- California authorities found a man illegally owning 248 guns and 1 million rounds of ammo.
- The state attorney general said he also had 3,000 magazines and several grenades in his home.
- The guns included 11 machine guns, 133 handguns, and 60 assault rifles, authorities said.
The best part is, it sounds like they arrested him and seized his guns, all without a shot being fired.
I would love to know why this guy felt he needed so many guns and ammo, because obviously it wasn’t to protect himself from a hostile government.
Speaking as a very very casual gun enthusiast myself - - I think it’s a tricky subject. Guns & ammo are great, a million rounds certainly seems excessive, and idk it’s possible this guy was a black market arms dealer for very very bad people.
When you have guns, you wonder how you’d react to a knock on the door & an attempted gun confiscation. I don’t see many scenarios playing out where violence is called for; they are not (directly) threatening my life, but rather confiscating tool(s) that can be used for hunting, recreation, and yes preserving my life in self-defense. Very not cool. But it’s still technically not a physical threat to me. If I were to pop off some guns in defiance of a gun collection attempt, that would lend credence to the idea that I’m an “unstable person” that “shouldn’t be allowed” to own firearms. Also, my fight isn’t with the guy doing the confiscating. He’s a member of my community, he’s just some guy doing what he’s told, maybe he’s got a wife & kids. What is to be gained from shooting him in the face? Does that not make me a monster? Maybe this guy thinks similarly, he was confronted without a shot being fired.
No, from one red-blooded American to another, the no-conflict response is wisest & best. Tell them a warrant is needed, when they can’t find what they’re looking for, give them the ol’ classic “lost the guns in a terrible boating accident” line. They will be forced to accept it & move the fuck on. When tyranny reigns, defiance is duty, avoidance/lies/concealment are justified.
My line of thought is this: you can have twenty safes full of badass guns & ammunition in your basement. But that doesn’t matter if you’ve got a gun to your head on your front porch. What is practical? What is reasonable? What is necessary? Just a handful of nice guns made ready & accessible, a daily carry you’re familiar with, a solid 12-ga, a .223 hunting rifle, and a few thousand rounds of ammo for each caliber you own.
My gut tells me this guy wasn’t a prepper, if his ungodly massive stores of firearms & munitions were so easily found & rounded up. At least not a good one. My gut tells me this guy was involved in the illegal arms trade, he had a setup in his home that no-gooders could visit & “shop” for what they needed.
when they can’t find what they’re looking for, give them the ol’ classic “lost the guns in a terrible boating accident” line.
Ah yes, lie to the cops.
They will be forced to accept it & move the fuck on.
Or they’ll actually investigate and found out that you planned out that scenario, and even talked about it on social media.
Ah yes. Lie to the cops. Fucking duh. Idk what deep-dive internet policework your local cops do, but it just doesn’t happen all that often in my opinion. I’ll roll those dice. I only mention it to give others the idea; we the people need to stand in solidarity or our rights will systematically, legally, be taken away.
If concealment is done properly, there is no physical proof. People literally get away with murder in this manner. Law enforcement doing a sketchy arms confiscation will not aggressively search for…something of low value or concern that they will never, ever fucking find. Common sense. They will be forced to move on. You apparently are not able to understand that. But they will.
Authority isn’t synonymous with right. The law was rounding up the Jews in Germany. The law was rounding up the runaway blacks in America. At best law is merely a guide for people who are incapable of thinking for themselves, at worst it is a cash/resources/power grab, law does not determine right or wrong. A disarmed population of generally law-abiding citizens is not in the best interest of the private citizens, and I would go so far as to argue the United States.
we the people need to stand in solidarity
But not by voting, by breaking the law. In other words, the position you hold isn’t popular enough that you can get there legitimately, you can only get there by breaking the law.
This is a gross oversimplification…laws can be passed just to grab money, power, resources. Or just on a whim. 2 examples come to mind: the Boston Tea Party & the United States Library of Congress making cell phone unlocking illegal. The Americans weren’t begging for a tea tax (and they sure as hell didn’t vote to bring about change). And idk if you’re aware of this obscure little blip in history: James Hadley Billington, Librarian of Congress in 2012, decided to make cell phone unlocking illegal. I was fresh out of college…and an 83 year old man unilaterally passed a law telling me what I can & cannot do with my smartphone. Nobody asked for this, to borrow your terminology, it was unpopular. There were petitions I signed. Do you have any idea how infuriating that is?? The LoC JHB was so old, he’s dead now. Obama said the law couldn’t be repealed (???) 🙄 Eventually 2 years later it was, but it was a wild wtf type moment.
