) caliber weapons, as well as AR pattern long guns that haven’t been modified to be in compliance with California state firearms law. These modified ARs cannot have expandable stocks, must have non-detachable box magazines, and cannot have pistol grips.
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
I think they might be getting stuff mixed up. Unless this is a previously unknown child. The legitimate Getty heirs (children of his wife) didn’t associate with Beck. I think that all of Beck’s kids with Getty are daughters.
But if there is a connection… wow.
West of the Rockies
I think one month prison per gun is more than compassionate.
Wait, he’s white? Let’s give him probation.//
Mnemosyne
@Harbison:
Hahahahahaha a kid was murdered 3 days before his graduation trying to protect his classmates.
That one must have been a great orgasm for you as you jerked off to the thought of a kid bleeding out as his friends frantically tried to save him.
dm
Treat it like a drug bust: “a stash of guns with an estimated street value of almost a million dollars”
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: @MomSense: @Ohio Mom: Based on eye balling the inventory laid out on the tarps, he’s got somewhere between $20K and $40 worth of hand guns and long guns depending on make, model, and caliber. Could be more, much more, could be much less if most of the revolvers are Tauruses or some other less than stellar manufacturer.
In terms of ammo, depending on the caliber and type of loading (self defense/hollow point ammo versus ball ammo), he’s easily got $10K to $15K worth of ammo.
That’s just based on quick eyeballing what is being shown in the pictures.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator:
I keep telling you all that conservatives aren’t the only ones who own guns.
NotMax
Brings new meaning to the term “stock broker.” //
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack (phone): All the digital liner notes have a typo.
Mathguy
@Harbison: Snark? If not, you may have walked into the wrong comments thread, because the only thing that anyone here wants for those guns is that they be destroyed.
lamh36
Good evening BJ.
Busy day at work, so I made it home over an hour later than I usually do.
I supposed to meet with my sister and my cuz FINALLY to discuss the London trip NEXT WEEK…GAH!
Oh and I finished my Health Law Take Home final Tuesday night, gonna turn it in tomorrow and let it do what it do…I’ve exhausted all the answers I have. By the time I return from my London/Dallas (gonna visit my sister after London) I’ll have my grades…hoping for 2 “A’s or at least 1 “A”, 1 “B”
fingers crossed!!!
Roger Moore
@Harbison:
Even if the guns are legal, they may still be sold illegally. For example, they could be sold to people who are legally forbidden to buy them, like felons who haven’t had their right to own firearms restored. Or the seller might have skipped the proper background checks. California also has a mandatory 10 day waiting period, so selling a gun without that 10 day wait would have been a violation of California law even if it was legal under federal law.
Mike in NC
I knew a guy back in the 1970s whose dad had been a pilot in WW1 with the US Army Air Service. He came back home with a machine gun that he salvaged from a crashed German plane, and to my knowledge it’s still owned by the family and was never registered.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: One of the original articles last night indicate that one of the residents was one of the male Gettys, but that it was unknown if he was home at the time of the raid and/or he’s the guy being charged. That may have been erroneous because of Beck, but it was in the first article I read on the topic last night.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Were did he put them all and what did he spend all his time cleaning them?
Just think, at twenty rounds to make it worth shooting a gun at the range, he would need 20,000 rounds of ammo.
lamh36
Why We Need a Tough President Like Kamala Harris
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
They claim to have seized over 1000 guns, so the total value is likely to be at least in the 6 figures, if not 7.
trollhattan
Know how NIST has the official weights and measures? This will henceforth the official Metric Buttload of Weapons. All other weapon buttloads are to be measured against this one.
Fvcking weirdos.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in NC: It predates the laws regulating them and is grandfathered in. If they ever decide to sell it, then it will have to go through proper regulatory hurdles with the ATF. They’re also sitting on a gold mine. Given the scarcity of (fully) automatic weapons in the US because of the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986, and the weapons provenance, a legitimate collector would pay a fortune for it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mike in NC: Friend of my has a collection of every firearm used by the British Empire. It includes a Lewis gun (one of the first one man machine guns) He got the Lewis gun from a dealer in Berkeley, CA of all places who also wanted to sell him a 50 cal machine gun.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Or, Stephen Paddock on any Thursday.
trollhattan
@Mike in NC: @Adam L Silverman:
My old man brought back a few “War Souvenir” weapons from Japan after the war, and one unofficial souvenir machine gun that he broke up and scattered around the ship. It never made it stateside because somebody else helped themselves.
