How easy would it be to smuggle unregistered weapons into USA?

[edk926]

There's like a billion guns in the US at this point already. We literally smuggle out guns into Mexico to the drug lords. Honestly, you may well find most of what you want to smuggle in already here.

[Michael Cule]

Why do they want 'thousands of guns' anyways?

Do they have thousands of people to give them to?

Because that's going to be noticed if the gun smuggling isn't.

Likewise your distribution network within the US.

[Phantasm]

What I did in my game was have one branch of bad guys be a totally legitimate domestic arms manufacturer that supplies another branch of bad guys who run shell corporations that own shell corps that have offshore Swiss and Singaporean accounts.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

I suspect that the OP has a touchingly exaggerated opinion of the reach of American intelligence and law enforcement. The power of the state to engage in surveillance is impressive if you've done something to attract their attention, but there's a lot which is either untracked or, if it is tracked, only serves to provide context and detail once somebody starts looking at individuals closely.

The more I think about this, the easier it gets. If they need [quantity] of guns, presumably they'll have [quantity] of people to use them. So, then, start with a small domestic operation cranking out upgrade kits for whatever weapon they want to standardize on. That can operate for as long as necessary to stockpile enough kits. Then give each of these people intended to wield guns enough money to get a decent gun or two, send them to gun shows [1] in the couple of weeks running up to the event and let them get their own. They get their entirely legal gun free from even the most cursory background check. They go home, modify it, and a couple of days later they're shooting up Fisherman's Wharf or the Alamo or whatever. There's nothing in that which will attract the attention of law enforcement.

Now, bringing in explosives and such is a different problem (and I'd be making contact with drug smugglers for that and expect delivery via low-flying plane over the border or by tiny submarine), but it's also a much smaller problem.

I think part of what I'm not getting is why the weapons have to be so very untraceable. In this scenario, each one is just another legally purchased gun which, if law enforcement goes to the trouble of trying to figure out where it came from, is unhelpfully traced back through a line of legal sellers to a legal manufacturer. Before the fact, nothing is going to raise red flags, and after the fact, their domestic origin is going to be meaningless. See, both foreign and domestic terrorists in the US rely on our near-total lack of gun control; al-Quaeda, for example, has commented on that and recommended that their followers get guns here rather than try to sneak them in. And after things blow up, law enforcement is not going to say "These domestic weapons mean it couldn't have been the People's Republic of Absurdistan Suicide Brigade!" They're going to say "The People's Republic of Absurdistan Suicide Brigade was smart getting their weapons locally rather than trying to smuggle them in."

1. "Gun shows" are events which involve exhibitions of products and a sort of boot sale for weapons. They are largely free of most of the already minimal reporting requirements imposed on gun sales in the US...you do know that we don't register firearms here, right?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Michael Cule

Why do they want 'thousands of guns' anyways?

More Dakka.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

More Dakka.

Are you actually trying to raise a revolt? Because I should think gang vendettas don't need that much stuff.

Of course if you just want to run an underground arms selling ring, you might want a lot of guns.

[Varyon]

Using untraceable weapons for a false-flag operation is self-defeating. You want them to trace the weapons back to your target, not be unable to trace them at all. Any method to conceal their origin is going to make it clear that the perpetrators were very good at concealing the weapons’ origins, which will make the planted evidence more suspicious - how could anyone so skilled have made such a blunder?

The characters need to use a method that would be available to their true target, and for foreign nations to do an attack on US soil without an invasion of some flavor, they’d probably need to use existing channels - have their agents enter the US under legitimate pretenses (or sneak in using the same methods as illegal immigrants), then acquire their gear either legitimately or on the black market. The characters should do the same for their conspiracy.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

I suspect that the OP has a touchingly exaggerated opinion of the reach of American intelligence and law enforcement. The power of the state to engage in surveillance is impressive if you've done something to attract their attention, but there's a lot which is either untracked or, if it is tracked, only serves to provide context and detail once somebody starts looking at individuals closely.

The more I think about this, the easier it gets. If they need [quantity] of guns, presumably they'll have [quantity] of people to use them. So, then, start with a small domestic operation cranking out upgrade kits for whatever weapon they want to standardize on. That can operate for as long as necessary to stockpile enough kits. Then give each of these people intended to wield guns enough money to get a decent gun or two, send them to gun shows [1] in the couple of weeks running up to the event and let them get their own. They get their entirely legal gun free from even the most cursory background check. They go home, modify it, and a couple of days later they're shooting up Fisherman's Wharf or the Alamo or whatever. There's nothing in that which will attract the attention of law enforcement.

