Posted on 08/25/2010 7:48:58 PM PDT by smokingfrog
United States Attorney John E. Murphy announced that in El Paso this morning, former Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent John Shipley was sentenced to two years in federal prison for violating federal firearms laws.
Senior United States District Judge David Briones also ordered that Shipley be placed under supervised release for a period of three years and complete 250 hours of community service after completing his prison term.
Briones also ordered that Shipley forfeit 17 firearms including two .50 caliber Barrett rifles; ammunition in various calibers including over 2,800 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition; one silencer; and, $7,340 in cash seized during the execution of a federal search warrant at Shipley's residence on May 6, 2008.
"Federal agents are not exempt from the laws which they swore to uphold," stated United States Attorney John E. Murphy. "Mr. Shipley is being held accountable for his own criminal actions. They are in no way a reflection of the outstanding work being accomplished by dedicated federal, state and local law enforcement across this District and this country."
This investigation-conducted by agents from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General together with agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives-commenced with a firearms trace of a .50 caliber sniper rifle sold by Shipley. That rifle was recovered by Mexican authorities following a gunbattle between suspected narcotraffickers and the Mexican military near Chihuahua, Mexico, on March 8, 2008.
"By illegally dealing in firearms, Shipley violated the trust that the public placed in him as a law enforcement official," said Wayne D. Beaman, Special Agent in Charge, Dallas Field Office, Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General.
(Excerpt) Read more at kvia.com ...
“commenced with a firearms trace of a .50 caliber sniper rifle sold by Shipley. That rifle was recovered by Mexican authorities following a gunbattle between suspected narcotraffickers and the Mexican military near Chihuahua, Mexico”
You made the bed, now lay on it for a while.
Juar wondering how much FBI agents are paid. Anyone know?
Sounds like a guy who likes to buy a sell guns. A few years ago, he probably would have gone ahead and applied for an FFL and would have been legal (mostly anyway). Now a days, the BATF won’t issue licenses to “kitchen table dealers.” You have to have a regular, properly zoned business address, a local business license, sales tax number, etc. That leaves little room for a guy who just wants to sell at gun shows or do a few deals with friends, etc.
Some of us have gone the Curios and Relics route, but that form of FFL only allows you to buy and sell the old stuff. There really isn’t anyway for the hard-core gun nut to get a FFL and enjoy the benefits of buying from distributors, getting guns shipped to your home, etc.
To the unitiated, this guy sounds like bad news, but really buying and selling a couple of hundred guns isn’t that big of a deal to a serious collector. The key is to make sure that EVERY THING you do qualifies as “enhancing your personal collection.” You can buy a gun and sell it later, no problem. But buy a gun at a gun show and put it back out on your table at the same show to sell . . . oops, that’s a problem.
Seriously, the rules are really vague and ill-defined. The BATF says you can’t “engage in business” without a license. But what does that mean. Here’s what they say:
The term “engaged in the business,” as applicable to a firearms dealer, is defined as a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms, but such term shall not include a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms.
So, you can sell all your guns and you can improve your collection but you can’t do it as a regular course of trade. Maybe this guy crossed that line, but where the hell is the line?
SPECIAL AGENT CAREER PATH PROGRAM
Looks like you would have to figure out their formula to come up with a exact salary but the base appears to be $43k and then you add multipliers for locality and such
No sympathy from me...hoist on their own pertard...or somehting like that...you get my drift.
BTW, there is nothing illegal about a person owning or selling a .50 caliber rifle if they’re legally allowed to own any other gun. The .50 caliber reference is just in this story to scare people. So he once owned a gun that ended up in Mexico. If he had anything to do with selling guns to people who aren’t allowed to buy them, why wasn’t he charged with that?
Please, can’t these people chase down real criminals with the hard earned tax dollars we give them (?)
Without a FFL he would have had to have answered yes to the "are you purchasing this firearm for you self" question on a 4473. I guess that would be hard to justify when you bought and almost immediately sold weapons over 50 times in 3 years.
I think the reporter threw in the story about the Barrett for the sake of drama.
Where does the story said he sold on a website that HE set up? Not that that would be an issue so long as all the sales went through an FFL for transfers. Guns are bought and sold on websites every day. There are whole sites devoted to nothing but selling guns. THere is a perfectly legal procedure for doing this — all you need to do is route the transfer though a local FFL.
Presumably, he was following proper procedure or they would have charged him with something specific. It just sounds to me like he crossed the indistinct hobby/engaged in business line.
Again, 50 guns in three years is nothing for a serious collector.
As for the straw man question on the 4473, there’s a whole grey area there. Suppose you buy a shotgun and decide after shooting a couple of rounds of skeet with it that the stock doesn’t fit you. A buddy of yours tries it, likes it and offers you a good price for it. Maybe you even make a few bucks on your buddy. Does that make you a dealer? No, it doesn’t, even if you only owned the gun for a couple of days.