To be fair to Mr. JHB, you look at his record & it seems like he/his team accomplished a lot of good things during his service. He just really, really fucked up in 2012.
I don’t know how productive further discussions will be; we appear to take very different positions on law, authorities, government, right & wrong. ¯\(°_o)/¯ Have a good night
Yup. The guns aren’t there for when a cop is knocking on your door. The guns are there for when a cop is raping your wife.
And if people think that latter scenario unrealistic, just look at history. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the reason we have a government-recognize right to guns is to prevent that absolute power from existing as a state of affairs.
It’s okay if the government has the majority of the power. It’s okay if the government has relative power. The guns are here to prevent the government from having absolute power. That’s the kind of scenario where the women are getting raped by the men in uniform, while the men who arent in uniform either watch helplessly or get tortured to death for trying to intervene.
The guns are there for when a cop is raping your wife.
Yes, a common scenario that everyone experiences at least once or twice, thereby justifying a huge armory of guns.
And if people think that latter scenario unrealistic, just look at history
Better to look at statistics. How often has that scenario actually played out?
Perhaps the thing he was worried about wasn’t peacefully being arrested.
Perhaps the reason this got resolve peacefully is because any violence would have been felt heavily by both sides.
I guess we found the guy causing the Ammo shortage, it wasn’t Obama after all!
I like how that shortage wasn’t caused by Obama, but instead a bunch of psycho Republicans’ overreactions to a black democrat making it into office.
I’m old enough to remember the start of the ammo shortage, it coincided with massive ammo orders from the TSA of all government organizations. They placed massive orders for ammo, completely wiping everything out at the stores. Then, once it was back ordered for months the demand never went back down, nor did the prices.
Wtf did the tsa do with THAT much ammo?
What year was that?
That was back in 2008. I did a quick google and everybody parrots Obama causing it. The thing is, we knew* the military was stock piling ammo like they were hoarding oil. They built a huge reservoir of oil/gas because they realized somebody could turn off the gas flow to the US and bring the military to its heels.
And so after the marines/army/air force finished buying rounds, the TSA placed a big order and it was all over the news for a while because it’s not like they ever use ammo for anything. Regardless, they spent buckets of cash on a bunch of ammo and almost everything disappeared from the shelves except for 22 long rifle and shotgun shells. Mainly because .22 rounds were useless along with shotgun shells with birdshot.
As someone that shoots for fun, this was fine with me because that’s all you need. However, ever since that shortage it never ended. People started saying crazy shit like “Obama’s gonna stop all gun sales” or “Hillary is going to ban ammunition sales”. And the only way it stayed un bought is when people would mark prices up on the ammo, yet people keep buying (beyond $2/ bullet now).
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d reckon big firearms is out there making the shit up about gun bans or ammo bans, because whenever a rumor goes around that shit flies off the shelf at ridiculous prices. Almost makes me wish I had an ammo company myself.
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Bullets are more than $2/ea right now?! (And what should they be?)
There have been consistent shortages for sixteen years?
I like how Trump is the only president who has floated the idea of straight up banning guns.
He’s floated a lot of “ideas” and most of them are completely fucking mental. Remember drinking bleach to kill covid?
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day”
So I believe Trump is a cancer to democracy, but we need to put that sunlight and bleach thing in context. The poor man had just sat through a long presentation that wasn’t about him, and he needed to act out and prove he was important. The other day I was in a middle school class and a kid walked up and farted on a teacher. Same thing, same mentality, same maturity.
The only reason he “floated the idea” of banning guns is that the idea popped into his head and he said it without thinking. Any other politician would know that’s a hot button issue and not to actually say that idea, even if they think it’s a good one. Trump is so incompetent he didn’t know not to push that button. But, you can be sure that someone took him aside immediately after he said it and told him to walk it back, so he did. He didn’t really care anyhow, it’s not an issue that matters to him, it was just a passing thought that he thought sounded good at the moment.
They didn’t name him how do you know it wasn’t Obama
At lease he didn’t have any armor. Tanks, Obama.
Black man with that many guns and they didn’t fire a shot while arresting him?
Send it to Ukraine
He’s the guy in every movie that shows up in an SUV, pops the trunk, and pulls back a dirty tarp revealing a small arsenal.
Burt Gummer in Tremors and Tremors 2.
Get the elephant gun. Also reba was bad ass in tremors
I was so disappointed she wasn’t in Aftershocks! But I like how Burt’s character ended up because of it.
I too want a “rec room”.
Or have the Mexican military give me carte blanche at their inventory.
This is too accurate for Richmond. I know truck drivers that won’t even deliver there.
Now I want to watch The Jackal (1997) again so I can enjoy Jack Black in this role.
