“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?
Please, can’t these people chase down real criminals with the hard earned tax dollars we give them (?)
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/