Am okay with not having grown up with that thing in the furnace room, although it would have made an interesting conversation piece with my friends when we were eleven.
Frankensteinbeck
It’s nice to see a man referred to by his relationship with a woman, for once.
Adam L Silverman
@Roger Moore: Some of those guns will retail for between $300 and $600, specifically the hand guns depending on make, model, and caliber. Some of the long guns will retail for between $600 and $3,000 depending on make, model, and caliber. If he’s got some particularly high end stuff, then the handguns can go for up to $3K and the long guns up to $5K. So if he’s got a Knights Precision sniper rifle in .50 BMG, that’s in the mid thousands. Same if he’s got a Nighthawk Custom or Wilson Combat or Dawson 1911 – those handguns would run in the $2K to $3K range depending on model and caliber. But the odds are that most of this isn’t the highest end stuff, so I think my eyeballed estimates, while conservative, are not unreasonable.
lamh36
When you are already used to breaking bread with your racist mother, father, brother, sister, cousin, uncle, aunt…etc…of course you’d have no problem breaking bread with a racist like CHump…
MomSense
@lamh36:
I was just about to post that article. I noticed that at Needy Amin’s Last rally he didn’t mention her, give her an insulting nickname, or make any disparaging comments. He’s either afraid of her or underestimating her (big mistake).
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
Really good piece.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack (phone): Don’t know if you saw my answer to your question about launchers the other day…I’m using the Microsoft Launcher.
debbie
@lamh36:
Boston is one of the most racist cities in this country. I was shocked to learn this when I was living there (1974 busing riots). Cradle of Liberty, Bah!
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
I still think you slipped a decimal. If he has 1000 guns and they sell for $300 each, that’s $300K, not the $20-40K you estimated.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: He did call her nasty last week after the Barr hearing.
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yeah, I saw and replied, thanks. Guess you didn’t see that!
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Worst AP math test question ever.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s just an unfathomable amount of stupid. I cannot relate to it at all.
Adam L Silverman
@Roger Moore: @trollhattan: I wrote:
Overall, if he’s got over a thousand firearms plus ammo, he’s definitely got several hundred thousand, if not a million dollars worth of guns and ammo. But just what’s on the tarp/in those pictures, he’s in the $20K to $50K range including the ammo. Maybe a bit more.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
Well, if it’s just a typo and not rampant subject/verb disagreement and homophone abuse I guess I’m okay with it.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
He did but it didn’t stick. He tried it a couple of times but he didn’t say anything in his rally. I think her line of questioning was substantive and damaging enough that his counsel probably said ixnay on the oking pay.
MomSense
@debbie:
It was still pretty damned racist in the 90s.
Frankensteinbeck
@lamh36:
Yeah, but I would think they’d respect their teammates-
No, of course not. The whole point of Trumpism is to be loud and proud about being a racist asshole.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: Can you do a conversion from Smith & Wesson to Jimmy Choo?
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: You may want to double check the fine print. Every time there’s an upgrade for iTunes in iOS, they tell me I’ve got free Apple Music for X number of months if I want to sign up. I don’t want to sign up, so I just ignore it.
MomSense
@MomSense:
A Romy 85 is $675 and an SW22 Victory Target CF is $649. The Romy is available in 7 colorways, though.
debbie
@MomSense:
For sure, wicked racist!
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks. My account is not time-limited, so I don’t have to worry about the meter suddenly starting up.
Ohio Mom
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks. It’s a lot of money but it isn’t as much as I was imagining.
Still creepy as anything to have that many.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: That’s just for what’s in the pictures. Overall, @Roger Moore: is correct, there’s probably close to/at least a half million dollars worth in the total amount of guns and ammo he had.
Gin & Tonic
@Harbison:
I thought I recognized you, but I wasn’t sure. Now I am.