"Muh protection rifles! "
nooo u cant take my emotional support machine gun body pillows from meeee
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Lemmy Users: Gun control works great! Machine guns are illegal so nobody will have any, we are all safe!
California man: Hold my beer…
Gun control does work great, when implemented on a national level.
Literally no science to support the notion it doesn’t.
Only brainwashed Americans think it doesn’t work.
Unless you consider the illegal acquisition of 248 guns to be evidence that it doesn’t work.
Is it more difficult to bring something into the country across the border, or to transport an item between two states?
If it isn’t obvious to you that only banning something on the state level is SIGNIFICANTLY less effective than nationally, I can only assume you’ve never actually left the country.
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The US has the right to bear arms enshrined in our constitution. I don’t need any justification beyond it is my right. Feel free to give away you personal rights in your own country, I could care less.
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Gun control doesn’t work because criminals don’t pay attention to laws. The only people who will follow the law are the non-criminals.
Gun control doesn’t work because criminals don’t pay attention to laws
Of course they do. They make the same calculation you do when you decide to drive over the speed limit: how likely am I to get caught, how serious will it be if I get caught, do I really need to take this risk, etc. That’s why some criminals only break the speed limit, other criminals only steal things from empty stores, other criminals inflate the value of their real estate holdings to get cheap loans, commit campaign fraud to hide an affair with a porn star, and then attempt to launch a coup to stay in power.
Let’s look at how similar criminals might make a decision about using a gun as part of their crime in London vs. St. Louis.
London St. Louis How likely am I to be caught Pretty likely, guns are rare. It would be a big risk to trust someone to get me a gun. Guns are common, so pretty unlikely How serious will it be if I get caught Very serious, gun crimes are heavily punished The gun won’t make things worse Do I really need to take this risk No, the regular cops don’t have guns, the civilians don’t have guns, I don’t need a gun Of course I need a gun. Cops are heavily armed and twitchy, the public is heavily armed and twitchy. I can’t succeed at this crime unless I’m heavily armed Is the risk worth it Doing the crime is worth it, doing the crime with a gun is too big of an additional risk. If I’m going to do the crime, I have no choice but to use the biggest gun I can find That is a nicely organized wall of text, you seem to have put a lot of effort into it. Too bad it is mostly opinion and isn’t true.
Merely possessing a firearm while committing a crime in St Louis is a class D felony and is punishable by up to 7 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Using a firearm in a criminal offense is also a class D felony and is punishable by up to 15 years in prison depending upon the criminal history of the defendant. In the US multiple crimes can stack the charges. So a defendant could be looking at a lifetime conviction.
Some very basic Googling would have revealed this to you. Most of this can be found under MO statute 571.
I’m not an expert on UK law but from some more basic googling it seems the laws range from 7 years for purchasing to life for the actual use of a firearm.
Once again laws don’t deter criminals, they just punish honest citizens.
Once again laws don’t deter criminals, they just punish honest citizens.
That’s an idiotic point of view. There aren’t “criminals” and “non-criminals”. Virtually everybody is a criminal, it’s just that most people only break minor laws, like running red lights, infringing copyrights, littering, etc. Those people don’t break other laws because the risk vs. reward calculation doesn’t work out for them.
Even a big criminal like Donald Trump who has broken dozens if not hundreds of laws isn’t out shooting people because that’s not the kind of crime he does.
There isn’t some magic switch that turns someone from “honest citizen” to “criminal”, it’s a whole spectrum of law breaking. Even that old lady who goes to church every day probably goes faster than the speed limit, parks illegally, etc. For someone in the middle of the spectrum, say someone who cheats on their taxes, tries to scam old church-going ladies out of their money, etc. there are kinds of crimes they’ll do, and other kinds of crimes they won’t do.
Way at the criminal end of the spectrum, you have people who commit violent crimes. But, not every violent crime involves a gun. Muggers and carjackers don’t always use guns because the extra punishment is a slight deterrent. So, the law deters them. However, since the US is a society of gun nuts, it doesn’t offer as much of a deterrent as it would in some place like the UK or Japan.
No acknowledgement that your prior post had zero facts or even a basis in reality when it came to criminal law? No matter how many facts I just put out there you just want to move the goal posts and fall back to how you feel criminals calculate when to use guns or not.
Your feelings don’t constitute an argument I respect or wish to engage in further.
You mean you “couldn’t care less”, not you “could care less”.
Dear America — David Mitchell’s soapbox
You’re repeating bad NRA propaganda. There is zero evidence that gun control doesn’t work, and a literal fuckton of evidence that it does.
