Twin Cities a hotbed of full autos?

D

DaleA

New member
There’s been a few high-profile shootings in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota) lately and now reports are coming in about an increase in fully automatic weapons here.

Minneapolis Police records show, through the first nine months of 2021, more than 900 rounds of automatic gunfire have been detected using ShotSpotter technology, which is up from just 42 rounds of automatic gunfire through the first nine months of 2020.
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https://kstp.com/news/minnesotas-atf-office-sees-increase-in-illegal-automatic-guns/6267775/

Note: Shot Spotter technology is only in Minneapolis as the Mayor of St. Paul, Melvin Carter, declined to have the technology installed in his city even though the chief of police wanted it and there was a state grant that would have helped the city pay for it.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/...ikely-wont-be-part-of-st-pauls-crime-response

https://kstp.com/news/emails-show-s...tspotter-technology-november-19-2019/5557966/

Here’s private video, maybe from a “ring” doorbell camera, of what might be full auto fire in a Minneapolis neighborhood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3k2vm-vuw0&t=10s

What to do about the problem? Well next month (November 2021) the voters of Minneapolis will have the chance to vote on ‘defunding the police’. Note: supporters of the measure now say that’s not what they meant when they had a big rally last year with a big banner saying “Defund the Police" on the speaker platform. No, they just want to "reimagine the police force" in Minneapolis.

Strangely enough, despite increase in “gun violence” in the Twin Cities, and perhaps an increase in fully automatic weapons, the anti-gun activists in the state, ‘Protect Minnesota’, have been unusually inactive lately. Their web site is:
Home | Protect Minnesota (protectmn.org)
 
Back in the 80s, Miami /Dade Co FL was regarded as the (illegal) machine gun capitol of the nation. Several folks boasted (in print) that $600 and a couple hours and you could get an automatic weapon.

Don't know why they moved north where its colder, but I guess even illegal gun dealers go where the demand is....:rolleyes:
 
Minneapolis Police records show, through the first nine months of 2021, more than 900 rounds of automatic gunfire have been detected using ShotSpotter technology
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Well, that's your problem right there. Shot Spotter, to put it mildly, is useless. The process involves setting up microphones to detect things that sound like gunshots. If one of them is triggered, the audio is sent to an "analyst," who then decides whether it sounds like a gunshot and whether police should be informed.

As you can guess, false positive results are common. The company won't release any data about its technology or methods, so we don't know the criteria by which they're reporting this "automatic" gunfire. Is it several people shooting normal weapons at once? Is the analyst hearing echoes? We don't know.

Both the Chicago OIG and the ACLU have very real problems with the system, and those problems are largely rooted in how inaccurate it is.

So there's that part of it. As per the ATF claim that they're confiscating illegally-converted weapons, I also call shenanigans. Sure it happens, but it's rare. Much of the time, those "automatic" weapons are actually just semiautomatics.

(I have a friend who worked several years for the DA's office in a major urban county. It was part of his job to examine confiscated firearms to determine what violations had happened. Every supposed "machine gun" in the cage was just called that because it was an AK-47 or Tec-9 clone.)
 
I can't help but wonder if that Shot Spotter can tell the difference between automatic gunfire and old cold Briggs and Stratons with buggered and tired valves trying to warm up and seat properly?
 
There are a couple of points to consider about ANYTHING "recognizing" gunfire, automatic or otherwise.

There is no recording media that can accurately capture and reproduce the sound of gunfire. Therefore, any analysis the sound, whether done by a live human or a computer program, has to rely on an inaccurate recording, to begin with.

Another point is actual people, hear gunfire differently, due to all the variables involved (location, distance, reflectors, etc).

None of the sounds you and I hear as gunshots in movies or TV are actual gunshots, they are sound effects added in after filming. Because filming actual gunshots doesn't sound like gunshots.

Film/video shooting. ,22s and .44Magnums sound the same on tape (or nowdays, digital). Both sound like a "pop" not a gunshot. The magnum has a bigger pop but that's it.

SO, when its a computer program "hearing" gunshots, and counting the time between "shots" deciding what meets its program parameters is automatic gunfire,AND the maker won't,tell anyone what those parameters are, I have my doubts about the accuracy of the system.

I used to have a 74 Dodge truck with a 440 engine that needed work. It would, sometimes, backfire. And, we're not talking a little "pop" here, either.

Standing 15ft from the truck the backfire sounded to MY ear exactly like someone shooting a.357 Magnum, and it also made my ears ring exactly like the gunshot does.

I wonder how a microphone 40, 50, 100, 200yds??? away would interpret a slightly out of time Harley Davidson. :rolleyes:
 
I wonder if they're smuggled in by the Chinese? Decades ago right after the CA semi-auto ban, SFPD Officer Issac Espinoza was killed by a gangbanger armed with a selective fire, military grade AKM and not some recently banned semi-auto lookalike.

They would love for us to have our own civil war/strife.
 
I have worked in and around the Twin Cities for over 20 years. It’s truly sad to see what has become of it. Heartbreaking is the term that comes to mind.
 
They might be in the same place they were back when our current Pres was VP and said "We don't have time for that"....:rolleyes:
 
I moved out of Mpls last February due to the rampant crime, so the election should be interesting. Klobuchar and Walz oppose defunding and Ellison & Omar do not. Very telling. There were only 2-3 City Council members that were against it, one of whom represents a district where my ex lives. She had her house vandalized, as well as other politicians.
 
In Portland area and over in Vancouver there’s a multitude of cars that people have intentionally modified to backfire in rapid succession...
There’s constant reports of gunfire that can be attributed to those cars.
It is annoying and startling at times.
Probably what those sensors are hearing lol
 
I wonder if they're smuggled in by the Chinese?
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I believe that is correct, for the most part.
3d6de86df759db4779d3465d49bc18ed8077ba2d_original.jpeg

Tons of these things were imported/sold. I'm pretty sure Ebay and possibly Amazon allowed it for quite some time.
 
gadget

Those are an end view to a backplate that fits Glock pistols that allegedly allows full auto fire. They were supposedly made in China and shipped and sold online as an "airsoft" accessory, or some similar story. Possession of one I believe is now considered the same as an auto sear.

Video recording is now every where, and I have seen two , maybe three recent online video's of 'bangers discharging full auto firearms. One involved the death of a Houston LEO. A "32-shot Glock" seems to be all the rage in the 'banger culture. So too a drum for Glock's. In at least two vids with oversize mags but semi fire, the oversize mag falls from the gun, allowing victim or officer too escape or return fire.
 
As bamaranger said, those devices replace a Glock's slide backplate and allow select fire.

IIRC, YouTube had a couple of videos on the installation and use of these things.

They have been offered by a number of sites in the last few years.
 
would you mind telling us what those black/silver things ARE??
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Thank you bamaranger and Destructo6 for the info.

(My thought was they looked like they might be a charging device for my wife's cell phone.)
 
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