ABC is airing a special on 20/20 tonight that is highly critical of Virginia’s gun laws, which critics say are too lax.
They send Omar Samaha, whose sister was killed two years ago at Virginia Tech, to a gun show in Richmond with $5,000 and one hour to buy as many guns as he can.
Samaha got 10 guns in all –without any background checks. In one transaction the dealer asked for ID, and when Samaha said he didn’t have one the dealer upped the price by $100 to compensate for the risk. ABC News has the full summary here.
BizSense covered the surge in Virginia gun sales last November. Record gun sales have continued since then over fears of a possible Obama-led ban and an increase in recession-fueled crime.
CBS should be condemed for what they did to those children,anyone careless enough to leave a gun in a toy box just to get a reaction should do jail; time,those children were not old enough to know a real gun from a toy gun and allowing them handle it,point it and look into the muzzle of it even once is the same as telling them it is okay to do that,as for those teens and older people,you can’t legislate stupidity,no law in the world will stop it.And now we come to the Police,don’t try and pass the police off as professional gunhandlers,they are not,we hire/train them to have special skills needed for dealing with the public,the police “instructor” who shot himself knew no more about gun safety than a lot of plain gun owning citizens know.Shooting accidents,do happen,will happen,another case of stupidy,buying guns any where?,no difference than buying a car,if you are paying cash,no proof of insurance,no driver’s license required,no back ground check for DUI’s,accidents,accidents involving fatality,criminal activity or anything of the like,and people run over their children in their own driveways quite often,irresponsibility again,and the “staged” shoot out senarios were rigged from the beginning,making every one wear a loose overly long sweater to purposely hamper accessibility,the young man must not have been attentive in class or had a -poor instructor,or maybe defense scenarios weren’t even covered,reminds me of the “faulty” gas tank story a few years ago,staged to achieve a desred result,there are a great many cases of self defense shootings on record,you won’t find them if all you look for are the ones you see on TV.
I applaud ABC for showing what happens at gun shows.
To those who are so upset, why are you angry at a network for showing the truth?
To those who say “so, buying a gun w/o a background check is legal in 38 states” I would respond by saying that it used to be legal for doctors to perform medicine.
The gun rights groups better stop taking such a hard line. All they are doing is fueling the hysteria and allowing mass murder on a scale we have never seen.
Anyone who believes the NRA-backed “Obama wants your guns so buy now and buy often” spiel is a fool and shouldn’t have a gun in the first place.
You people are complete idiots…… The guns shown, and obviously you all know nothing about guns, are VERY expensive…. not all of them, but many of them. I dare you to find an AR-15 (m16 looking gun) that he bought for under $1000. The same goes for the AK he bought you can label them assault rifles all you want, but you can buy a ruger mini14 that isnt an assault rifle but shoots the same round as an m16 then get 30 round clips. They doctored this show sooooo badly to make you tree hugging peacenik obama voting sheeple to get scared. You can buy a gun for much cheaper in detroit with no serial number, no receipt, no questions asked. If someone wants to go nuts they are going to, Taking everyones guns away will NOT I repeat WILL NOT solve any gun crime problem. The people that commit gun crimes…. don’t BUY guns or at least BUY THEM LEGALLY.
Anyway my point is, this show was total bullcrap. That guy didnt buy all those guns with 5K. The show was liberal propabanda aimed at gun control. I imagine soon enough we will not be allowed to have them at all, or they will be taxed out of price range for most people.
The story was a complete propaganda piece. I’m sure that if Joseph Goebles was alive he would admire the twisting of reality to make a political point. The real story of most gun massacres are that they happen in ‘gun free’ zones were crazy people know they stand the best chance of killing unarmed people. There are very few mass shootings at gun shows because the perp would get wasted in a hurry. Austrailia recently banned many types of guns and the criminals are having a heyday. Too bad ABC is too committed to disarming law abiding Americans to report on that.
Joe, Idaho — Geez, Those ARs could be found for 700 bucks before folks started hyperventilating about some fantasy Obama kristallnacht. Welcome to the free market in action: you tell ghost stories, you start to believe ghost stories, free market takes your money. The dealers are laughing all the way to the bank just like Exxon and $5 gas. But your math sucks. 5k will get you a half dozen decent handguns of various calibres and and enough shoulder stock that you’ll be tired by the time you’ve lugged it all to the car.
The point isn’t taking guns away, Joe. It’s knowing who to go see when that gun does something bad or knowing that the gun isn’t becoming the tool of someone too crazy or immature to use it responsibly. I need to declare who I am to rent a carpet cleaner or get a preferred customer card at the grocery store. I need ID to buy liquor or porno. You’re telling us a acquiring a lethal weapon or 10 is less worrisome than getting plastic money, booze or ladybump pictures?
And Idaho, 3 Pittsburgh cops knocking on your door is hardly a gun-free zone, is it? That guy “worried” just like you and Joe that the boogie man was coming. We tried the “give everyone a gun” idea in the American West 170 years ago. Then towns put up signs fast: “Surrender all guns to sherriff on entry or spend the night in jail.” Those good old days were pulp novel fiction then, just like Fox News fiction now.