So be brainwashed if you will, but there is literally no science at all to support your side, so you’re essentially worse than a Flat Earther in this argument. Since they at least offer attempts at explaining their insanity. You don’t, you just say something without having any actual evidence for it.
https://epirev.oxfordjournals.org/content/38/1/140.full.pdf+html
This criminal, the one in the article, didn’t pay attention to the laws. He was arrested before he shot anyone with his arsenal.
Yep foolish laws make otherwise law abiding citizens criminals over the mere possession of an outlawed item. Even though no other individual was hurt.
Sound strangely familiar… what’s that word that rhymes with hugs? Nancy Reagan had a war with it or something…
So in one incident, a shooter with a history of violence buys guns, keeps them for years, and then shoots up a mall. According to gun fetishists, gun laws would do nothing to prevent that incident. In another incident, a person with a history of violence buys guns, keeps them for years, and is arrested for owning guns he shouldn’t have. Thus, there is no mass shooting incident.
I’m desperately trying to figure out what kind of incident will prove this point without requiring a friggin time machine.
You’re falling into a cognitive fallacy that many fanatic gun grabbers seem to exhibit. You assume a crime will be committed in the future based on owning an inanimate object.
Pro 2A enjoyers reject that fallacy. An inanimate object does not have agency. Agency is held by the individual. The individual should enjoy the benefits and responsibilities from the use of an object as well as the consequences of misuse that come with it. The group should not be punished for the crimes of a few.
Law abiding citizens that own guns are not criminals and we reject assertions that we are wrong for owning an object. The safest most law abiding segment of society are conceal and carry permit holders. Millions of us carry every day and do not break the law and do no harm to others.
But that fact is conveniently forgotten by fanatic gun grabbers when pursuing their agenda.
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Saw a police shooting video recently where the suspect barricaded in a car with a hostage. Suspect returned fire (full auto).
After the police shot him and freed the hostage, they went to clear the gun. It was a full auto HK UMP, which civilians in the US cannot legally buy or possess in any practical scenario (yes I am aware a SOT could have one for LE demonstration but that’s relatively rare and not what this was).
In other words full auto MGs are being used by criminals who have cartel connections. The cartels get them from Mexican or South/Central American police and military who either are corrupted and resell the weapons, or are overt criminals themselves.
US has created a clown world where middle class software engineers are being hassled by the feds over having a braced AR pistol. ATF has jailed people over a drawing on a flat piece of metal. Meanwhile criminal element are running around with full auto UMPs and illegally modified Glocks. It is the exact opposite of what should be happening.
It was a full auto HK UMP, which civilians in the US cannot legally buy or possess in any practical scenario (yes I am aware a SOT could have one for LE demonstration but that’s relatively rare and not what this was).
In other words
In other words… you had to make it clear that the weapon wasn’t legal, and even then you had to admit that there were some scenarios where it might be legal.
Here’s how that sentence would go in a sane countr:
“It was a gun, and not a hunting gun, so obviously illegal.”
When civilians can legally own a whole variety of guns, including guns that look nearly identical to the ones that are illegal, it’s a lot easier for people to get their hands on the illegal guns. England doesn’t have this problem. Japan doesn’t have this problem. Even Canada doesn’t have this problem. It’s not that there aren’t criminals in those places, it’s that gun control laws work.
You’re not making the point you think you are. That fringe scenario I described has no statistical significance in terms of crime. It is a special subset of dealers that demonstrate weapons to police customers. I guarantee you England, Canada and Japan also have some process for this, and it doesn’t impact their crime rates in any meaningful way either.
“Mr. Webley, I trust you have a license for that firearm?”
“(mumble mumble)”
“He does for this one.”
How the hell do you get 11 machine guns. That’s a full on armory
It really isn’t difficult to buy illegal weapons.
Or make a legal weapon an illegal machine gun.
Machine guns aren’t illegal if you have a stamp.
Are you aware of what is involved in getting that stamp? The only people who bother are collectors.
You think this guy wasn’t a collector??? Bahahaha
He’s a stamp collector?
Yes u pay a fee and then wait like 3 years. What’s your point. There’s always a process no matter what firearm u buy from an FFL. One of my best friends is an FFL
Well shit, I’ve got lots of stamps
It really isn’t difficult to buy illegal weapons
Maybe it should be.
Better shut down the borders, then.
I was thinking more like we prevent kids from having recess, so their brains don’t develop and they’re easier to control.
That might help reduce the flow of American guns from coming into Canada.
Most of the weapons crossing the US/Mexico boarder are going southbound.
Cartels smuggle a fuck ton of weapons, especially automatics, into the US.
