Guns and Money

Lawyers will be involved here too, bet on it. This fellow managed to smuggle some 80 pistols into England through the simple expedient of putting them in his checked luggage, and telling the curious TSA folks that he was an international security wonk.

The part I liked best was this:

A number of 9mm semi-automatic pistols believed to have been bought by Mr Greenoe for $500 each in a North Carolina gun shop were offered for sale at up to £5,000 a piece in Britain a week later, according to the Times.

£5,000 is a tidy sum of money in rapidly declining U.S. Dollars, 8,194.03 as of today, so he's making some 7694.03 in profit on each pistol he brings in. One pistol would pay for a nice vacation in England complete with sightseeing and souvenirs.

Are the guns falling into the wrong hands? Sure. One was taken in a drive-by shooting recently, but what did you expect. Being the wrong hands is evidently profitable enough to afford an $8000 handgun. Besides the victims are already disarmed and even if you get lucky defending yourself with a makeshift weapon, you'll be arrested and charged with anti-social behavior at the very least.

It works better over here. True, the thugs, even though forbidden from touching a firearm, seem to have little problem obtaining them, and probably at better prices than in England, but in most locations, there's a 3-5% chance the potential victim will be armed, and the crime rates are noticeably lower.

You do have to be careful when doing the comparison since the law enforcement there has been caught cooking the books to meet local government expectations regarding crime rates.

H/T to Smallest Minority for the lead on this one.