General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow did this grad student buy all these weapons- with what money?
Aren't all these guns and explosives pricey? Where did he get all the money to buy this stuff?
Or are weapons not only not well regulated but also super cheap?
If they are so cheap, I think that it is time to raise the prices significantly (i.e. impose user fees and or taxes) and then use the money to pay for emergency rooms, medical services, etc.
How cheap are these weapons anyway?
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)you would never have to pay back.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)credit cards unless I can pay it all off......
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Though I guess it depends on where you're shopping.
I'm personally not sold on the "lone nut" theory.
cbrer
(1,831 posts)He was a grad student.
Seriously:
AR-15 $500-2000.00
Pistol $100-1000.00
Body armor ~$800.00
Ammo ~$50-200.00
Gun control BEFORE a slaughter? Priceless!
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Probably had far less invested in the apartment booby traps, which if they'd gone off, could have been just as deadly.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)bluedigger
(17,087 posts)Glocks - 2x$600
AR-15 - $1100
Shotgun - $300
That's $2600 for the weapons alone.
Add in ammo, bulletproof vest, gas mask, "accessories", etc...
I'm probably lowballing it.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)I go bonkers with worry buying hay for my sheep at a few thousand a stack.....
bluedigger
(17,087 posts)Credit is the only thing holding our economy together...
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)I had no idea- yikes!
TBF
(32,111 posts)when I was 18 and working in the summer. I started with a few store cards. As long as you keep up those minimum payments and don't max them out you're golden.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)A box of goodies (snacks, coupons, soap and shampoo, etc), clothes catalogs (oh J. Crew, we'll always have our memories), and three or four credit card applications. This was in 1989. It's not hard to get credit cards.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)Amidst all the various other welcome-to-school swag and the like, are people offering student credit cards. They usually have ruinous rates to them and various other nasty conditions, but they're very much there. The predatory nature of the whole thing's a decent chunk of the reason a lot of students wind up with credit troubles.
One of the best pieces of advice anyone can give a new university student is to avoid those like the plague.
rdking647
(5,113 posts)you can get a handgun like he used for a couple hundred bucks. an ar15 would cost 1000-1500 new and ammo can be pretty inexpensive.
1000 rounds of ar15 ammo would cost 2-300 bucks.
so he could have bought everything he has for 2k-2500
bluedigger
(17,087 posts)He may have found some bargains on ebay for the other stuff.
Kennah
(14,337 posts)bluedigger
(17,087 posts)Thanks for clarifying the ammo part.
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)Not Sam Club/Costco/etc
bluedigger
(17,087 posts)I meant national chains. Didn't realize only certain retailers could be referred to as "big box" stores. I always thought it referred to the facility as much as the goods.
national and regional chains - beat you to it.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)"Are we going to parse every word?"
Meeting the stringent requirements of Fans' Only definitions are quite trendy within the insiders-club, and although it adds very little (at best) to any meaningful discussion, it certainly does allow one to advertise a knowledge of irrelevant minutia-- anything we can do to pretend to be more clever than we are.
The chess novice with a rating of 1150 feel much more clever about himself when he engages another player who doesn't give a flip about en-passant...
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)Words have meanings and they should be used accordingly.
From what I have read he went to high end sporting goods store and paid retail price. He would have also had to pass background checks.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)Are they subsidized in some way?
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)Who do you think is paying for the cleanup in Aurora? Who pays for the first responders?
The public bears the high costs of gun violence while the gun manufacturers pocket all of the profits.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)so why aren't they taxed as vehicles are taxed to pay for road maintenance?
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)krispos42
(49,445 posts)The excise tax goes towards conservation programs. It's not on your receipt; the gun or ammo maker pays it.
And unlike vehicles, the simple act of using a gun in a safe and legal manner does not wear down large infrastructure projects or pollute the environment. Also, guns are not typically kept parked on a sidewalk or in a driveway, nor are they subject to property taxes.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)turning into an OP.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)to require that a gun owner insure his gun at the point of sale and every year thereafter. The government would require a certificate of insurance for each gun. The insurance companies would create a fund from which victims of gun violence or accidents could be compensate. There would be criminal penalties for fraud.
