The Gun Counter

Editor's Notebook: Buying Guns "Online"
by Rich Grassi

I wouldn't be surprised if you missed it, as few people bother to watch network television (known as part of "state run media" by certain commentators) anymore. I caught it on the internet. While I'm not sure, I believe it was Good Morning America and they ran a piece on a company from which some of the more recent mass-shooters made purchases. It was the typical ABC/CBS/NBC consolidated news service coverage - long on bias, short on (understated) facts.

The thesis was that mass shooters, known as "loners," buy their gear online because they're uncomfortable being around people. To increase their comfort level, we're left to guess, they apparently decide to shoot the people that make them uncomfortable. How that's supposed to help is unexplained - that's important.

The thrust of the piece wasn't "mass killer: how to identify and prevent mass killings." The thrust of the piece was that "internet gun sales," something that doesn't exist in reality like "internet camera sales," make it easier for mass killers to kill. That this conclusion is high idiocy doesn't need to be explained to our subscribers. For others, a brief notice in how guns are purchased is in order.

You make arrangements for the seller to ship to a local licensee. The seller, in this situation a company, requests the funds and a copy of the local licensee's license: the Federal Firearms License. You pay the money and send the FFL along. The gun ships to the licensee. The buyer goes to the licensee, fills out form 4473. The licensee takes the buyer's photo ID, checks the information and fills that in. The information from form 4473 is called in to the FBI's National Instant Check System (NICS). The NICS clerk checks the buyer then rejects, delays or clears the purchaser.

The federal government gave permission for the transaction. You had to ask Daddy if it's okay for you to buy a gun. Get it?

If you are cleared, you usually pay the licensee for the time and trouble to take the gun in, to book it in, to have you properly fill out the 4473 and to run your NICS transaction. Then you get your gun. Contrast that with the story from our heroes in American Journalism.

Their story starts out that if you buy the gun over the internet, you don't have to be face to face with people. They imply "it'll show up in the mailbox." In fairness, they have someone report that the gun "has to be shipped to a dealer" and that there's still the background check before transfer is made. Before that can sink in, they quickly move to their straw man, "high capacity" magazines "like this one" (showing a Glock 18 magazine). "Should people be able to get high capacity magazines over the internet?" we're asked. Nothing like changing the question.

Well, yes. If Homer can't pass the background check to get the gun, what can he do with the magazine? Huh?

The intention, like always, is to say "oh, lookie here!" when there's a counter-vailing issue on the other side. "Uh, well, yeah, National Instant Check . . . uh, but not on clips!"

Clips go in your hair. They hold sheets of paper together. They hold cartridges together to be loaded into magazines. Yes, I know what they mean.

The biggest "news" in the piece was the anchor (commonly interpreted as "something to be thrown over the side into the sea") asking the company's owner "How do you feel that your products are responsible for the deaths of forty people?"

Well, how did products produce forty human fatalities? In fact, where did you get the number of fatalities? It's never explained.

How do you know that the gear the shooter(s) had was the specific gear the company shipped? Maybe he bought more of it elsewhere.

When the owner (quite well spoken) pointed the obvious problems out, it was changed to "How do you feel that people who were your customers were mass killers?"

My questions to the consolidated "news" service are about the same. "How you do feel, violating professional ethics to support an anti-individual rights agenda?"

"How do you feel about spreading the propaganda of anti-rights groups?"

"How can you sleep at night when you target innocent individuals because you won't target the idiots who lack self esteem, weren't held enough when they were babies, and didn't get enough loving or respect - and then responded by committing murder?"

Murderous scumbags killed people because they were (1) crazy, (2) bullied, (3) uncomfortable around people, (4) or just plain damn mean. In fact, notice they pick on people known to be unarmed. How often do they storm the local police station? Ever wonder why that is?

I doubt that any of our media clowns are checking in, but they need to do a gear check. I don't think they pack the gear to do the job journalism is supposed to be. It's about taking risks, not sucking up. It's about "speaking truth to power," not about staying on the Inside-the-Beltway Cocktail Parties list. It's about doing the right thing even if your buddies in Congress, the administration, the mayor's office will be embarrassed.

They have a short time left. New media is in ascendency. Old, statist, left-wing, Communist-wanna-be's are old hat. They're going away.

Good riddance.