New York has a lot of gun control laws on the books. They've created even more since the Bruen decision, which strikes me as more than a little ironic considering the text of that decision. Even before then, though, they had an issue with gun trafficking.
See, no matter how much you try to restrict guns, some people will figure out a way to provide firearms to those who really, really want them. All you do with restrictions is make sure the only people getting them are people who do not view the law as something they should follow.
Weird, right?
Anyway, it seems a father and son duo just got charged for their alleged role in a gun trafficking operation in the Big Apple.
A father and son were busted in an alleged gun trafficking ring that brought some weapons from Georgia to New York City, authorities said.
Daniel Vern Joly, 34, and his dad, Daniel Joly, 53, were among four people arrested after cops seized more than 70 guns, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
The younger Joly was the alleged gun runner and was caught selling the weapons to undercover cops in Brooklyn and Chinatown, prosecutors said. In one of the deals, a box with eight guns was left on the sidewalk for pickup, authorities said.
His father, who worked as a security guard at Kings County Hospital, and Georgia native Deashawn Ross, 25, allegedly helped him get the guns, prosecutors said. Ross is accused of fixing the firearms with rapid-fire modification devices.
Wow. You mean criminals who want guns illegally might also want them outfitted with full-auto switches? I mean, if they're facing jail time just for having the guns, why not, right? It's kind of how the Qin Dynasty was shattered because two guys named Chen Sheng and Wu Guang were going to be late to the post they were sent to, and realized that since the price of failure was death, and so was the penalty for rebellion, there was no reason not to rebel instead.
There's a bit of history you might not have known.
Still, the point stands, because when it's already a crime, there's no reason not to ramp up the crime, even if the penalties aren't death. Especially since most of them don't figure they'll get caught anyway.
Of course, the guns originated in my home state of Georgia, then were trafficked to New York City, which will allow the whole thing to be dismissed by anti-gunners who will note that Georgia doesn't have the same gun purchasing laws as New York. However, what they'll ignore is that buying guns with the intention of trafficking them to buyers in another state is a straw buy and thus illegal at the federal level.
Not that such illegality has ever stopped a straw buyer from at least trying to buy a gun for someone else.
If you want to stop the illicit gun trade, you need to start by undermining the demand for illicit guns. It's just that simple. Trying to kill the supply of them is a losing proposition.
After all, how well did the laws against people getting drugs without a prescription do in preventing illegal drug use again?
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