Who’s to say what your intent was when you purchase a gun? Sure, there may be some pretty clear examples where this guy was buying for the sole purpose of resale. In that case, he’s screwed, but it just goes to point to the absurdity of the gun laws.
I’ll give you an example. A few weeks ago a local dealer blew out some shotguns really cheap. I was tempted to buy them, knowing that I could make $100 or more on each one reselling them. I finally decided to pass and told another local dealer about the good buy and he went and bought them. It was only after the fact that I realized that had I gone ahead and bought the guns for the purpose of resale I would have been in violation of federal law.
“I think the reporter threw in the story about the Barrett for the sake of drama.”
Well considering he had 2800 rounds for those two bolt action .50 cals, that’s a bunch of ammo for bolt actions. Even by my standards, and I buy 1k at a time at the gun shows. But that’s for semi’s, where it’s not unusual to crank off 300 rounds during a trip to the range.
Good point, it doesn't. Nice call on my sloppy reading!
"It just sounds to me like he crossed the indistinct hobby/engaged in business line.
I'm sure thats the problem, that and he probably stepped on the wrong toes at work. He was also keeping a "bound-book" of transactions which is very "business-like" and not something a person who sells a few guns would normally do. I suppose a collector may, but they probably would keep the firearms more than a couple of years before reselling.
Follow the link: http://www.kvia.com/news/24747169/detail.html
On April 14, 2010, a federal jury convicted Shipley of one count of dealing firearms without a license, four counts of causing a firearms dealer to maintain false records and one count of making a false statement to federal authorities.
Jurors found that Shipley engaged in the business of dealing in firearms from January 2005 until May 2008, while not being licensed as a Federal Firearms Dealer. Evidence presented during trial revealed that Shipley posted firearms for sale using an internet website more than 200 times, including multiple postings for many firearms. During that three-and-a-half-year time period, Shipley also purchased at least 54 firearms, then sold at least 51 of those firearms for more than $118,000.
Jurors also found that on four occasions between July 2007 and May 2008, Shipley provided false information on ATF forms 4473 when purchasing firearms at local gun shops stating that he was the actual buyer, when in fact, he was not.
Finally, jurors found that on March 21, 2008, Shipley provided to federal authorities a document-a Dealers’ Firearms Record Book-which Shipley claimed was his only complete and accurate listing of the firearms he bought and sold, knowing that he had another Dealers’ Firearms Record Book which contained a more extensive descriptive and accurate list of firearms he bought and sold.
You could go on doing this example forever as long as no problems occurred with any of the firearms you originally filled out a 4473 for in your name. Once one of those skeet guns turns up in a Mexican gun fight and they run a trace back to the dealer you bought it from your trouble starts.
The whole thing is really a bunch of BS and IMHO is designed to be able to make anyone into a "process" criminal if the Feds don't like what you are up to, even if you are following the law.
Just to be clear, I have no doubt this guy was acting like a dealer, buying and selling guns as a hobby business. The problem is that the BATF considers those two things incompatable — hobby and business. It didn’t used to be that way. Until just a few years ago, a person who wanted to take his collecting to the next level could apply for and receive a dealers FFL. With license in hand, there’s no temptation to skirt the line. There’s no need to mark “yes” that you’re buying it for yourself when you know it’s really a case of “hey, this is a good deal, I can make a few bucks on this.”
I see no evidence in this story that this guy was doing anything nefarious. They don’t claim he was supplying guns to known criminals, for example.
Yes, he may have sold guns to individuals without requiring a background check, but that’s what the law allows. No, that’s what the law specifies of non-licensed people. Had they just allowed him to have a license, none of this would have even mattered. He wouldn’t have had to falsify that one question on the form and he would have been running background checks on every sale. There, problem solved.
Of course, I’m just assuming he would have preferred to have a license, but I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want one, given his level of activity.
>>Well considering he had 2800 rounds for those two bolt action .50 cals, that’s a bunch of ammo for bolt actions. Even by my standards, and I buy 1k at a time at the gun shows. But that’s for semi’s, where it’s not unusual to crank off 300 rounds during a trip to the range.<<
It’s an incredible amount of .50 caliber ammo — especially given the price for that stuff. Makes me wonder if that part of the story is even accurate. I don’t think an individual could shoot that much .50 cal in a lifetime. Even for a dealer, that would be an insane amount of .50 caliber ammo. I’m tempted to chalk that up to typical poor reporting when it comes to the subject of guns.
Also, it should be noted that there is nothing illegal about owning 2,800 rounds of .50 ammo. Nothing. Nada. Zip. It is not a crime and therefore irrelevant to this story.
I’m sorry to fixate on this topic so much, but it pisses me off on a lot of levels. Curiosity got the best of me so I googled the guy’s name. His family’s legal defense site is certainly interesting and helps provide the missing details:
http://www.shipleylegalfund.com/
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