Harbison
@Roger Moore:
Oh, I agree and I am not questioning that there were violations of some type – it’s kind of hard to tell given the police dept’s lack of specificity.
The bothersome thing is how they’re being mishandled.
@Mnemosyne:
The young man who sacrificed himself saving others has a name. it is Kendrick Castillo. According to photographs provided by his family and things on facebook, he was a hunter and a gun owner. Maybe you can go picket his funeral and spew your hatred there.
Ohio Mom
@Adam L Silverman: Ohhh, that’s more of what I was imagining.
For most people, that’s a lot of money, more money than they would be able to save up over a lifetime. But this nut had it, and of all thing things he could have purchased or otherwise used it for…
Steve in the ATL
@trollhattan: my uncle, whom you know, used to keep a Gatling gun in his entrance hall. He is, you know, eccentric.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve in the ATL:
As one does…
Ohio Mom
@Harbison: Eh, I admit I know next to nothing about guns but aren’t these things mass-produced? Aren’t there a gazillion others just like each one of them out there? Why would any one of them have any intrinsic value?
Ohio Mom
@Steve in the ATL: The same relative who is sojourning in South America? Anything else about him you want to share?
MomSense
@Harbison:
The bothersome thing is how the guns are being mishandled? Fuck you. How dare you invoke that hero’s name. My nephew is having panic attacks and feeling terrible guilt because he stayed home from school that day.
Go fondle your precious guns and leave us alone.
NotMax
@Steve in the ATL: Steve in the ATL
Rendered inoperable? That could then be described as all hat, no gattle*.
;)
*joketic license; am well aware whence comes the actual name
Steve in the ATL
@Ohio Mom: oh no. This is my artist uncle, an actual blood relative. CPA southern Baptist uncle, related my marriage to my wife, is the drug and arms cartel money launderer.
Steve in the ATL
@NotMax: delete your account!
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: Value basically comes from five different groups, though there is often overlap:
1) Professionals
2) Competition (sport) shooters
3) Serious hunters
4) Collectors
5) Everyone else who owns a gun for whatever reason
In the first category, for instance, you have people like my friend who is a SWAT sniper who has a very, very, very high quality, and therefore very, very, very expensive sniper rifle.
Sport shooters who shoot for competition often have what are referred to as tuned or race guns. A lot of times these are high end, sometimes custom, sometimes just customized after market, handguns, rifles, and shotguns used for competition.
Serious hunters will also, often, have very high end, sometimes custom, sometimes just customized after market, handguns, rifles, and/or shotguns depending on what they hunt.
Collectors are sort of self explanatory.
Everyone else. This includes people who may hunt or occasionally sport shoot or might have a nice inherited item or live out in the middle of nowhere or on a ranch or a farm and want it for self defense from four legged predators or those that feel the need for self defense in their homes. The firearms in this category can range from utilitarian to custom, so the prices can range from a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand dollars.
Harbison
@Ohio Mom:
I didn’t study the pictures to see if there are any real collector items there, but almost all gun owners are pretty careful to not scratch their firearms, prevent rust from mishandling, etc. It’s sort of like cars – they’re mass produced, too, but most people do what they can to prevent scratches/dents.
H.E.Wolf
@Gin & Tonic:
Yep. That fellow has been showing up periodically on gun-violence-related posts, apparently to attempt to weave a spell of words to persuade us all that guns are actually great to have around.
In related news, I pay attention to which of the infrequent posters like to pick fights, particularly with our female regulars.
(Also, I’m of the opinion that anyone who uses the word “spew” un-ironically is 99% likely to be bad news of some kind.)
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I honestly do not know how you keep doing whatever it is to your comments that you’re doing. But instead of whatever you’re doing, how about you just hit the reply widget and then reply?
Ohio Mom
@Steve in the ATL: Thanks for clearing that up.
Quaker in a Basement
On a more positive note, the suspect did not have a cache of accordions.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh noes! Then the deep state would be able to snag him.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Harbison:
They’ll be melted down once they’re used as evidence in the defendant’s trail.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Quaker in a Basement: Well that eliminates ‘Weird Al’.
Ohio Mom
@Harbison: That explains it, I think that people who obsess over their car’s minor scratches, dents and dings are missing the point. That’s too trivial to use any brain power on.
