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Omaha City Council to consider gun law change

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FarmerRick:
http://omaha.com/article/20090615/NEWS01/306159683/1009

Published Monday June 15, 2009
Council to consider gun law change

BY ELIZABETH AHLIN
? Metro/Region


A proposed change in Omaha's gun ordinances could help police connect more criminals to their crimes.

Dealers of secondhand guns would be required to collect the fingerprints of people selling guns to them under an ordinance proposed by City Council President Garry Gernandt.

"I think this is a move to keep honest people honest and provide law enforcement with an additional tool in their investigation process," said Gernandt, a former police officer.

Currently, only pawnshops are required to collect fingerprints from gun sellers. Secondhand-gun shops such as Scheels, Carl Jarl Lock, Safe and Gun Co., and Guns Unlimited are not.
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"We just want to be able to track back people who sell guns," said Police Chief Eric Buske.

     
More at the link

Text of proposed ordinance:
http://co.douglas.ne.us/omaha/cityclerk/images/stories/agenda/ID%2009_06_16/Law/564.pdf

bullit:
Is there any evidence or statistics to prove the current system works with the pawn shops?????  I am sure Scheels and GU are inundated with MS 13 members selling their wares during the week because of this "loophole".  Gimme' a break !!!!

Rich B:
Getting a set of fingerprints isn't easy.  When I was printed for my UT permit, it wasn't a 10 second process and it's prone to errors, especially if the person taking the prints isn't experienced. 

Even the electronic machine the NSP used had issues with my hands.

I predict higher numbers of used guns for sale in Sarpy County.

Wesley D:
Is anyone able to attend the public hearing at 2pm today?  If anyone from NFOA attends, you need to ask Councilman Gernandt one question: How many sold stolen guns has the Omaha PD recovered from Omaha FFLs in the last year?  Certainly if Gernandt's goal is to "provide law enforcement with an additional tool in their investigation process" he has already done the baseline research and knows how (potentially) helpful his ordinance will be to LEOs in investigations.  That is, unless his true goal isn't to catch more bad guys (criminals), but instead to burden good guys (law-abiding citizens) with additional ineffective bureaucratic hoops and to pander to the anti-self defense rights groups.   

I'll give you 10 to 1 odds he won't be able to answer that one question. 

Wesley D:
Also, the article says, "The Gernandt proposal is the latest in a series of changes to crack down on gun violence in Omaha".  Really?  Cutting down on gun violence is the goal of this new law?  Then this statement is total BS:

If a gun sold to one of the shops was stolen or had been used in a crime, a fingerprint record would allow police to identify the seller, Buske said.

I understand the usefulness of preventing the sale of stolen firearms - this is why FLLs will run the serial numbers prior to purchasing used firearms. So a tool already exists to identify stolen firearms at the time of sale.  Police Chief Buske (whose lack of critical analytical thought makes him sound like a politician) needs to explain how exactly the LEOs are going to use this specific new law to connect a used firearm sitting in an FFL's inventory to a crime that was committed.  I suppose if the criminal used a semiauto, loaded magazines barehanded, left casings with prints at the crime scene, and immediately sold the firearm to an Omaha FFL (which is questionable logic, because why would a criminal sell a tool he uses in his "profession"?) then after finding the printed casings, the LEOs could go to every FFL in Omaha to demand access to the print records of all used guns in their inventory, and finally fish for a match.  That sounds plausible, in a Hollywood movie.  Implausibility aside, since the majority of violent criminals are repeat offenders, after the LEOs discover the printed casings and run the prints through their criminal database, they'd likely already have a hit and therefore make Gernandt's proposal another useless, ineffective piece of feel-good legislation. 

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