The
Layman’s Guide to Black Market Firearms
by
Curt Bolding
Copyright 2000
Curt
Bolding is a 16 year police veteran with experience spanning four jurisdictions
in Illinois. Still active in his
chosen profession, he currently serves as both a street officer and as a Control
and Arrest Tactics instructor.
Everybody’s heard the term
“black market.” Most of us have
a pretty good general idea what that means, but many may be unaware of the
causes of a black market and the eventual cost of allowing its existence.
Especially when it comes to the subject of guns.
Everybody remembers
prohibition, although most of us only remember reading about it.
What happened there was that the powers that be decided that alcohol was
no longer a good thing, so they outlawed it.
Problem was, there were too many people who still wanted their booze.
This sounds suspiciously like the way America is supposed to work,
doesn’t it? If the majority of
the people want something, it’s supposed to be legal, right?
Well, not always, as we’ll see in a minute.
Now, as you may have
noticed from my by-line, I’m a cop. Been
one for a long time. As such, I
tend to dislike criminals (rather intensely). I mean REAL criminals, not the guy or gal who missed the
traffic light. No, I’m talking
about the people who are doing things to purposely hurt other people and profit
from it. So let’s talk about
profit for a minute.
We’re going to talk about
guns eventually, too, so bear with me.
Back during prohibition,
obviously, there were a lot of people who still wanted alcohol.
And there were plenty of other people who were enterprising enough to
provide it for them. The way was wide open for the speak-easies and….
you guessed it, a black market. Now
then: providing alcohol was
obviously illegal, which means getting caught and convicted carries penalties,
financial for sure and maybe even doing time.
So why risk it? Because people want it so bad that they’re willing to pay
more for it than they did when it legal. Also,
now that it’s illegal, there are fewer places to get it, so the provider has a
LOT of customers. So now we also
have the fact that there’s a ton of money to be made by our individuals who
are both enterprising enough to pull this off and ingenious enough to operate
without being caught very often. This
sounds suspiciously like the way the drug trade works, doesn’t it?
That’s because this IS the way the drug trade works.
The reason that highly organized smuggling operations continue to abound
is that there is an unbelievable profit to be made.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it.
Everybody knows what
smuggling is. People bring stuff in somewhere they’re not supposed to.
Kind of like those two beers you had in your pocket or purse last
ballgame you went to. But now
we’re talking about tons of cocaine, for which the bad guys make ungodly
amounts of money with every shipment that gets in.
They make so much money that they can afford boats, planes, and every
other thing you can conceive to get the stuff into the country, in elaborate
ways to avoid detection. There are
a series of supervisory levels between the top guys in the cartel and the
distributors on the street. That’s
why the lower level guys are the ones who get caught and the top guys almost
never are. That’s why we make a
big bust every so often and the papers report it’s the biggest single cocaine
bust in history or whatever, and a week later the same operation is still
functioning, but now they have a different way to bring the stuff in and it’s
back to square one for the cops and what’s changed? Nothing, that’s what.
Six or eight dirtbags get jail time and the top guys are still rich.
Now, finally….. what’s
this got to do with guns?
There are a lot of people
right now pushing “common sense gun legislation.”
The gals behind the Million Mom March, God bless ‘em, have their hearts
in the right place - but not their heads. Their
“solutions” are a waste of time, because they can’t work.
There are several thousand gun laws in place in this country already, but
the problem isn’t how many laws there are---it’s whether or not they’re
enforced. Every day in this country
people commit violent crimes while carrying firearms, and they’re arrested by
good cops for it. It’s what
happens AFTER that where the problem comes in.
Ever heard of plea bargaining? If
I charge a guy with five charges, he might plead guilty to ONE of them in order
to get the others dropped. Easy
conviction, no lengthy and expensive trial, and maybe we get a couple other
cases cleared.
Speaking of money, that’s
the magic word whenever you’re trying to figure out how the world works (or
doesn’t work). Look at any given
situation that you don’t understand, figure out who could conceivably make
money off it, and suddenly the light goes on.
The drug cartels don’t WANT drugs legal.
If that happens, all that black market cash goes out of their pockets and
into the government’s, who will now tax and regulate the stuff.
Just like they do with booze. Which
might also make you wonder if there might not be some politicians getting their
pockets lined with cartel money to make sure drugs STAY illegal.
Nah. Couldn’t happen. This is America.
So, after all that, to the
gun issue. Ladies and Gentlemen of
America, people are always going to have guns available to them, no matter what.
Always. Without fail.
If it becomes illegal or too difficult and expensive for a law-abiding
citizen to own a firearm because of all the hoops he’s got to jump through,
guess what he’s going to do? He’s
going to go down to the corner and talk to Mickey the Mope, who can get him a
gun and avoid all that legal red tape. And
it may cost Mr. Citizen a few more bucks, but if the legal method is just too
much of a pain in the ass, or if he wants it bad enough, that’s the route
he’s going to take. This is not a
hypothetical, or a theory. It’s
happening right now. In Illinois,
if you’re a convicted felon, you’re not supposed to be able to own a gun.
Guess how many of them do. That’s
right. There is already a black
market for firearms, and further gun legislation will accomplish nothing but
make the criminals richer. It works
with exactly the same success that the drug trade has.
Incidentally, I hope no one reading this is naïve enough to think that
we’re actually WINNING the “war against drugs.”
Yes, every day, firearms are
smuggled into this country (and OUT of it, by the way).
And the more we try to limit people’s access to guns or anything else,
the more money goes into the pockets of criminals, because they have figured out
how to make money off the situation because there are SO many people who want
these particular services.
Just how much possibility is
there that we can eliminate a black market?
Just how much is it worth to the criminals to maintain this situation? Well, I’ll put it in real simple terms. Everybody’s heard the news stories about the problems and
gunfights and all that we’ve had with the drug dealers.
Now just think about THIS for a minute:
These criminals are receiving
SO MUCH in return from their illegal activities that they are willing to ENGAGE
IN ARMED CONFRONTATIONS WITH TRAINED POLICE OFFICERS IN ORDER TO CONTINUE THEIR
ACTIVITIES.
Read that last sentence
again. Now ask yourself: how
much would it be worth to each one of you to engage in activity that would put
you in a situation where you’d be willing to enter a firefight with the
police? It’d have to be a helluva
lot.
So here’s the bottom line
on what you need to know about the black market.
If enough people want an item or a service and are willing to pay for it,
other people are going to provide it whether it’s legal or not.
Drugs, gambling, prostitution, you name it. Those things have been around since before recorded history,
by the way, they’re with us still, and they always will be because there are
enough people who want those services that the cash rewards are worth it to the
criminals.
Personal and parental
responsibility is the only way to reduce firearm-related tragedy.
Ladies and Gentlemen of America: Do
you love your children? If the
firearm issue is an important one to you, then the best thing you can ever do
will be to take a gun safety course with your child.
When you’re dealing with something like a weapon, your best course is
to obtain knowledge and understanding, not trying to make the problem magically
go away by passing meaningless laws that aren’t prosecuted. Talk to your local State’s Attorneys and make it clear to
them that you want gun-related crime like armed robberies and the like
prosecuted to the fullest extent.
Adding more laws that don’t
work to the already existing thousands that are not enforced is like smoke in
the wind. Our children are too
precious to waste any more time on “solutions” that don’t work.
Disclaimer:
The above expressed opinion is solely that of the author, and not any
other organization or entity. The
author assumes no responsibility for the improper use or misuse of this
information, nor for the questionable disappearance of any doughnuts left
unattended in the author’s immediate vicinity.
