Online gun sellers are facing greater scrutiny after the second-deadliest shooting in U.S. history, spurring a nationwide debate and proposals to limit the availability of firearms.
Among them is Armslist LLC, an Oklahoma-based online gun marketplace, which is being sued for wrongful death by the family of Jitka Vesel, whose killer shot her as many as a dozen times with a weapon advertised on the site.
The lawsuit came two days before the Newtown, Conn., massacre that left 28 dead, including the gunman, his mother and 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It was the latest mass shooting in a deadly year, following an attack in a Colorado movie theater that killed 12 and wounded 58, and another at a Wisconsin Sikh temple that left six dead.
“Under current law, there’s a gaping Internet loophole which enables gun websites to facilitate illegal gun sales that result in gun crimes and gun deaths,” said Jonathan Lowy, director of the Legal Action Project at the Washington-based Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and a lawyer representing Vesel’s family. “Felons, the dangerously mentally ill and domestic-violence abusers can buy guns no questions asked.”
A telephone listing for Armslist in Oklahoma wasn’t available. Representatives of the company didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on the lawsuit sent through its website.
Armslist.com enables illegal interstate arms sales because it doesn’t make buyers or sellers provide identification, according to the complaint filed in state court in Chicago by Alex Vesely, the victim’s brother. There’s no background check required for private gun sales in most states, Lowy said.
“They should be going after the criminal who committed the crime,” Larry Pratt, executive director of Springfield, Va.-based Gun Owners of America, said in a telephone interview about the Vesel case.
Online gun sales are “perfectly legitimate,” Pratt said. “It’s called something that is protected by the Second Amendment.”
Television station KSL in Salt Lake City temporarily suspended firearms listings in its online classified ads after the Newtown shootings, according to a statement Dec. 18 on its website.
“Especially during this time when the country is feeling so much sadness, we feel it’s the best decision to pause our involvement in the firearms marketplace,” said Chris Lee, president of Deseret Digital Media, which oversees KSL.com.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg commended the move in a statement Dec. 19, calling KSL’s decision “a critical step toward keeping illegal weapons out of the hands of dangerous individuals.”
The mayor’s office last year said an investigation into Internet gun sales found “a vast and largely unregulated” market for illegal weapons, with 62 percent of private sellers willing to provide firearms to people who weren’t likely to pass a background check, according to a December 2011 statement.
The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
In the Armslist lawsuit, Vesely alleges his sister’s killer, Demetry Smirnov, illegally bought a .40-caliber handgun from a private seller in Seattle he located through the website.
The seller, who was convicted for his role in Jitka Vesel’s death, admitted at his sentencing that Smirnov had paid him extra because he lived out of state, couldn’t buy it legally, and users of Armslist.com could easily evade gun laws, according to the lawsuit.
“Armslist matches buyers and sellers solely based on Armslist’s mandatory drop-down menus that steer illegal buyers to illegal sellers,” Vesely said. “Armslist’s development of content thus materially contributes to the illegality of the gun sales it promotes.”
Jitka Vesel, 36, was shot 11 to 12 times by Smirnov in the parking lot of the Czechoslovak Heritage Museum in Oak Brook, Ill., a Chicago suburb. Smirnov, a Canadian resident, had stalked her after she rebuffed his romantic overtures, according to Vesely. Smirnov, now serving a life prison sentence without parole, paid an extra $200 for the gun that had been listed for $400 because he couldn’t buy it legally, according to the complaint.
Armslist says on its website that it was created by “gun owning and gun loving Americans” because other Internet marketplaces shun firearms.
EBay, Craigslist, Amazon.com and Google prohibit listing guns for sale, according to Vesely’s complaint.
Still has to be recieved by a FFL dealer, BS, try again……
We should ban all ecommerce. habitual drunk drivers could use the internet to get a car.
True…….Tools too, you could pound your thumb with a hammer that you bought at Harbor freight…LOL
Until the news does some serious reporting on our governments arming of Mexican cartels and jihadists, they don’t have much room to point fingers.
I think the authors have Armslist confused with the DOJ.
How many islamic jihadist or even Mexican cartel gang members are shooting up elementary schools? Or showing up at at movie premier and rage killing innocent people? There’s plenty of room to point fingers, and one direction is guns.
about 47,000 deaths at the hands of the cartels in the past five years.
I’m sure some of those killings were children.
and while they might not be in elementary school, it is no less tragic.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57357503/mexican-drug-war-toll-47500-killed-in-5-years/
That still leaves over 100,000 not at the hands of cartels.
And the US figures are…?
Oh come on……..you know that conservatives are VERY concerned about Mexico!