They don’t really have to smuggle them southbound because the US straight up gives them guns to destabilize countries we have financial interests in.
It really isn’t difficult to buy
illegalweapons in America.FTFY
No, you didn’t. Machine guns aren’t legal to own unless you have a very expensive permit which basically grants the ATF an unlimited warrant to perform a search for it.
Also, this article is about the US, so making that distinction isn’t necessary.
Replacing one or two parts to make a weapon automatic is easy. The article doesn’t clarify what a “machine gun” is or what make or model. Buy a few AR15s, replace the parts. Machine gun. And illegal. Fitting the article’s definition.
I live a half hour away from Addyston, OH. No problemo.
Ok, and I’ve done a shit ton of drugs in Dayton, I get like police chiefs and gang members getting automatic weapons. But this guy seems like a collector and not an arms trafficker (well non-collection trafficker) or something similar. As a person in some seedy shit I just don’t get how you’d even bring that shit up.
Though as I say this I realize I have gun friends and am probably less degrees of separation from buying a machine gun than I think I am. That’s concerning.
My connection to the black market is an ex friend who I think is a psychopath but who’s otherwise fun to party with.
He want to prison for killing a guy, and after he got out was when I started hearing about opportunities to drive a trunkful of cocaine across the country and things like that.
What I’m saying is I think the place those deals get made — like let’s buy 100 M-16s instead of let’s buy ten doses of MDMa — happen in prison.
Fair point, but even as a collector, the number of weapons that went through his hands is quite concerning, to say the least.
(FWIW, I’m no expert of any kind, but am the son of a gunsmith/Maine State Hunting Guide/competitive marksman/redneck motherfucker who taught shooting and hunter safety, and who loathed the NRA, so my opinion is admittedly a bit skewed.)
Yeah I’m just some Midwestern dyke who hangs out with unsavory folks but that’s the thing in my perspective, you need a criminal side, a gun side, and to be the sort of person people will consider selling an illegal gun to. All of which is wild to me. Like acid is a pain to get, but machine guns…
Seriously, I think I’d have an easier time getting machine gun manufacturing going than purchasing
Oh yeah. No federal watchlists for that comment, no sir.
Fair, I will tell the feds, my understanding of how machine guns work is rudimentary at best and my machining skills are laughable in the handful of places they exist. It would be a several year process to learn to make them. I just think it would be even harder to buy one
What’s the dollar value of that? How do people afford their insanity?
I didn’t dig deep for the best prices, but found 9mm 100 counts on some bulk ammo website selling for $31.50. So back of the napkin math says $315,000. Realistically probably a good bit less if you’re buying large quantities, but in any case, it’s a lot of money’s worth just for the bullets.
Large quantiy ammunition buying is super economical, it’s fairly common to see groups of shooting enthusiasts all go in on a pallet of ammo and distribute the ammo amongst themselves. Buying that much alone is a bit strange, but depending on how often you shoot you can go through a loooot of amunition quicker than you realize. Not millions of rounds, but I wouldn’t think twice of someone with a few thousand rounds.
Any guess as to what a million rounds would go for if you bought em at once?
I wouldn’t know, but a pallet of 9mm is only 100k rounds, larger calibers would be less ammo per pallet and that 9mm pallet goes for 20-25k. If you bough them all at once im not sure how much more discounted it would be. Id expect not all his ammo is the same caliber so at most has probably buying 3-5 pallets at a time depending on caliber. Maybe they throw him a thousand bucks back per order? Thats just me guessing on not much though, shippings gonna be a bitch and that may be where you can secure the discounts since you’re emptying so much space and weight in one spot.
Cheap non remanufactured range 9x19mm ammo is about 18¢ a round. Or ~$180 per 1,000 rds.
But prices vary drastically by cartridge. .22LR might only cost you 10¢ per round but .50 BMG might cost $3.20 per round (both non reman cheapest prices). Without knowing what cartridges they were and how many of each we can’t really calculate the total value.
This is a good website for the actual market value of ammo:
So from what I’ve read he wasn’t arrested because of the quantity of guns and ammo, but just because he wasn’t supposed to have weapons.
Makes me wonder if there are any laws on the books for how many guns and bullets one person can own and store on their property.
Somewhere in another timeline, a person has asked “How on earth would gun laws actually stop a mass shooting like this one involving 11 machine guns and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition?” And then a timeline-traveler would have brought that person to this timeline, and shown them this article, where said individual was arrested ahead of time.
It’s for that really big bear.
Hoarder or starting an uprising?
Yes.
When waging war is your weekend hobby.
That’s just your average republican.
Should have changed his name to William Ronald Milita.
