I’m half watching Law & Order: SVU while doing the dishes, because there is nothing else on.  The episode is called Raw, and is about a school shooting.  Blah, blah, blah… whatever, whatever, whatever…

So the cops find the gun on top of a building across the street from the school.  It is described this way:

“Folding stock, bolt action, internal magazine.  High-powered scope and a flash suppressor. This is a precision sniper rifle.  Kind you use with a specific target in mind.”

WOW… a bolt action with an internal magazine and a high power scope.  That sounds like most of the deer rifles sold in America.  There is nothing that the folding stock and flash suppressor (which looks a lot more like a muzzle brake) does to make the gun any more dangerous.  Got to love Hollywood gun hyperbole.  No way this is just another bolt gun.  This is a “precision sniper rifle” used to kill people only.  I can’t believe that this thing is legal./sarc/

This is the rifle that the police tech holds up (captured from Hulu for this post).

I didn’t recognize it (which is saying something) and had to look it up.  Turns out it is a Grendel SRT, which turns out to be a .308 Sako 85 modified by the precursor to Kel-Tec, Grendel Arms, and was made in the late 80’s.  Yep, a hunting rifle with a folding stock and muzzle brake.

It’s a rare rifle.  I only found one online auction for one (either active or expired) and it was on Armslist for $1,600.  Seems like kind of an odd gun to be found at a crime scene and an expensive gun to use as drop piece.

So I tune out…

Then I hear “South Dakota.”  So as a former resident of the Rushmore State, I rewound the episode a little bit (hooray for DVR) and found out that Detective Munch traced where the gun was made:

“It was lovingly manufactured in Sturgis, South Dakota.  Made its way to a wholesale distributor in Brainerd, Minnesota.”

Well this was the image on the screen.

That red dot is nowhere near Sturgis.  Sturgis is right by Rapid City – which you can clearly see on the map.  In fact, if you look carefully, you can see Sturgis on the map just above and to the left of Rapid City.

OK.  I know what you are thinking.  This is a show written and shot in NYC.  What do they know or care about South Dakota.  That is flyover country, why be accurate.  Fine.  I’m used to it by now.

But then L&O: SVU goes full retard.

This is the dialog between Detective Munch (M) and Captain Cragen (C):

M: It was lovingly manufactured in Sturgis, South Dakota.  Made its way to a wholesale distributor in Brainerd, Minnesota.Who then shipped it to a whimsically named little shop – called “Gun ho!” On Staten island.
C: When?
M: Less that a month ago. Gun ho! sold it last Thursday.
C: We have a legal purchase?
M: Complete with loophole.  It’s a long gun, so no background checks are required.
C: Cash sale.
M: Of course.
C: Buyer’s signature on the affidavit?
M: Yeah, but it’s illegible.  And I guarantee you, it is bogus.
C: Okay, well, looks like, uh, “S. Brockwull” or, uh, “Rockwell.” First initial could be “G”? Who made the sale?
M: The owner of Gun ho! His name is Brian Ackerman.
C: Well, he did a pretty half-assed job.  He didn’t get a clear signature or a full first name.

And what, pray tell, is the image that goes along with this?  A mother-lovin’ ATF Form 4473.  It says so right at the bottom of the damn page.

So there are the things the writers of L&O: SVU want me to believe.

1. Neither the Federal Government nor the State of New York mandates background checks on long guns sold at gun stores?
2. A Federal Firearms Licensed gun store will make no record of serialized inventory if the item is paid for with cash?
3. Nobody checked ID when having the buyer fill out a Form 4473?
4. A buyer can get away with not properly filling out a Form 4473 and not printing a full name, birth date, address, city of birth, SSN (optional but very heavily encouraged)?
5. A Form 4473 is NOT part of the NICS background check system?
6. And all of the above is legal?

That is some serious bullshit right there.  No wonder most people and politicians have no idea about the background check system in this country.

Now that I am about one-third of the way done with this turd sandwich, I sit down to finish it.  As the late, great Billy Mays used to say: “But wait, there’s more.”

Detectives Munch and Stabler go to the Gun Ho! (the gun store) and lie their way past the owner’s 16 year old son to take a look around WITHOUT a warrant.  How does the prop department dress up the inside of the store?

In 30 seconds of TV I spotted three SBR’s (two SIG 556 and one UZI) hanging from the walls of a store in a state that explicitly prohibits the ownership of NFA items.  Not including the NFA items, there were a bunch AR-15’s, AK-47’s and other guns with high capacity magazines, in violation of New York City’s longstanding Assault Weapon Ban.

Maybe, this is a gun store that does deal in illegal “backdoor” and straw-man sales.  But would they really be so stupid as to have pretty much everything that is illegal in NYC put on display as soon as two cops walk in the door?  Or did the prop department really have no idea what is and is not illegal in NYC and just put the scariest looking stuff they have in the warehouse on the walls?

So the show progresses a little more, Munch and Stabler hear a noise and go down into the basement where BOOM!!!

A whole orgy of evidence that the gun store owners are racist, white supremacists.  Because of course, why not.  White people, guns store, assault rifles, talking about *gasp* the Second Amendment… they have to be white supremacists.  You just can’t have normal, law abiding, small business owners, who just happen to sell guns in NYC.  Not if you are Hollywood leftists.

I guess not seeing this coming was my fault.  I should have remembered that having an AR is practically screaming “Sieg Heil!” right? I figured the way that NYC oppresses scrutinized guns stores  – to the point where some don’t even sell to civilians – a gun store would have to be above board.  Nope.

Now we find out that the owner of the gun store has an entire Neo-Nazi website.  And somehow neither the government of NYC nor the anti-gun nuts in NYC never uncover this.

As it turns out, the sale was illegal for use in a murder conspiracy.  Somehow the the store owners goes free.  No mention of being arrested and charged with any of the federal laws that were broken relating to an FFL performing an illegal transfer as part of a criminal conspiracy.

In the course of this episode I watched the people over at SVU go hyperbolic misdescribing a 80’s Finnish hunting rifle, show total ignorance of state and federal gun laws and the background check system, then go into complete character assassination of gun stores and gun owners.

This is why so many people are so stupid about guns, gun laws, and gun culture.

F*** you Hollywood.  F*** you.