How many Jihadists and Cartel members are killing innocent children? Are you serious?
Interstate sales of handguns are required to proceed through federally-licensed firearms dealers, who are requuired to perform NICS checks before releasing the firearm to the purchaser. The website simply advertises available firearms for sale. If the seller and buyer commit federal felonies in their transaction by foregoing the firearms dealer, just exactly how is the website liable?
Typical, guns don’t kill people, people kill people speak…….Well, people do kill people in the US, and the preponderance of the time…….it’s with a gun. You cannot equate a handgun that shoots six to ten rounds, with a semi automatic weapon that can shoot 30 to 60 rounds. No one is doing that. What people are doing is saying ….enough is enough… and something is going to be done. The NRA should be helping the effort, not clouding it.
Enough is enough of the zionists murdering 20 little kids to elicit pavlovain response from useful idiots in U.S.
Drugs, much?
What the old S&W model 469 semi auto handgun with the 9 shot clip , is that OK ?
yes enough is enough.
enough of these gun free zones.
But without the gun free zones where will the crazies hunt.
They will hunt the unsuspecting from bell towers, the trunks of large cars, the sides of highways. They will attack from a safe distance like they usually did before gun free zones caught their attention.
It’s all about the press coverage, I’m really starting to think that is the main motivation for these monsters.
They are insignificant insects that want to be remembered for something, noticed for anything. The media rewards them beyond our need to know the pertinent facts.
That’s a lot of zones to cover.
Amen!
Rusjan, let’s not forget about the 10,228 souls killed last year by drunk drivers in individual acts of carnage in this country. Many of them were young children. That’s 500 times the carnage results of Connecticut, yet I see no one rushing for a ban on alcohol. Where’s the outcry?
The AR-15 rifle was not used in the school shooting – see the link to an msnbc video that is posted later on this thread. Some are continuing to blame the “assault rifle” or “assault weapon” when the AR-15 is neither of these and anyway played no role in this tragedy!
Enough is enough of the zionists murdering 20 little kids to elicit pavlovain response from useful idiots in U.S.
The number one killer of kids is swimming pools…When you get those banned start on cars…Guns are way down the list…But then again this isn’t REALLY about kids is it ??
When was the last time you heard of a swimming pool that killed 20 children and 7 adults within the course of a few hours? But this isn’t really about swimming pools is it? LOL! Logic lock and overload……..
minutes, not hours.
In the u.s. it’s about 90 per year.
here’s one example.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/06/possible_pool_accident_in_unio.html
Yeah,but Midcoast has no need for swimming pools so ban them
Cripes……here comes another dumb example…….like when people were throwing out the whole “marrying your dog” argument with the gay marriage vote.
Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.
it’s interesting to see the parralells between now and pre ww2 germany/austria.
they started “gun control” in austria by setting up a national gun registration program.
and when it was time to confiscate the guns, they knew who had them.
Like guns are the only thing stopping our government from pulling a Hilter or whatever.
Name something else.
Prove the claim that that’s what’s protecting us. That’s how things work, if you make a claim or are defending a claim, you’re the one that has to back it up.
But anyway, how about the rule of law? How about the specific laws and amendments that say the government cannot do that? How about elections?
Before asking the how, you’d have to answer the why. Why would the government want to kill it’s own people?
If the US government was ever serious about killing anyone in the world and took the gloves off, no amount of pea shooters would stop them. I don’t think you appreciate how superior the technology our military has at it’s disposal.
Exactly. Have some Americans learned nothing about our own military might? The US government needs us ($$$) to survive……..the internet wasn’t around during the days of Hitler either……..info flows much easier now than in the 1930s.
If one examines the demographic that is most likely to be paranoid about the government and armed to the teeth (and floating conspiracy theories about Communism or Fascism), it is primarily middle to old age white guys. Many seriously believe they are becoming a persecuted minority and embrace what can only be construed as a victim mentality.
The game changing Civil rights movement and a changing national demographic has indeed changed the environment in this country. I don’t think the real fear is even of the government, but of the inevitable change coming down the pike. And no amount of guns are going to stop this change.
Uh huh! I seem to remember that a rag tag bunch of guerillas whupped our backside in southeast Asia using mostly just some “pea shooters” called AK-47’s!
Sure. The low tech guerrillas in Iraq and Afghanistan repelled us as well. Though did you miss the line about taking the gloves off? We could have bombed any of those countries back to the stone age had we chosen, though the collateral damage would have been horrific.
We tried that in Viet Nam – see Operation Linebacker – and we still got whupped on the ground! It is called asymmetrical warfare!
