About that gun registry we don’t have
If you bought a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson Sigma series pistol in 2004 or 2005, Daytona Beach police want your personal information.
They think it could help them catch a serial killer.
Daytona Beach police Chief Michael J. Chitwood sent letters to gun shops across Central Florida asking for the names, addresses and phone numbers of customers who purchased that type of gun during that time frame.
Police think a serial killer shot three prostitutes — and possibly another woman — to death using that weapon. It’s the newest lead they are following aggressively in the stalled six-year investigation.
“Forensic tests revealed that all of the victims were killed with the same type of weapon …,” reads a follow-up letter from Chitwood that one of the gun-shop owners shared with the Orlando Sentinel. “These weapons were shipped to you by Smith & Wesson or a gun wholesaler during the period of 01/01/2004 through 12/31/2005. This information would greatly assist in the investigation of these homicides.”
And:
The problem is that Florida law prohibits law enforcement or any other government agency from requesting and compiling the personal information of gun buyers. And that’s why the move by police is enraging gun advocates, such as those at the National Rifle Association, who have fought for strong laws that prohibit the creation of a gun registry in Florida.
July 8th, 2010 at 10:39 am
A .40 cal S&W Stigma? Thank goodness it wasn’t anything common. ( :rolleyes: )
July 8th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Hope that those shops he queried all tell him to go pound sand chop-chop.
July 8th, 2010 at 11:24 am
How the hell do they know the make and year of the gun???
Also if somebody just made prostitution illegal we wouldn’t have problems with people ganking them!
July 8th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
If we made prostitution illeagle, how would the cops get laid?
July 8th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
How the hell do they know the make and year of the gun???
An educated guess, that’s all gun forensics are, but likely from the bullets recovered from the bodies and ejected cases left at the scene of the crime.
July 8th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
I would hate to be the poor fool in the last link of the chain for any gun the cops are looking for. You might has sold the thing to a co worker at that contracting job you did 10 years ago, that you barely remember.
You the last owner, you primo suspect.
I hope the police do not get very far on this request. I have sympathy for the poor girl that got killed, or in the case 4, but giving them guns would be a better solution. Or making what they do legal and there fore taxable, but that is an arguement for another day.
Make some one will finally turn in the telling tip to resolve this with out duress.
July 8th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
maybe instead of make in last line…proofing what you type, who does that?
July 8th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
They should just ask the ATF to intervene and bully those Merchants o’ Death into giving up their 4473s. The evil gun shops are probably hiding the serial killer!!11
And maybe the Most Corrupt Government Agency Ever will kill the owners’ pets and SBR an M4gery at the store, then take everybody to jail! America will be safer for it.
July 8th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Living in Central Florida, I very rarely watch what passes for local TV news, but on those occasions I do, I’ve noticed that Chitwood, loved by the local stations as he is, suffers from Schumeritis. Daytona has deteriorated into a hotbed of petty and not-so-petty crime, and Chief Chitwood has no shame about appearing on Central Florida TV stations to loudly proclaim that he, and his department, are the Sole Defenders Of The Good against the invading hordes. Methinks it’s an attempt to shift blame from Daytona/Volusia County government failures to someplace else.
Can’t remember his name, but some years back the Sheriff of Volusia County (where Daytona is located) drew some attention for running “cash retrieval operations” on dark-skinned motorists on Rte 95, working with the assumption that “Anyone With Cash On Rte 95 in Volusia County” was automatically guilty of drug trafficking. “Anyone With Cash” was frequently defined as “black” but whites and Hispanics were not exempt. Lots of money was confiscated, but rather little crime solved.
I suspect Chitwood and the former sheriff are, at least philosophically, somewhat related.
July 8th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
I’m guessing that the particular combination of rifling on the bullets and extraction and firing pin marks on the brass match that particular year of sigma .40. But there must have been a million of those things sold to various police agencies and private individuals. And there’s no guarantee that the gun was actually bought at a store in central Florida, or that it was even bought from anyone, as opposed to stolen.
Even if they had the actual gun, there’s no guarantee it would put them at the killer.
Even a very detailed registry including microstamping and ballistic fingerprinting wouldn’t have helped either, since we’re dealing with a 6 year old gun that’s been fired god knows how many times since it was made. Even if it had been ballistically fingerprinted at the time of original sale/manufacture, that data wouldn’t be helpful in finding the gun after 6 years of use.
July 8th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
What the article fails to mention is the purpose for banning such registries. Aside from the privacy issues, or the fear they could be used by an oppressive state to round up guns, the real concern is that CRIMINALS COULD USE SUCH REGISTRIES TO KNOW EXACTLY WHOSE HOUSE TO BREAK INTO AND FROM WHOM TO STEAL GUNS!
July 8th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
I remember “Media Mike” Chitwood from his stint as chief in Portland, ME. Glad he left. Sorry, Daytona Beach…
July 8th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Is it the same “Media Mike” Chitwood? I looked at his picture from Daytona PD’s Website and it doesn’t look like the same guy.
If it is tho he’s the same Chief that cost the city of Portland a HUGE settlement for disarming a man who was legally open carrying a firearm back in the 90s.
He also had a large number of brutality settlements under his watch, but those cases aren’t nearly as cut-and-dry as him confiscating a gun from a man who was doing nothing but taking his wife and daughter to a public festival.
July 8th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
I know one gun store I will never buy from: Buck’s Gun Rack in Daytona Beach. This is what the owner said:
“For the most part, I’m going to always help law enforcement if they are working on a case and have specific requests. My records are open to them,” Buckwald said.
July 8th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Aw come-on cops….
The .40-caliber Smith & Wesson Sigma could have been bought in another county/parish by the serial killer, or they could have been stole it, or could have been bought as a private sale, or it could have been transported across state lines!
To go through all the list of buyers at gunshops ONLY in that county is probably fruitless and a total waste of time.
July 8th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
What an irony it would be if it is a cop in the chiefs own department…
July 8th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
Maybe the cops should stop going after serial killers since it seems the chances of catching them are so small?
July 8th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Once they get a list of buyers, the police would then have to individually check out each name to see if they could connect those people to any other evidence/leads in the cases.
Just as if they had been searching for a described vehicle, like a “white Honda Accord”. It turns into a lot of mundane legwork by the police to check out such a vague lead.
So I don’t get upset that they are asking for the information. I oppose registration for the obvious reasons, but don’t think that this particular information request by itself is a huge probelm.
July 8th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
“If you’re not guilty, you have nothing to hide.”
-Common RW meme.
Heh.
July 8th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Asinine. I would refuse to cooperate with such a witch hunt on the grounds that it is a waste of taxpayer money.
“If you bought a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson Sigma series pistol in 2004 or 2005, Daytona Beach police want your personal information.”
Oh, really? So what they’re saying is:
Hey Mr. Serial Killer! If you bought a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson Sigma series pistol in 2004 or 2005, us Daytona Beach police type peoples want your personal information, so’s we can, uh, catch you, or uh, something like that.
Diptards! They’re a disgrace to law enfarcement!
Absolute refusal to cooperate in such nonsense is the obligation of every gun owner.
July 9th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Since at least one commenter here has asked about the proper caliber of firearm for Mexicans, Democrats and bears, I’m sure someone with the same level of discretion asked a gun store clerk for something appropriate for killing prostitutes.
July 12th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Dear gun shop owners: if you comply with this, please hold a press conference to let people know how much you want to help the headline-grabbing CLEO. That way, people will know where to shop for all their firearms-related needs: elsewhere.