There’s a blind spot in gun control – call it a “loophole,” a term the gun prohibition lobby likes – and it is being illustrated by the case against an alleged gun shop thief now facing charges in Denver.
The suspect is 18-year-old Viet Trinh, the alleged getaway driver in gun shop robberies last November. According to the Denver Post, a crew has been robbing gun shops across the Denver area.
By no small coincidence, as a story of Trinh’s arrest was moving across social media, the Denver Post reported yet another gun store burglary in which thieves made off with a reported 65 guns. That robbery occurred in Colorado Springs Sunday night.
These robberies are reportedly of the “smash and grab” variety in which stolen vehicles are used as battering rams to break into the store. Those guns are “on the street” and there will be no background checks involved in any transactions.
Read the charging document against Trinh here.
As for Trinh, he reportedly has not been talking to police about accomplices, but the newspaper has identified several people. One of them, identified as Chris Padilla Jr., was arrested by Thornton police, who found a stolen .40-caliber handgun in the backyard of a home through which he had run in an attempt to elude them. The newspaper said that handgun was stolen from Shooter Ready, the local gun store robbed last year. At the time, there was a warrant for Padilla Jr.’s arrest, the newspaper said.
When agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched Padilla’s home, they found a rifle that had been stolen from another gun store, South Platte Tactical, the newspaper detailed. At the time Padilla Jr. was arrested, the newspaper said another man was also arrested. He was reportedly carrying two other guns that had been stolen from South Platte Tactical.
Second Amendment activists contend that there is no “gun show loophole” but there most certainly is a “gun thief loophole,” and in the Denver area, it may be a gaping one. The Denver Post reported that Trinh allegedly acknowledged involvement in the Nov. 10 burglary, and about the stolen gun he sold for $375. There was no paperwork involved in that transaction, and no background check.
While social do-gooders who support so-called “universal background checks” and even “gun violence taxes” believe they will make a dent in violent crime, people who burglarize gun stores guarantee that no gun control scheme will keep guns out of the wrong hands. And people who buy stolen guns don’t pay any “gun violence tax” in the process.
The Colorado Springs robbery was at the Dragonman gun store and shooting range. The owner of that store, Mel Bernstein, lamented that he was not present when the smash-and-grab burglary was carried out, suggesting that he would have used lethal force to stop the culprits.