Now, bringing in explosives and such is a different problem (and I'd be making contact with drug smugglers for that and expect delivery via low-flying plane over the border or by tiny submarine), but it's also a much smaller problem.

I think part of what I'm not getting is why the weapons have to be so very untraceable. In this scenario, each one is just another legally purchased gun which, if law enforcement goes to the trouble of trying to figure out where it came from, is unhelpfully traced back through a line of legal sellers to a legal manufacturer. Before the fact, nothing is going to raise red flags, and after the fact, their domestic origin is going to be meaningless. See, both foreign and domestic terrorists in the US rely on our near-total lack of gun control; al-Quaeda, for example, has commented on that and recommended that their followers get guns here rather than try to sneak them in. And after things blow up, law enforcement is not going to say "These domestic weapons mean it couldn't have been the People's Republic of Absurdistan Suicide Brigade!" They're going to say "The People's Republic of Absurdistan Suicide Brigade was smart getting their weapons locally rather than trying to smuggle them in."

1. "Gun shows" are events which involve exhibitions of products and a sort of boot sale for weapons. They are largely free of most of the already minimal reporting requirements imposed on gun sales in the US...you do know that we don't register firearms here, right?

This is the correct choice. Don't smuggle them in, at all. Buy them here, and then modify them with readily-available (if questionably legal) kits.

As for explosives, you need to consider the purpose. Small bricks of C-4 are useful for controlled detonations of vehicle-sized targets (or breaching buildings) with minimal collateral damage.

Based on your description, these guys want to destroy national landmarks or other culturally significant targets, and may not care about hurting non-combatants. In fact, hurting non-combatants could be seen not as a problem, but instead a knock-on benefit.

So, don't bother with a fancy, high-tech explosive based on RDX. Instead, just buy some 50 gallon drums, and have a dozen operatives pick up hundreds of pounds of unadulterated ammonium nitrate fertilizer, each, and have others pick up some fuel oil (diesel fuel).

Now then, the purchase of hundreds of pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer by someone who isn't known to the local agricultural equipment supplier will raise some flags. So, just steal it in the middle of the night from the manufacturer, instead. That'll raise some flags, but if these guys are at all competent, the ATFE and FBI investigations could take days or weeks.

Alternatively, break into the supply warehouse used by a road construction contractor, and steal the tanks of the stuff he uses to blast roads through hills or mountains. Strip-mining companies have the same stuff, sitting around.

Yeah, they're under guard, but the guards usually consist of a couple of retired former soldiers who sit around, take naps, play fantasy football, and occasionally chase off random trespassers who don't know anything about what's in the warehouse. Secrecy is the best security, but once penetrated, the actual security staff can be walked over by anybody sufficiently prepared.

Anyway, drop all of that in a warehouse with some explosives experts who can make detonators from just a few pounds of RDX (or even home-made nitroglycerine plastique), and then load a bunch of barrels on rental trucks. Or, just grab some detonators from the strip mining company warehouse when they take the barrels of pre-mixed explosives. They'll be stored separately -- probably in a locked supply cabinet -- but nearby.

Unfortunately, we have direct experience that such efforts can prove appallingly effective.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Warphead's Battlewaggon

For purposes of the campaign there must be no local paper trails and any recovered weapons can not have any registration marks. Even the factories they were manufactured at in Asia must be obscured by materials being brought in from many sources. Players have seen too many TV crimes dramas and read Tom Clancy novels to know that local crime and intelligence agencies can trace items by tiny evidence. Also a few tonnes of plastic explosives and multiple antitank/heavy weapons aren't that easy to come by even in US. They plan to take out lightly protected American landmarks and pin blame on fictional East European or Asian dictator.

If it is for some high profile job like a court officer, or a protected witness then there is good reason to be untraceable. But you don't need that much dakka for that, you need a specialized crew and a little bit of dakka.

All of the junk you ship in sounds untraceable anyway simply by fog of war. if you do a bunch of complicated deception games and file off the serial numbers that''might be fine for normal street mayhem. What are the cops going to say if they find another skinhead corpse: "Gee, I think someone doesn't like him, I wonder why; he looks like such a nice person."

[adm]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

...ammonium nitrate fertilizer...

In the U.S. today, this is a lot harder to get in large amounts than rifles or pistols. Between it's uses for explosives, and meth manufacturing, it is rather closely monitored.