Oregon Push For State Licenses for Gun Dealers Justified By…Straw Buys and Thefts

When you think of a gun dealer at fault for guns in criminal hands, what do you imagine? In most cases, it’s someone who breaks the law in selling guns to someone who shouldn’t be allowed to buy them. That’s why the ATF requires a ton of paperwork and what inspectors are looking for when they roll into a store to take a look.

In Oregon, though, anti-gunners are bothered that gun dealers aren’t inspected far more often.

They even have a report to “prove” that there’s a problem, and the media there is eating it up.

Nearly 40% of guns used in Oregon homicides are illegally trafficked through legal gun dealers and another 30% are stolen from them, according to new research.

The report by the Alliance for a Safe Oregon highlights gaps in security, training and inspections among the state’s 2,100 gun dealers. The report showed employees often lack training to detect “straw purchases,” when someone buys a gun for another person who cannot legally own one.

Jess Marks, executive director of the alliance, said increasing state inspections, which now happen only every 10 years, could help reduce illegal gun trafficking.

Except for the fact that there are problems with this claim.

First, let’s recognize that if 30 percent of these guns are stolen from gun dealers, then the dealers are the victims. Treating them like it’s their fault they were robbed despite following all laws and regulations in their practice is insane.

But let’s look at these “40% of guns used in Oregon homicides are illegally trafficked through legal gun dealers” for a moment. That’s an inflammatory claim, after all. Well, I can’t find that claim anywhere in the report, so I’m not sure where they’re getting that claim. Instead, it claims that nearly 75 percent could be traced to a “known purchaser.”

This is implied to mean they were straw purchases.

They also note gun store thefts are common, of course, but they really seem focused on these straw buys.

Except that “known purchaser” just means the last person the ATF knows lawfully bought the gun. This might be a straw purchaser but it might also be someone who had their gun stolen. This is what happens when people who don’t understand the topic try to position themselves as experts on the topic. They’re convinced that this data shows that gun trafficking involves at least some Oregon gun dealers, but they can’t even read the information they’re quoting. They don’t know what they’re talking about.

Plus, the report also makes a big deal out of the fact that most of these guns were recovered within 25 miles of where they were bought, which I pointed out means absolutely nothing. Most cities aren’t 25 miles from end to end, which means they could be bought in one neighborhood, be moved a dozen times over the years, then stolen and eventually recovered somewhere else in town, and it would show up just the same as if a gun dealer was arming all the neighborhood bad guys out of the back door of his store.

Now, moving on…

“When we compare that to every other industry — hair salons, nails, taco trucks, the cannabis industry — that are inspected every six months, every two years,” Marks pointed out. “We have got to be doing better.”

…

“The vast majority, who are good dealers, they don’t want other dealers allowing firearms going into, and showing up in, crimes,” Marks pointed out.

The report blamed lax oversight, which allows Oregon gun dealers with repeated safety and security violations to operate without repercussions. Marks contended the solutions are common sense policies most people support.

Taco trucks deal with food. That’s why they’re inspected so often. The cannabis industry involves something that’s illegal at the federal level that is injected. There’s a reason they’re inspected that often. Hair and nail salons deal with hazardous chemicals that could result in staff and customers being exposed to toxic vapors.

In other words, they’re fundamentally different in every way.

And honestly, this report doesn’t find any such thing. All it finds is that Marks and his group don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. It should also be noted, though this publication neglected to do so, that this is an anti-gun group that conveniently produced a report calling for more extensive gun control–and yes, additional licensing for gun dealers is, in fact, gun control. Who they are and what they do should most definitely be considered and discussed in light of what they “found.”

It should also be noted that there was absolutely no discussion with anyone who might be critical of this so-called report. Funny, that.