Uvalde, Mass Shootings, and Political Realism about guns
or why winning is about beating gun dealers
If someone is pointing a gun at you, it is unlikely you care about whether it was bought legally or the person holding it has been adjudicated mentally ill, is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or is a racist determined to carry out their own personal “replacement theory” strategy.
Actually you might want to care about the person who sold them the gun and their ethical fitness to do so. Were you to survive moment of someone taking aim at you with a gun, you might want to focus on who sold them the gun — they were likely enablers in whatever thought process went into that near death moment.
Gun shops are, almost without exception, home to political extremism and 2nd Amendment absolutism. Not only can you purchase an AR-15 with with less paperwork than is required to vote, you can also get bumper stickers pronouncing your hatred of government, Democrats, and Joe Biden, find out who’s who in local white supremacy groups, and pick up something with the Confederate Army battle flag on it — you know the guys who committed treason and armed rebellion against the United States.
The mass shooting in Uvalde Texas quickly morphed into public criticism about a local police failure to act, a micromanagement discussion about school doors, and good guy with a gun coffee klatches. Mental illness got a pass of sorts as the other issues overtook the front page story (mostly the police screw-ups).
At the NRA, the third worst massacre in U.S. history, just behind the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting and the the 2012 Sand Hook elementary tragedy, is looking like another win for the gun lobby due to the lack of public attention on the real problem.
Gun dealers are poorly regulated, are undertaxed, and have a great deal of legal impunity when it comes to arming racists, conspiracy theorists, and those with criminal intentions. Hair stylists, bartenders, and convenience store owners all do more government paperwork, pay more in licensing fees, and can be hauled into court more easily than a gun dealer.
Why?
It is incredibly cheap to be a gun dealer (it’s only $2001)and you can do it out of your home. If you like buying old cars, fixing them up, and then selling them — you could face criminal prosecution for that particular side hustle. Without a business address, a license to sell cars, and probably certifications for auto repair and auto body work, you are already in legal trouble and that is without a complaint against you. No such problems if you want to sell guns out of your home.
The paperwork to buy a gun, particularly in Texas, is easy and can be completed in a few minutes. That means it is easy for the gun dealer as well. I work as a craps dealer for a casino (i.e. I do this for free). To be a licensed casino dealer, I filled out a bunch of paperwork, had to have a criminal background check, and the casino that hired me has a person whose sole job is manage my license from the casino side2, i.e. the casino has to complete paperwork. Gun dealers do little more than give out a receipt to comply with federal and state law.
Who sold Salvador Ramos the AR-15 used to kill 17 chidren and 2 adults? Beats me. But with stores called “liquornguns” and “EZPawn” in town, it was definitely competitive. Uvalde has a population of 16,000, but has at least 5 businesses that sell guns and 3 of them just sell guns. It would have been 6, but Bottle and Bag stopped selling guns.
It would be nice to think that the Texas Rangers or the F.B.I., both of whom are investigating the shooting at Robb Elementary, might lean on the gun dealer who sold young Mr. Ramos the ammo and AR-15 with a “What were you thinking selling a kid with a non-driver’s license I.D. card who could have easily been actually 16 or 17 a gun?” But, they will get a shrug and a “complied with the letter of the law” response.
The solution to stopping these mass shootings is to make Federal Firearms Licenses for dealers much more expensive, require more regulatory compliance for sales of semi-automatic weapons, and limit FFL licensure based upon population density just like states do with liquor licenses.
The NRA poses as an organization to protect gun owners and Second Amendment. They are actually a lobby for gun manufacturers and gun dealers.
Just ask Philandro Castile. Oh wait, you can’t. He died at the hands of a police officer. Castile was a law abiding citizen with a concealed weapon permit. He was also an African-American driving during the daytime — thats’ when DWBs3 happen. Shot and killed without any kind of criminal suspicion4 and the NRA was silent. Why? Part of it was unbridled racism, but most of it is political realism.
The NRA protects, lobbies, and defends gun manufacturers and gun retailers in their quest for the unfettered ability to sell firearms of any kind to anyone without any legal liability. Philandro Castile was not a gun manufacturer or dealer.
The worst of it is that advocates for gun control on any level play into the hands of the NRA by focusing on who can possess a gun. Who cares? States stop drunks, derelicts, and alcoholics by controlling the point of sale not the consumption of pints, glasses, and shots.
At Villanova University, there was an informal annual event call the “Mainline Pub Crawl”. Students would drink at every bar from Merion Station to Villanova. It was legendary, quasi-illegal (many of the participants were under 21), and more than merely annoying (think passed out kids on sidewalks for about 7 miles). Oh, the university warned and threatened students, cops stepped up arrests, etc. What finally brought the event to a halt? The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board — they threatened the liquor licenses of the bars that were annually involved in the event.
See how that works. The “I might lose my license to sell liquor by pouring you a drink” reality stems the problem of underage drinking, public drunkeness, binge drinking, etc. by going after the purveyor of beer, wine, and liquor not the college kid who might be 21, if you trust his out of state New York I.D. card5.
The mass shootings in Ulvalde, Buffalo, and Sandy Hook are not just about the Salvador Ramoses, Payton Gendrons, and Adam Lanzas, it’s also about the gun dealers who sold them the weapons. All three have been villainized as “troubled” by the press and police in some way (and they most certainly were — have you ever heard of a mass shooter who was perfectly sane and rational?), but nary a bad word about the place that sold them the weapon.
If Americans want to keep “troubled” people from buying guns, it doesn’t take a realist to see that the solution is to stop allowing gun dealers to sell them AR-15s.
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/apply-license
FYI: The casino has to account for complaints against me, continuously check for arrests (if I got arrested for say a DUI, I could lose my license to work in a casino), and is culpable for my actions on the job.
Driving While Black
It was a traffic stop for an alleged moving violation. Castile had been pulled over frequently in the Twin Cities area for traffic violations and almost all of his tickets were dismissed in court.
Villanova University is a private Catholic college with a large number of New York residents attending.