Inside Gun Shows: Frightening New Investigation Into Illegal Guns Sales

Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo at 11:42 AM on October 7, 2009.

I realize that the left has completely abandoned the gun issue, but it's still necessary to highlight the fact that guns are saturating our society and the natural consequences of doing such a thing.

Mayor Bloomberg has conducted an investigation into illegal gun sales that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end:
 

Ever wonder how criminals are able to get guns so easily? It's depressingly simple. On any given weekend, at dozens of gun shows held in states across the country -- criminals can buy guns from "private sellers" who are not required to perform background checks.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has identified gun shows as the source of more than 30% of all illegally trafficked guns in the country. Those are the guns most likely to be used in crimes -- and to kill innocent people, including police officers.

Today, New York City is releasing the results of a multi-state investigation into this activity: "Gun Show Undercover." We sent investigators with hidden cameras to seven gun shows across Ohio, Tennessee and Nevada, and we found out just how easy it is for criminals and the mentally ill to walk in and buy guns -- no questions asked.

Our investigators told the private sellers that they "probably couldn't pass a background check" -- and at that point, the seller should have sent them away. Because even private sellers are prohibited by federal law from selling to those who they have reason to suspect could not pass a background check.

Instead, 19 out of 30 private sellers made the sale.

[Y]ou can watch our hidden camera videos and learn more about our investigation at www.nyc.gov/gunshow.

I had the very strange experience of witnessing the aftermath of a shooting in my own neighborhood a week or so ago. I heard the shots, saw the perpetrator zoom by in his vehicle right in front of my living room window, stood outside the crime scene tape observing victims being treated on the ground and the police conduct the investigations. I've never seen anything like that in my neighborhood before and I've lived here for over a decade. My 70 year old neighbor was shot in the crossfire. (My husband commented to the crowd that there are too many guns in this town and everyone looked at him as if he'd just said something sacrilegious, which I guess is true.)

It was baby Andrew Garcia's baptismal celebration the morning he was shot and killed*. Earlier and just a few blocks away at a city park, a large party was held for the 4-month-old child.

It happened around around 1 a.m. on Sunday on Kittridge Street in Van Nuys. Andrew, his mother and a friend, who was pregnant, were sitting in a parked car outside a family friend's house. The friend, 28-year-old Anna Contreras, was feeding Andrew while the father and Eric Ramirez, 18, stood outside. Two young men walking by got into a verbal exchange with them, which escalated with several shot gun rounds fired at the family. Ramirez and Contreras, were injured, but are expected to survive. And while Contreras' unborn baby was unharmed, Garcia died with a bullet to the head.

We've all heard about what's been happening in Chicago. It's brutal.

There's lots of anger and frustration out there right now. The zeitgeist is as angry and negative as I've ever seen it. Economic stress almost always leads to a rise in crime. The conservatives' only answer to this problem is to allow business to exploit their customers even more than they already have and create an ever more authoritarian police capacity to "keep people in line." The real answer is to find ways to ease the economic stress and get some of these deadly weapons out of the hands of criminals. You can probably guess which way this is likely to go.

But still, there is a need to shine a light on this out of control gun industry. I'm not a gun control absolutist, but the kind of activity that's exposed in these undercover videos is far more unacceptable than somebody giving tax advice to phony pimps. This is a deadly business that's killing innocent people.

One can only hope that this legitimate undercover investigation will get the kind of attention the ACORN videos did. It's a matter of life and death.

Tagged as: guns, gun show

Digby is the proprietor of Hullabaloo.