Part of a shipment of semiautomatic assault rifles was stolen this week from a freight train container at a rail yard in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, federal authorities and a railroad spokesman said.
The 13 Smith & Wesson M&P15 Sport rifles were stolen from a yard located in the 6100 block of South Lafayette Avenue sometime between Sunday and Tuesday, a spokesman with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said.
“We’re hoping to recover them before they’re … used in any type of crime,” said Special Agent Thomas Ahern, spokesman for the ATF’s Chicago field office.
I’m not really sure why the guns were in California, given that A: They’re illegal there and B) California is on the exact other side of the map from Smith and Wesson here in Massachusetts. Could be they were being shipped from a distributor down South to one of the Free states to the North. **UPDATE** It’s Illinois, so yeah the idea that a train car destined for places west of Chicago from Springfield MA might pass through Chicago is VERY plausible. Carry on, I goofed!
Still, even when new production rifles like these were 100% illegal for civilians to own all the companies that made such guns kept making them for military, law enforcement, and private security. This story sort of reminds me of the Depression era Gangsters who got their military weapons (tho they were legal to buy in any place that was willing to stock and sell them) from breaking into Police and Military armories.
Same goes for Mexico, the cartels have real-deal armies of their own armed with all the weapons you would expect any infantry to have. Where did they come from? Well apart from the guns illegally given to them by the US Government in part of the Fast And Furious debacle, they stole them (or illegally bought them) from the Mexican police and military, or they had them smuggled in from South America and China.
Gun control laws only disarm the law abiding!
I think you mean Illinois. And given Chicago’s location as a central rail hub them passing through makes a lot of sense. Especially as those guns are legal outside of Cook county.
And surprisingly balanced article. As it pointed out that these evil guns aren’t really used in much crime, and that they are popular and semi-automatic guns.
Ok that makes perfect sense! Yeah I read Englewood and just assumed california, even tho it’s from the Chi-Town tribune!
Thanks for the catch! Yeah most trains heading East-West will pass through Chicago.
The box car lottery system pays off again!
Lots of speculation on 2CC that it was an inside job.