One of the most surprising days of Ohio Dad’s working life was when the other guys in the office started talking about their guns. Many of them had sentimental attachments to various firearms: “I inherited my grandpa’s rifle when he died,” “I still have the gun I got for Christmas when I was 12,” that sort of thing. I already thought they were a bunch of yahoos (with one exception), that just cemented my opinion of them.
My feeling remains, if you’re not in law enforcement or you don’t hunt for food, and all you want to do is hit something, take up archery.
Xavier Onassis
@Harbison: Not to worry. Plenty more where they came from.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Mostly because there is no reply widget appearing on my screen, and never has been one.
cwmoss
@Mnemosyne: Hahaha! That’s awesome. The troll you were trolling hasn’t yet gotten the hang of American syntax. Hard to find good English instruction on the Volga these days, I guess.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: This part of the deep state is prepared to put him in time out.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Sucks to be you.
cwmoss
@Adam L Silverman: They also seem to be crowdsourced, like IMDB plot descriptions.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
One grows to embrace it.
;)
Steve in the ATL
@Ohio Mom:
May the odds be ever in your favor!
What—you didn’t realize I’m a tween girl?
cwmoss
@MomSense: Damn, I didn’t know they called it “colorways” with guns! Wait, you’re talking about guns, right?
Jay Noble
I was looking at the ammo boxes. Egad! Those are 500 and 1,000 round “bricks” and cases. During the “Obama’s going to take your guns!” days, there were lots of gun stores that didn’t have that that much ammo!
Former Cabela’s employee
NotMax
@NotMax
That explains oh so very much.
:)
TenguPhule
@Quaker in a Basement:
They are somewhere north, east and west of Los Angeles. As Mr. Powell can explain, they’re cleverly disguised as food trucks.
Steve in the ATL
@NotMax: now you know why I post so much about Hello Kitty and shopping at Hot Topic
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Because you have disabled everything post-2003.
Jay
@Jay Noble:
There was an “ammo panic” created by Conspiracy Theorists and Fake News that caused a burst of ammo hoarding by ammosexuals, that created a shortage.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Oh, I know the why of it. And it is paradise.
Roger Moore
@Harbison:
They’re guns seized as evidence of a crime. If the guy is convicted- and it seems likely that he will be- the guns will eventually be destroyed.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
Did anyone every track down the sources for that panic? E.g. could have been a pump-and-dump, or an ammo manufacturer.
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
I used to work with a guy who had a federal firearms license and kept machine guns and shot them at shooting meets. This was 30 yrs ago and getting a federal firearms license was not difficult at all. It also was not in CA, he lived in OH. When in HS I worked for a while for an ex marine drill sergeant who owned a fully restored US Army half track and he had a Browning 50 cal machine gun to go with it. The firing pin had been removed to make it non operable but he owned a machine shop and did work for the defense industry. Making another one was no problem. I wouldn’t tell this story except he passed away quite a while ago. He rented out the half track to movies.
Steve in the ATL
@Bill Arnold: racism.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
I assume there’s a whole Southern California subculture of people who like things like that half track- or other exotic historical stuff- who help to pay for their expensive hobbies by renting to the studios.
Jay
@Bill Arnold:
It was ammosexual CT rooted in racism, a 9mm and 5.56mm shortage caused by Iraq and Afghanistan.
So the ammosexuals rushed the ammo shelves, Gun Shops jacked prices and the Manufacturer’s couldn’t keep up.
A year later there was a glut, firesales but the ammosexuals had hoarded so much ammo in the panic that there were few takers.
joel hanes
@MomSense:
the Highland Ranch kids protesting the vigil at their school. It was taken over by adults/politicians
Read more carefully, or from better sources.
Then point out the mistakes in the following :
– the vigil was organized by the Brady anti-gun organization.
– it was not held at the Highland school, but at another nearby school
– the “politicians” who got walked out on were presenting a gun-control message
– it’s not clear that the young people who did the walkout were in fact Highland students
joel hanes
@joel hanes:
I was wrong; the vigil was held at the school that suffered the shooting.
I was confused because the various news reports of the two events used variants of the school’s full name.
I regret the error.