Reasonable_Argument
(881 posts)You would support denying a fundamental right to someone who couldn't afford insurance? The wealthy get to protect themselves but the poor are on their own?
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)anyone with epilepsy can tell you that, anyone who cannot pay the insurance, etc.
This is a good idea.
NickB79
(19,276 posts)And it never has been.
You need to figure out the difference between rights and privileges.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)and that is what we are talking about.
Please remain polite - as well.
NickB79
(19,276 posts)The point being, driving a car isn't a right, but owning a firearm is.
And I'm sorry I came across as impolite. I will keep it civil.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)is very expensive -- because they include security costs calculated by the city.
I don't support that, but that is what is being required. So, why should it be different for the Second Amendment?
The damages from the marches in which people exercise their First Amendment rights are minuscule compared to those caused by guns.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)What direct and measurable cost to the city can you attribute to me owning a firearm that has never been used on anything but paper at a range?
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Firearms are often precisely what burglars look for if they break into your house. Happened to us. Nothing else of any value was missing.
I think just making sure that people who have guns know that the police know they have them in case of a crime or other emergency -- such as the need to mobilize citizen militias. The need to mobilize a militia is virtually unheard of, but you never know.
So I think that registering and insuring guns is perfectly reasonable if requiring permits for demonstrations is.
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)Its been the law here for quite some time.
I insure my firearms as property and have a hefty umbrella policy (which is surprisingly inexpensive) for liability.
If I have taken every reasonable and legally required precaution, why should I be responsible for the criminal actions of others?
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)It would think it would appeal to anyone who embraces "personal responsibility" combined with the social responsibility so many of us here strongly believe in.
Many have suggested that a car is as dangerous. Why not treat the ownership and use similarly?
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)A gun is a metal tube, a handle, a lever, some cams and springs, and a chamber with a sliding housing.
You can buy an iPad for $499. A gun has fewer parts and the basic mechanism hasn't changed for about 80 or so years.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)not added to purchases as tax or fees? Like motor vehicles, or other consumer goods?
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Wait, were you talking about iPads or guns?
Reasonable_Argument
(881 posts)that a $1,500 rifle is cheap?
Johnny Rico
(1,438 posts)Free market.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)But not as effective:
obamanut2012
(26,158 posts)SoutherDem
(2,307 posts)As someone said if you don't plan on paying it back get all the credit you can get use it. Also, in grad school you are allowed to borrow money for expenses, it is assumed you are not working or are working less so if he was planning this for a while he could bank thousands with student loans. I think for someone like him, money was the last of his worries.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)- Ph.D candidate in a hard science, not only were they probably not charging him tuition but probably paying him on stipend to attend school. Not at-all uncommon in the sciences, the research work a competent Ph.D candidate can do generates far more income for a university than tuition would.
- How expensive do you think these guns are? The rifle was the only one likely to have cost much. Shotguns, by comparison, are cheap. Handguns can run the gamut but he bought on the low end in terms of price and power.
- If you know where to look for information, even the average kitchen chemist can make rudimentary explosives sufficient to booby-trap the apartment for less than $100.* (By the time I was 13, I knew how to make napalm and thermite, before I was out of HS I had the knowledge to make things analogous to Semtex and used to blow-up junk cars in the national forest.)
*-The cheapest and biggest boom is diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Such a bomb took down the Murrah building in OKC and in today's dollars would cost about $490 for components. For his purposes, he'd need a bomb about 1/12 the size to demolish his 3-floor apartment building to rubble.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)so sad, it all is, really.
Igel
(35,374 posts)Hard science MS and PhD students that are worth their salt get funded.
During the school year it's usually 50% time, meaning tolerable money. Rolling in dough, if you use standards in the humanities. Friends when I was in grad school had enough cash for necessities and some niceties.
