Posted on 09/06/2019 8:02:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Over the Labor Day weekend, Seth Aaron Ator shot and killed seven people. He wounded more than 20 others in his senseless rampage. Police killed him during his attack. Ator was a man marked with mental illness. As they searched his home, police noted that this man was on a downward spiral, which apparently culminated when he was fired from his job the day he committed his heinous crime. As the anti-gun Left mobilized again, many questions remained. How did Ator get a rifle? He failed a previous background check via mental health adjudication.
Well, it seems Ator obtained his firearms from someone who might have been illegally manufacturing and selling guns without a license. Firearms reporter Stephen Gutowski of the Washington Free Beacon had a good thread about this development, notably that it’s legal for a law-abiding citizen to build his own firearms for personal use/protection, but not with the intention of selling it to others. He went into some of the ATF statutes concerning what “in the business” means to the government concerning firearms sales, but added that regardless of the gray area—what this individual did as reported by the Journal concerning his transfer to Ator was “blatantly illegal”:
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been trying to piece together how Seth Aaron Ator was able to purchase the AR-15-style rifle he used to kill seven people and wound 22 before police shot and killed him.
Ator, 36 years old, was prohibited under federal law from owning a firearm because a court had previously found him mentally unfit, law-enforcement officials previously said. He had tried to buy a gun in January 2014 but failed because a nationwide criminal-background-check system flagged the mental-health determination by a local court and prevented the purchase, according to the officials.
Authorities suspect the Lubbock man sold Ator the gun through a private sale. Such a sale allowed Ator to purchase a gun without going through a criminal-background check. Gun-control proponents have frequently complained that private sales are a hole in the background-check system that should be addressed.
It is unclear whether the man knew Ator was a prohibited person when selling him the rifle. If the gun dealer did in fact know that Ator was barred from buying guns, he could be charged with a federal crime. But authorities are also looking into whether the man was illegally selling guns.
While private gun sales are legal under federal law, it is a crime to be in the business of manufacturing or selling guns without a license. Law-enforcement officials suspect the man was buying various gun parts to build his own guns and then reselling them.
The WSJ is now reporting the Odessa shooter got his gun from somebody who was illegally manufacturing and selling them without a license. If true, that would make the idea that universal background checks could have prevented the sale less likely https://t.co/1Dk3iAd9dd— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) September 5, 2019
It is illegal to manufacture firearms with the intention of selling them to others without a license. Even if you're buying already serialized lowers and then assembling them with other parts, it would be illegal to do so if your intention is to sell the guns to others.— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) September 5, 2019
That sounds like the exact situation the Wall Street Journal is describing here. pic.twitter.com/amuymIjtSU— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) September 5, 2019
If you are not a prohibited person (like a felon or domestic abuser), you can legally manufacture your own firearms for personal use. You can't do it with the intention of selling the gun to others, though. Here's more from the ATF: https://t.co/DE1X77jYms— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) September 5, 2019
There is some gray area in this section of the law. Only those "in the business" of manufacturing or selling guns need to obtain licenses. That's why gun sales by average people on the used market aren't subject to licensing requirements.— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) September 5, 2019
Here's how the ATF defines "in the business" of manufacturing firearms. It's very similar to "in the business" of selling firearms. https://t.co/OUEae7VEbw pic.twitter.com/wiUs1Tod1v— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) September 5, 2019
So, it may be legal to assemble a gun from serialized parts and then later sell them at a loss. Clearly, though, it's illegal to manufacture guns with the intention of selling them to others for a profit. That seems to be what WSJ describes the seller in question as doing.— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) September 5, 2019
Even with that potential gray area, what the guy in the WSJ story is accused of doing is blatantly illegal. I've reached out to the ATF for more details on what's going on with him. I'll let you know when I hear back.— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) September 5, 2019
As of now, federal law enforcement officials are searching the home of the man in question, but the fact remains that background checks worked. Ator was denied. He appears to have gone outside the law to obtain a gun. There’s nothing expanded background checks can do about that or any talking point that’s peddled by Democrats after these tragedies. There was no loophole and private sales aren’t the reason why we have mass shootings. The laws on the books prevented Ator, a prohibited person, from buying a gun. It looks like he, along with his alleged illegal gun maker, had to break the law in order from him to obtain a weapon.
Sorry Matt Vespa. You musta forgot: #factsdontmatter. Besides which, nuzzlin’ joe has stated that ‘they’ have chosen truth over facts. Whatever the ‘f’ that means. Probably that they will let us know what the truth is even if there is no basis in fact.
The moral of the story is that many crimes against “criminal” behavior do not STOP persons bent on criminal intent, as much as they might impinge on the freedoms of the law abiding folks. What “criminal” laws do the most is to provide a means of prosecution AFTER THE FACT, not stopping the crime in the first place. Criminals are criminals because laws do not stop them.
Note to the Left: People who intend to commit mass murder don't care about your laws.
Anti 2nd Amendment types will merely say that is why guns must be outlawed.
2nd Amendment bump for later.....
"outside the law"? Now why would a criminal do that?
What Is Law?
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
The Law - Frederic Bastiat
What words written on a piece of paper has stopped anyone from doing what those words said you can’t do?
All banning guns in America is going to do is start up a new black market in Mexico of smuggling guns into America. Democrats are pitifully stupid.
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to make a law against killing people rather than confiscating 300 million guns?
Abortionists say that since abortion is the law it cannot be contested.
The 2nd amendment, actually written into the Constitution, is the law of the land so it also cannot be contested.
If I, as a private seller, want to sell to an unknown person, say as someone I met at a gun show but want to sell elsewhere, can I access the federal data list to find out if he is a prohibited person?
Criminals buy guns the same place they get their dope. All the laws in the world are not gonna change that fact.
If someone is set on killing folks with a gun...that person will get his hands on a gun. Make all the laws you want. It won’t stop them.
Just make illegally manufacturing guns illegal. That will solve the problem.
Somebody wants to buy a gun and can’t pass the federal checks, can just go to his neighborhood drug dealer and buy from him.
I guess If you can access NICS you could. I, ahem, know someone that has done private sales in the past and had the buyer sign a reciept. Now, in NV, to be legal, a person would have to use an FFL to make the sale. Don’t know what works in NM.
They give a partial of the face of the “person of interest”
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/official-feds-search-home-link-gun-texas-shooting-65407310
Look at his left eye and 2 teardrops. Those are gang “tats” that mean he has killed x2
That guy is a gang banger, most likely Mexican and willing to bet in the country illegally. That would go along way to explain the silence.
Oh NO! You said “God”!
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