Capitalism (ie. $$$$$$$$$)
This whole thing is more liberal BS. I have sold several rifles and shotguns on two internet gun seller websites. By federal law, ALL firearms MUST be shipped to an FFL dealer, who then runs the standard NICS background check on the buyer. Laws to do with shipping of firearms are very specific and detailed.
In this case both the seller and buyer violated several, if not many “existing laws”, none of which the website could control. So the answer is to make more “laws” to be broken by those with criminal intent. .
Just how well do you expect this will work? Any better than the laws worked in this case?
If both buyer and seller, of this firearm were held accountable for THEIR actions that would help ensure that others do this lawfully in the future.
Their should be laws about people with no understanding of the subject matter, and associated laws and regulations, from writing on subjects that they are totally ignorant of.
If you talk to the Brady campaign, and the Violence Policy Center, you will get nothing but lies and distortions. It was Josh Sugarmann who, by running video of a machine gun shooting, while talking about “semi auto” guns, convinced millions of Americans, who do not know any better, that “semi-auto” means machine gun, a deliberately flagrant and inflammatory……LIE!
All those dead kids, that a lie too? More liberal bs?
I have purchased several guns on-line and at local public gun shows and have never had the gun directly given to me to hand carry out or sent to me at home…..in Maine either method of purchase requires me (the buyer) to have prearranged with a local gun seller to have the gun shipped directly to them and I have to supply the seller with the gun shop’s FFL (Federal Firearms License)…..when I go to the selected local gun dealer I them am run thru the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background System) and only if appropriate is the gun then delivered to me personally…..On-line gun sales and local gun shows in Maine are not an issue but I do not know about other state’s selling laws….again, the gun is not the issue but the process for obtaining a firearm…..if I wanted to obtain ANY weapon illegally then if so inclined I most likely could do so with cash in hand….the responsible and law respecting gun owner is not the bad person in any scenario….punishment wrongly placed will stop nothing and promote more gun violence and mis-use by those willing and intent on breaking the law…..
The Administration line parroted by the BDN. They actually go out looking for this garbage. Of course, it’s just a coincidence that the cities with the strictest gun control laws have the highest murder rates.
Just remember, leftist regimes always disarm the masses. It’s what they do.
Rightist regimes always disarm the masses it’s what they do. See I can make generalizations too.
Yeah, thought the administration was being accused of turning Communist.
Try Bloomberg news as origin. Oh that’s right, you don’t like him/them either. And you’re parroting whom?
I’ll explain this to you because you obviously don’t understand how this works. The BDN chooses specific news stories from outside sources. It chooses stories that fit the slant it wants to portray. There are many stories out there debunking the “pro-gun-control” lobby, BDN just chooses to not print them. Do you understand now? Thanks.
Very well said!
http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/50208495#50208495
Very good post! If this is correct, the AR-15 had no role in the tragedy! Only the four handguns that were taken into the school. But that does not serve the purpose of all the AR-15 haters who show up on every thread with their diatribes! And of course the B*D*N that continues to “milk” the tragedy!
You guys scream about hyperbole and distortions but then you act like a little regulation is tantamount to a full on firearm ban and a placement in an interment camp. Your complaints and whining are projections of your own poor behavior.
Just like putting a stop sign at the end of the street in order to prevent collision won’t lead to a ban on cars, neither will control measures for guns done in order to prevent more horrific tragedies lead to a full on ban.
Online gun sales are “perfectly legitimate,” Pratt said. “It’s called something that is protected by the Second Amendment.”
Again, just because something is legal does not necessarily make it a good idea. Ones conscience should be engaged before simply putting profit above all else. Though conscience and judgment are hard to regulate.
This anything goes attitude that uses the Second Amendment (written in 1791) as a scapegoat is the reason why laws need to change. Obviously, we can’t count on some of the more extreme pro-gun people to use common sense and good judgement.
A link to an MSNBC video that is posted below on this thread indicates that the AR-15 rifle the shooter took to the sandy hook school was left in his car (and therefore played no role in the school shooting.) The shooter took four handguns into the school. Yet all of the venom directed toward guns in the tragedy is being directed toward the rifle! Why? Because it serves the “assault rifle” or “assault weapon” haters purpose even when the AR-15 is NOT either of these things!
The Federal and State authorities that supplemented the info for this video state the rifle of controversy was not used and found in the car……secondly, just days prior on Dec. 11th, he tried to buy a rifle but the regulations in place prevented him from doing so….. also, which may be the most interesting info, is this shooter supposedly was at the school the day prior to the 14th and had an altercation and argument with 4 school staff members……it appears that the blame and thus far the proposed solutions have been focused on the wrong things…..Crazy…..
Agreed!
Online gun sales are protected by the Second Amendment? Where was Google in 1776???