Associated Press investigation on stolen military firearms highlights fallacy of "universal" background checks

According to so-called "common-sense" gun control extremists like Mark Kelly's "Giffords," all we have to do to keep criminals from gaining access to firearms is to mandate that a background check be done before all transfers of firearms. Pass "universal" background checks, we're told, close the "gun show loophole," we're told, and we can stop mass shootings!

Indeed, Kelly's group (formerly known as Americans for Responsible Solutions, or ARS) is on record saying that by mandating "universal" background checks we can "ensure that guns stay out of the hands of those prohibited by federal law" (emphasis added).

So according to these gun control extremists' "logic," the thieves who stole at least 1,900 military firearms wouldn't have been able to do so had the law mandated background checks for every firearms transfer.

Indeed, an Associated Press investigation which found that at least 1,900 U.S. military firearms were lost or stolen during the 2010s. The investigation found that stolen military guns have been sold to street gang members, recovered on felons and used in violent crimes.

From the article:

Pulling a pistol from his waistband, the young man spun his human shield toward police.

“Don’t do it!” a pursuing officer pleaded. The young man complied, releasing the bystander and tossing the gun, which skittered across the city street and then into the hands of police.

They soon learned that the 9mm Beretta had a rap sheet. Bullet casings linked it to four shootings, all of them in Albany, New York.

And there was something else. The pistol was U.S. Army property, a weapon intended for use against America’s enemies, not on its streets.

The Army couldn’t say how its Beretta M9 got to New York’s capital. Until the June 2018 police foot chase, the Army didn’t even realize someone had stolen the gun. Inventory records checked by investigators said the M9 was 600 miles away — safe inside Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

“It’s incredibly alarming,” said Albany County District Attorney David Soares. “It raises the other question as to what else is seeping into a community that could pose a clear and present danger.”

The armed services and the Pentagon are not eager for the public to know the answer.

In the first public accounting of its kind in decades, an Associated Press investigation has found that at least 1,900 U.S. military firearms were lost or stolen during the 2010s, with some resurfacing in violent crimes. Because some armed services have suppressed the release of basic information, AP’s total is a certain undercount.

According to the AP's investigation, government records covering the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force show pistols, machine guns, shotguns and automatic assault rifles have vanished from armories, supply warehouses, Navy warships, firing ranges and other places where they were used, stored or transported. These weapons of war disappeared because of unlocked doors, sleeping troops, a surveillance system that didn’t record, break-ins and other security lapses that, until now, have not been publicly reported.

The report also notes that while the AP's focus was firearms, military explosives also were lost or stolen, including armor-piercing grenades.

Again, from the article:

Weapon theft or loss spanned the military’s global footprint, touching installations from coast to coast, as well as overseas. In Afghanistan, someone cut the padlock on an Army container and stole 65 Beretta M9s — the same type of gun recovered in Albany. The theft went undetected for at least two weeks, when empty pistol boxes were discovered in the compound. The weapons were not recovered.

Even elite units are not immune. A former member of a Marines special operations unit was busted with two stolen guns. A Navy SEAL lost his pistol during a fight in a restaurant in Lebanon.

The AP says "at least 1,900 firearms were stolen, because the truth is, no one knows how many were taken.

The Army and Air Force, for example, couldn’t readily tell AP how many weapons were lost or stolen from 2010 through 2019. So the AP built its own database, using extensive federal Freedom of Information Act requests to review hundreds of military criminal case files or property loss reports, as well as internal military analysis and data from registries of small arms.

Sometimes, weapons disappear without a paper trail. Military investigators regularly close cases without finding the firearms or person responsible because shoddy records lead to dead ends.

How can this be? Mark Kelly, and other gun-control ARSes claim all we have to do to stop criminals from getting guns - the way that we can "ensure" they don't - is to pass another law. Never mind that it there is a law in place prohibiting the breaking and entering, there is a law in place prohibiting the stealing of those guns, and there are more laws in place prohibiting the thieves from selling them.

Why, if it's so easy for criminals to obtain guns in the absence of a "universal" background check law, does the ATF say that firearms stolen during FFL burglaries have risen by 72.53% since 2012, and that firearms stolen during FFL robberies have risen by 213.56% since 2012?

Indeed, on the occasion of another such crime, Cincinnati's ATF Resident Agent Merrill was quoted by WKEF (ABC Dayton) as saying that more thefts are occurring because of efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals (and you and me?):

"I'd like to believe it's a result of [the fact that] it's getting harder for criminals to get guns so they have to take these measures and do burglaries," Merrill said.

And yet they want the American people to think that a law requiring that a background check be performed on every sale would make the people buying these guns from these thieves on the street say, "I wish I could, but we need to do a background check first."

Gun ban extremists aren't worried about these criminals' stolen guns, and the fact that their laws wouldn't affect them make that obvious. What they are worried about is YOUR guns, which is why their proposals DO focus on you.

Chad D. Baus served as Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary from 2013-2019, and continues to serve on the Board of Directors. He is co-founder of BFA-PAC, and served as its Vice Chairman for 15 years. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website, and is also an NRA-certified firearms instructor.