Tracing firearms used in crimes is inexact science

[SecularMotion]

SMYRNA, Ga. — Adventure Outdoors is an 80,000-square-foot store with walls lined with long guns, cases packed with handguns and aisles jammed with all the accessories an avid outdoorsman would need: coolers, clothing, ammo. At the customer service counter is a government-issued poster that warns: “Don’t lie for the other guy.”

Store founder Jay Wallace said his staff is diligent about making sure buyers are legitimate and not fronting for someone who is legally prohibited from buying a gun. But once a sale goes through, he said, it’s out of his hands.

“A firearm takes on a life of its own after it leaves. It can be bought and sold many times over,” Wallace said.

The flow of guns from one person to another, and from states with loose gun laws to those with strict ones, has long flummoxed law enforcement and gun-control advocates and is emerging again as a hot topic.

http://www.pressherald.com/2016/04/28/tracing-firearms-used-in-crimes-is-inexact-science/

[CompanyFirstSergeant]

1. The title should be....

"Woefully Inexact...."

[flamin lib]

2. This is why a searchable electronic national firearms registry in necessary. nt

[Straw Man]

3. Because ...

This is why a searchable electronic national firearms registry in necessary.

... when a gun is used in crime, it's important to know whom it was stolen from.

[flamin lib]

4. According to the ATF most crime guns aren't stolen, they are straw purchases. nt

[beevul]

5. Make a registry for straw purchasers then. N/T

[Straw Man]

6. Straw purchases ...

According to the ATF most crime guns aren't stolen, they are straw purchases.

...made by purchasers who will then claim the gun was stolen to avoid prosecution.

How about stings and long prison sentences for straw purchasers? There's a novel idea.

[flamin lib]

7. How about some funding and personnel for the ATF? nt

[Straw Man]

9. Sure -- why not?

[theatre goon]

8. Canada had one.

They shut it down because it cost a lot of money and didn't actually do any good.

So, why is it that we need one, then, when it just costs a lot of money and doesn't help anything...?