When I was in the Army it was my understanding that the more specialized training like breaching doors with shotguns was something that folks like the MP SWAT (the military police has SWAT - or whatever they call it) guys and Delta did. Folks who reach that level in the Army are going to be more career oriented and probably wouldn't have the type of discipline to go that far in the Army. The fanciest small arms training that I ever did was live-fire break contact drills in a five man squad. We did spend a fair amount of training with how to move with a rifle when moving to contact etc, but nothing very elaborate.

Your typical gangbanger has the drive and motivation of a wet washcloth. They're more about getting wasted and having sex with their nasty girlfriends in between sessions on their respective computer game player system - and that description comes from my experience of dealing with gangbangers. They're dangerous, but most of them are definite underachievers. Anyway that's my take on the legend of gangbangers infiltrating the military to get advanced combat training. Most of them don't make it through basic training and that isn't all that difficult to do.

I've been a cop for fifteen years and I've never done door breaching training - officially. I've done more on my own then what I've done while on duty in training.

Did you just use the "If I have no links, what I said is invalid" argument?

I really hope you were not trying to be condescending when you wrote that.

What I said was there's nothing stopping criminals from breaking the law...because they do. Sometimes it's hard to find news of this because the media rarely covers small time crime unless it's a school shooting now.

The best example I can think of with how criminals break the NFA is a while ago, in California, 1 guy part of a team attempted to break into a house and the media focused on his weapon of choice, an AR-15 pistol with the infamous Sig Brace attached and they are trying to prosecute him using an illegal NFA item.

That aside, I never give your typical gangbanger or asshole with a gun any credit of intelligence except they pick their targets by seeing who doesn't have a gun and who's a softer target.

http://www.trentonian.com/general-ne...police-blotter

http://racinecountyeye.com/boy-charg...d-off-shotgun/

http://wach.com/news/local/three-men...ney-grove-road

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburb...008-story.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.2381061

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/gen...-blinded-woman

In my fifteen years the smartest and most capable criminal I have had contact with defrauded banks. To this the day I'm certain he was involved with the so-called Russian Mob out of Southern California. He had numerous fake California driver licenses all with his photos on them, but the people he was pretending to be actually existed and were account holders with the bank that he was ripping off. The date of births, the California DL numbers all belonged to the people he was pretending to be.

He also had numerous fake credit cards and counterfeit checks to back-up his fake ID's. We caught him by dumb luck and a very sharp bank-teller who remembered seeing his photo taken by a security camera at a branch office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida a few days before. He had a rental car, roundtrip airplane tickets to Los Angeles, map quest directions to every single branch office in the Boise area (we were his last stop way over in the western end of the valley) and condoms and no drugs. Not even any booze. He took care of himself and cooperated with us....to a point. No weapons of any kind. Not that kind of criminal.

He had a receipt from Western Union showing that he had wired money to somebody in L.a. a couple days before and he had $8,000 dollars in brand new bills on his person. Which I'm sure was his share. he never gave up his associates. He got five years in prison up here in Idaho. He served all five years. Didn't want parole.

Here's the best part. three years into his sentence he argued in court that the money we took from him was his and he wanted it back. We couldn't prove it was from a criminal enterprise and we couldn't make the connection. So i had to deposit all that cash into his convict bank account. Prisoners can earn money while in prison and it goes into their account which they get when they get out.

Know what I learned from that investigation? That banks don't keep track of serial numbers. I couldn't show that it came from one of the other branch offices in the valley. None of the other branch offices reported being defrauded by him. i could never get the head of their security to return my phone calls. The F.B.I. didn't care even though it was estimated that he and his unidentified associates had taken Washington Mutual for over $1,000,000. It was 2003 and everything was about terrorists. The Secret Service was no help either. So he got out of prison with several thousand dollars and went back to California and probably went back to work for his russian employers. He had some serious logistics backing him up.

Smart criminal. No violence and no guns. Have to admire that guy.

What is the deal with serialized money, from heists and whatnot? How would one even track or trace it?

Well i wonder if at one time the various Feds around the country recorded the serial numbers and who they were shipped to and then the individual banks recorded the serial numbers when they received their shipments of cash.

In the my old investigation back in 2003 it would have helped to make a case that the money my suspect had in his possession came from a local bank. But the only time I've ever had the serial numbers be useful is during counterfeit investigations. the Secret Service maintains a database that records the serial numbers of counterfeit bills. When I get one I can call the local office in Boise, give them the number or numbers and the secret service can tell me where else the fake money has showed up....or if it hasn't. However the prosecution of currency counterfeiters is Federal. We can charge the person passing the funny money with theft since they are purchasing things with fake money so it's stealing. But the actual prosecution for making it goes to the Feds.

Counterfeiting isn't as common as it used to be. Even just ten and twelve years ago we got a lot more funny money being passed. No it's all computer hacking and ID theft. Which means making and passing fake money is becoming more of a specialty again I think. or so it seems in my little coner of the world.

You have to admire some of these guys alright - these days it's a good day if I open a case and it's just regular old insurance plan member fraud. That's at least easy to prove, I'm dealing with what I'm convinced is an organised ring of phony clinics stealing health care providers credentials. Every time we get close to catching them they just shut down and open with a new name.

It's become very organized and global.I've seen an increase in this type of crime in just the past fifteen years. Every week we have victims of phone scams in which the suspects are typically calling from another country. There is simply nothing we can do for those victims.

As long as it is at least 18" with the bolt closed, it does not become a short barrelled shotgun.

Here in Canada, a rifle or shotgun barrel can likewise be shortened to 18", but any shorter and it becomes a prohibited device (it's something of a grey area to shorten a barrel that is already under 18").

I've been eyeing this really old Browning auto 5 that's been at my local gun store. It's barrel is the shortest it legally can and just handles really well. For 350, it's a steal