During the summer you work full time and while you're not making professional level wages, you have cash.
One friend launched a music label on a hard-sci grad stipend.
Another bought a new car. A Saturn, so a cheap car. But a car, when I was struggling to keep up with maintenance on my bicycle and with food. There were days I walked to save the $0.50 bus fare. Other days I waited for the bus before realizing I didn't have a bus token because I ran out and couldn't afford more. Humanities.
Then, a year later, he bought a condo. Sigh.
Extramural funding. The school I was at the overhead on outside grants was 42%. If you wanted to do research, you had to include the cost of the lab, any equipment, your summer pay as the primary investigator (with benefits), pay/tuition/insurance for grad student researchers, lab supplies, office supplies, and then divide by 0.42. That 42% went to the school. Some stayed with the administration, some went to the originating department to help fund other students who couldn't find lab researcher slots, and some went to a general fund for grad students in other depts. Usually social sciences and humanities.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)Graduate students in PhD or PhD-trajectory Masters programs in the humanities also typically receive tuition waivers and a stipend. Science grad students usually work in labs, and may TA some of the big science lecture classes (teaching the breakout sessions, etc.); grad students in the humanities typically teach 100 and 200 level courses (freshman composition for English grad students, or the 100 level language courses for foreign language and comp lit grad students, for example). In either case, the stipend usually runs between $12,000 and $20,000 / year, where $20,000 tends to be on the science side. You can pick up extra money by teaching a summer class, etc.
The economics are clear, in either case. A graduate student teaching 2 courses per semester of freshman composition generates far more income than expenditure. Consider the tuition waiver and stipend to run about $32,000 per annum, and 22 students per section at $2100 each, for a total of $184,800. Even if we assume that only half these students are paying full tuition (a ludicrously low number), and facilities costs for just the 4 sections runs at $25,000 for the year (a ludicrously high number), you'd still be almost doubling your money at $67,400.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)So if his finances were a smoking crater after all those purchases, I doubt that would matter much to him.
global1
(25,285 posts)To the point that many people can't afford and are quitting. Why don't they try the same thing with guns and ammo?
To what extent are guns and ammo taxed now?
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Currently, it brings in about half-billion dollars a year.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)There are also state and local sales taxes.
global1
(25,285 posts)Raine
(30,541 posts)how does a guy that works at MacDonalds have access to that much money?
cali
(114,904 posts)of the University of California who attended on a merit scholarship and someone who until a month ago was in a doctoral program at a respected med school. His parents aren't exactly poor and it's not hard to get a credit card.
obamanut2012
(26,158 posts)ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)more in the 3-5K region, max
Raine
(30,541 posts)is always going to over-hype.
tblue37
(65,502 posts)that instead of regulating guns, we should just raise the price of bulletsto $10,000 each. In that routine he speaks as an angry man who says, Man, I am so pissed at you right now! Im gonna cap your assas soon as I save up enough money!
(Of course, at $10,000 per bullet, Romney would be able to buy a bullet instead of making a bet any time he wanted to!)
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)DENVER (AP) The University of Colorado says shooting suspect James Holmes had a federal grant to study neuroscience.
University spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said Saturday that Holmes was one of six neuroscience students at the school to get National Institutes of Health grant money. She didn't know how much money he got.
From: http://hosted2.ap.org/OREUG/f7ded15e4d4846268a17b79c1c4b7cb8/Article_2012-07-21-Colorado%20Shooting-Suspect/id-8e53f630781d48cdb54c369b05b4fc99
cali
(114,904 posts)Fire Walk With Me
(38,893 posts)HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)The firearms would not have been that much even at MSRP.
TBF
(32,111 posts)there have been a few blogs on this subject. Saying the FBI was involved etc ...
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)And people are screaming how Obama is going to take away their guns. I've already aggressively dealt with a few of those today.
Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)I had no idea that grad students took in this amount of money and I had no sense of the price of these sorts of firearms.
TBF
(32,111 posts)when my husband and I went to grad/law school we had worked several years and had credit in excess of $100K. We both had decent salaries and mine was pretty high (6 figure with my O/T) before we decided to change fields.
It would depend upon what kind of funds you had in general (your parents might be well off and give you access to credit - which means they should have been looking at those statements!), whether you have grants or fellowships ... law students can make a lot of money in the summer working for private law firms (this may be true for business students as well). If you are a top scholar as this kid was you do qualify for foundation money sometimes (research grants). Not every student would have these different options, but a certain number definitely do.
Initech
(100,108 posts)And how did purchasing enough weapons and explosives to take out a small city not set off a red flag with his credit card company?
TBF
(32,111 posts)so that would be credit or debit.
Initech
(100,108 posts)TBF
(32,111 posts)(we also have a small bank & credit union we use for savings - but for the convenience I do have a Chase checking w/debit card) - and if I have a day where I'm paid for example and have a bunch of purchases (back to school or a birthday) they will sometimes send an alert just to make sure the card wasn't taken. I do a lot of on-line shopping so this has happened a couple of times. But all you have to do is verify that they are your purchases through their on-line number and you're ok. I don't know if there are any laws on how much ammunition a person is allowed to buy and/or if that is tracked, but that is a darned good question.
NickB79
(19,276 posts)You can buy thousands of rounds of ammo at one time in most Walmarts, let alone a sporting goods store or online.
If the credit card company was suspicious of the transactions, they'd call the cardholder, ask him "did you make these purchases?" and when he says yes, that's the end of it. He didn't break any laws at the time, so the credit card company had no obligation to contact law enforcement.
Initech
(100,108 posts)You'd think that with all the tight security and everything else that this wouldn't have gone unnoticed - or am I being too paranoid?
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)and many here bitch about the lack of privacy regularly. We can't have it both ways, its either a surveillance society or its not.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)Several thousand rounds isn't even an unusual purchase for quite a few people. Ammunition's definitely something that tends to get purchased in bulk.
Macoy51
(239 posts)A few thousand rounds of ammo is fairly cheap and very easy to buy. I walked in to one gun store and they had pallets full of crates of ammo, each crate with a thousand rounds or so. I bought two crates and the clerk just treated it as a routine sale.
/ready for the zombies
Macoy
justanidea
(291 posts)Its not that hard to get a credit card these days. I got approved at the age of 19 for a $4,000 limit and I didnt even have a bank account. lol
Alduin
(501 posts)and I can barely afford to eat.
Good question.
TBF
(32,111 posts)it depends upon your field. Science grads often have research grants from foundations, law students have summer jobs, some kids are just well-off and have substantial parental support. It's not uncommon. Like you, I was eating soup in college. By the time I went back to grad school I had made decent money for many years and had quite a lot of credit availability.
Alduin
(501 posts)grad students receive.
At least not at my college.
TBF
(32,111 posts)I was lucky to have some of my tuition reimbursed by the company I was working for ... but I don't know how common it is for companies to even do that these days.
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)Tumbulu
(6,292 posts)I worked and took student loans....I did not have a credit card.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)not like he was worried about paying it back.
Response to Tumbulu (Original post)
Post removed
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)krispos42
(49,445 posts)Glocks would be about $600 each.
Remington 870... maybe $400?
That double-snail magazine runs about $250, I heard.
So without ammo we're looking in the vicinity of $3,000.
Bulk .223 ammo might cost $0.35 a round, so 6,000 rounds works out to be about two grand.
So say about $5,000 to $5,500 for the guns and rifle ammo. Handgun ammo and shotgun ammo, maybe $100 more for the good stuff.
I'm not sure about the Kevlar, but I imagine it was probably over $1,000 between the torso, leggings, codpiece, helmet, and neck ring.
There's a built-in excise tax on guns and ammo; the money goes to support conservation projects.