By David Codrea
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- “Brooklyn Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is pushing for a $60 million funding hike to combat gun trafficking through the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms — going after the so-called iron pipeline that funnels illegal guns into New York,” the New York Daily News reported Monday. “[H]e and Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-Brooklyn) wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to secure the new ATF funding in the upcoming federal budget, which is due Oct. 1.”
“So-called iron pipeline” is right. And it’s called that to create an illusion in the public’s mind that something must be done, meaning other states must be forced to come into line with New York City’s draconian citizen disarmament edicts.
See what no less an authority than ATF has to say about the “flow” of guns to the Empire State. To do that, all we need do is reference the Bureau’s New York Firearms Trace Data report for 2014. But first, we must heed an important caveat ATF includes at the start of all such trace data reports:
Firearm traces are designed to assist law enforcement authorities in conducting investigations by tracking the sale and possession of specific firearms. Law enforcement agencies may request firearms traces for any reason, and those reasons are not necessarily reported to the Federal Government. Not all firearms used in crime are traced and not all firearms traced are used in crime. [Emphasis added.]
The total number of firearms recovered and traced does not tell us how many were “pipelined” in, and those determined to have New York sources overwhelm those determined to have come in from any other state, in spite of all the “home grown”gun laws. Likewise, the overwhelming number of traces comes from “possession” investigations, followed by weapons that are “found.”
But the real crux of the matter is in the time-to-crime number, that is, the span between when a firearm was originally sold by a retailer to when it was “recovered” by law enforcement: The New York average is 14.8 years. Compare that to the national average of 10.88 years.
Seeing as how there’s not a “source state” on the map that can’t be driven to in hours, or at most in two days, the lack of newer model firearms would seem to indicate that “pipeline” is pretty severely clogged. Either that or the whole concept is a fiction created by gun-grabbers to mask the utter failure of their efforts to date at achieving promised results — and to cast the blame for that on states where their grasp is not as tight.
With The Washington Post touting Jeffries as “Brooklyn’s Barack Obama,” what do you think? And as a cartoonish “progressive” appearing with Sponge Bob, what could be more appropriate than watching the “Opposite Day” episode?
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and also posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
There’s a wild man eating clam in the back yard…Fitting episode indeed.
What is the ATF hiding? Why is this data so opaque? THESE are the questions we PotG ought to be asking. More specifically, we ought to be DEMANDING our Congress-critters to compel ATF to publish. Why is it so hard for the requesting LEO to check a box identifying whether the gun was: found; in-posession; used in a crime under investigation; etc.? Why is it so hard to publish data on make+model? Age of 1st retail sale to trace? Probably lots of other data. One thing we ought to get data on is the percentage of time the requesting LEO… Read more »
I don’t know what he means by “illegal guns.” Does he mean guns that have been stolen from their rightful owner?
The Second Amendment is quite clear. There is no such thing as an “illegal gun,” any more than there is an “illegal religion” or “illegal printing press” or “illegal idea.”
Marbury vs. Madison is quite clear also. Unconstitutional law is no law at all.
Amen Brother!
Very poignant sir.
Many of those with weapons in NY are dual residents something NY doesn’t allow in addition to firearm restrictions.
The iron pipeline is atf project fast and furious wich armed Mexican drug cartels and resulted in the deaths of not only Mexican nationals but US federal agents. Imagine it, a federal agency targeting gun crime knowingly provided weapons to criminals. Also, please note that criminals by definition do not obey law so anti gun legislation only disarms their victims. Wich may be precisely what is desired by criminals both in and out of office.
I would be interested in hearing Rep. Jeffries comments on why these “crime guns” travel all the way up to New York to cause trouble. Why don’t they just stay in their state of origin and shoot the place up?