Mark B, once again, you use a less common example, in this case the Pittsburg cop shooting to make a general point. Once again I’ll state the overwhelming fact that most mass shootings take place in gun free zones. The world is a dangerous place. Police usually respond after a crime and file reports. As to your assertion that I sit in my dark home shivering in paranoia that a bad guy will kill me, you are sadly mistaken. I have supreme confidence in my own ability to protect my family due to years of training with firearms. I will not pass this responsibility on to my law enforcement friends, not matter how much I respect and honor their thankless commitment to society. Passing laws and taking guns away from law abiding people is the first step in establishing a totalitarian state, you only need to study a little history to figure that out. Since you feel that Foxnews is propaganda, I can hardly assume you are likely to do some research. You probably cheer on that moron olberman and follow his moronic lead.
Idaho, it wasn’t an assertion it was a simile, or maybe an inference if you’re feeling particularly neurotic. The “boogie man” was a metaphor for Obama’s gun confiscating nanny-state shock troops, not some burglar. A guy crawls in your kid’s window, I wish you steely heart and steady hand.And the “research” line is cute but that dog won’t hunt. It’s half what I do 9-5.
Yes indeed, the world is a dangerous place. Thanks for the update. And those cops didn’t expect to walk into a one-man Tet Offensive. Okay, a more common example: Are we to arm Amish schoolchildren and Church Deacons too? Idaho, the list of dangers is long and varied, but take care to note that capable dynamic situational awareness is rare in individuals, even those with concealed carry permits. Human nature being what it is, 8 out of 10 of your citizen police will shoot themselves, a bystander, or get popped playing a lame Dirty Harry–using their ego and adrenalin, not their (likely very untrained) brains.
I’ll say it again, YOU read your history, and more than a little. As they say in real conflict assessment & planning, all this fiction has “cut your OODA loop.”
The gun show loophole nonsense was just that. There are no laws that keep one person from seeling a gun to another in a private sale that people do every day in every state just as you would sell a knife or a car or a screwdriver. If a person buys guns from a gun dealer at a show, they must be background checked. I bought one in Florida and they background checked me. The police cannot protect my home but I surely can now. If you think I am going to sit by while an intruder rapes and kills my wife while I sit tied up in a corner you’ve got another thing coming. The right to protect yourself from criminals is a human right and one that I will always fight to protect. In addtion , don’t ever forget that the only reason that you have any rights at all is the fact is the right to own a gun…..demostrated millions of times in human history.
Mark B, easy on the stereotypes dude. Typical of the left you assume that those who exercise their 2nd amendment rights are stupid good ole boys. My comment about doing research was serious. You should study crime rates where gun laws are strict, they are higher. If you keep eating up the talking points of the liberal left, you will continue to focus on SUV’s and guns killing people and fail to attribute accountability to individuals who are responsible for their own crimes, as if touching a gun or driving an SUV wakes up the inherent evil inside everyone and they are powerless to resist. I promise that I don’t listen for black helicopters or look for blue helmeted U.N. troops. I will say that 17 years of working in corrections and a Master’s Degree in Psch. has given me a fair understanding of the criminal mind and how it works. If a criminal percieves no immediate threat in pursuing a course of action, they will enthusiastically engage in victimizing others.
The Virginia Tech shooter LEGALLY purchased his weapons from a Licensed dealer. More legislation WILL DO NOTHING but hurt law abiding citizens. California has the strictest Assault Weapons Ban in the nation and thousands of other anti gun laws on the books. Did any of those laws help the four Oakland Police Officers gunned down by a FELON who coincidently DID NOT purchase the weapons used to commit murder from a gun show. Would one, fifty or a hundred more laws have stopped any of these murders?….NO! We need to enforce the laws we already have on the books. Remove from the bench those judges that want to legislate rather than enforce our existing laws. With the lefts propensity to blame the gun and gun shows for crime rather than the criminals it leads one to conclude that they may have another agenda for controlling gun owners instead of criminals.
I was actually at Dominion Gun Range in Southside the day 20/20 showed up to roll some footage of an old guy shooting through a scope. Figured something like this was in the works.
If these “licensed” FFL dealers sold firearms and did not preform a NICS check then they violated the federal law. Since 20/20 gave 5g to another person to purcase firearms this is considered a straw purchase.
So we have at least 12 people who should be arrested~20/20~dealers and the purchaser.
Who has the 10 firearms now?
The question is, were these dealers licensed dealers or were they people conducting private sales?
In NY, the shows I attend you can not sell firearms anyplace on the grounds unless you are a licensed dealers and NICS check is preformed.
I saw the show and it was nothing more than Brady propoganda.
20/20 the dealers and the purcahser all need a visit from ATF
BPB
When a firearm is purchased it must be for the use of the buyer. The only exception is as a bona fide gift. Otherwise it’s a STRAW PURCHASE which all law abiding citizens know is illegal. ABC admitted handing over $5000 to a person with the specific intent to knowingly purchase guns under false pretense AND with the specific intent to hand over the guns to ABC. Let’s see if ABC is held accountable.
A blackmarket for firearms is a good thing. Every American who wants a good deal on a good firearm should be able to do it whenever and wherever. The more outlets for gun sales and buys the better. Where I live, I must travel far to buy a gun, and shop extensively to buy ammo. Illinois politicians are destroying the Illinois economy.
The real crime is that the gun show visited by 20/20 is never held here in Illinois. I blame it on Illinois’ Nazi politicians and police. They interfere with capitalism everyday.
Hey gun owners, do you disagree with me ? Then you’re the reason guns are so difficult to buy here too.
Gun control laws don’t reduce crime, they increase it. The problem at Virginia Tech was not a mental case, it was the nutjobs who prevented people from arming themselves.