Posted on 06/17/2014 5:36:00 AM PDT by rellimpank
In a rare victory for common sense in the gun debate, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the federal ban on "straw" purchases can be enforced even if the person who eventually gets the gun is legally allowed to have one. The 5-4 decision was written by Justice Elena Kagan. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a frequent swing vote, voted with the majority.
Kagan found that any other reading of the statute, which prevents someone from buying a gun for someone else, would gut the federal law. The case involved a Virginia man who bought a Glockhandgun for his uncle who lived in Pennsylvania. Bruce James Abramski Jr. assured the Virginia dealer that he was the actual buyer of the gun and then lied on a federal form. His uncle was legally allowed to buy a gun, but Abramski, a former police officer, thought he could get his uncle a better deal using his police discount.
Abramski argued that his false statement on the form was immaterial and that as long as the ultimate buyer was legally allowed to have a weapon, he had done no wrong. Kagan wrote that the government's system of background checks and record keeping wouldn't mean much if a buyer could get around them by having someone else make the purchase.
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
Death penalty offense?
You are right. The law is even stupider than I thought
They consider it s “straw” purchase if you buy the gun as a gift.
It’s only illegal if someone asks you ahead of time to buy a gun for them using your LEO discount and writes you a check for it and writes in the memo line “Glock 19 handgun” and then 3 days later you go and buy the gun and give it to him.
Really, really really stupid on the LEO’s part.
Yup
Outlaws by definition don’t obey laws.
Anyone is capable of consistently thinking like a Liberal.
However the operation might require removing so much brain tissue that your head implodes...
Uncle George, here's a buck. Now, give it back to me.
For the sum of one dollar (and other considerations) you have purchased this unused firearm, new in the box. By the way, Happy Birthday!
Private sale--Eff 'em.
OK, so a lobotomy then?
It goes deeper than that....Down to the ‘reptilian’ core. (They emote, not reason.)
From what I understand, the guy shipped the gun to a gun dealer in PA for his uncle to pick up, so the uncle would have been checked out on that end as well. I hope he’s happy about saving his uncle a few bucks.
So what happens if I buy the gun, take it to the range, decide I don’t like it, and sell it to a third party?
Straw purchases are when one person provides money so that a second person can purchase a firearm for him—which is what happened here. His argument was that since the guy he was buying for was legal for gun ownership, the straw purchase law should not apply. The court said that that is not what the law actually says.
As for gifting, you can buy your wife a gun and as long as she doesn’t give you the money for it, you are fine. Your out-of-state children can inherit your firearms without paperwork as long as the firearms are mentioned in your will.
None of this is to say that all of this isn’t an infringement on our rights to acquire and dispose of property as we see fit. But it has been the law for firearm transfers for some time. Perhaps the law should be changed.
“So a parent can’t buy a gun for Christmas for a son or daughter?
A husband can’t buy a gun for his wife?
uh hunh
bull sh8
“
No, actually you can’t, and it’s been unlawful to do so for a long time. I you can buy a gun as a gift for a family member, but you have to transfer it to them legally and it’s yours until that’s done. Here again though you have a cop thinking that he’s above the law he’s suppose to enforce against the rest of us. Actually, I think this is really a non-ruling or simply a restatement of the law as it is written.
Had ENOUGH Yet ?
yeah, I know... I was playing :)
Its not and its also unenforceable. As well as unconstitutional IMO.
Precisely so. As I said(in part) at Backwoods Engineer yesterday:
With this ruling, Obama and the Left now have most of the pieces of an Erector set, from which to construct an unconstitutional machine for registration and confiscation of all legally-owned firearms in the United States. Just assemble and activate. Confiscate and exterminate. Insert Abramski, and turn key to start.
You doubt me? Let's break it down.
It is exceedingly difficult for courts and/or LEO's to determine when a possessor "decided" or "intended" to privately transfer a gun to another person. It's in the person's mind, and the action is identical, whether or not the intent existed. As of the Abramski ruling today, is a lot easier for courts and LEO's to just assume everyone who transfers a gun to another person outside an FFL intended to do so before signing the Form 4473. This makes anyone who transfers a gun to another person outside an FFL into an "straw buyer" and an instant felon. The charge? The ATF's oft-used "Conspiracy to violate Section 922 of the US Code".
As you can see, post-Abramski, it becomes illegal to give a gun to someone without them taking possession by a transfer through a licensed dealer. The transfer of the gun to another person is half of a private sales transaction. The rest is just money. It is but a tiny, tiny step, measured in millimeters, for some lower court to cite Abramski and rule that all firearms that move in lawful commerce must be transferred via a gun store on a Form 4473.
Private sales of firearms in America: GONE. Because Abramski. Because if we don't, someone might give a gun to their uncle.
Even if a court doesn't rule that way, all it would take is for the ATF to write a "determination letter" to that effect, start enforcing it, and it's done. "Stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda cool," as "The Forehead" Paul Begalla said. Obama's ATF has tried similar extralegal maneuvers before, like forcing a CLEO signoff even for a machine gun transfer to a trust.
Count on it: it WILL happen at some point. Abramski will be the justification for prohibiting ALL private transfers, with or without money changing hands. It is inevitable, the next logical step, in their statist minds. And they'll get all the cover they want from the media. "No more straw sales!," the newscrone will screech. "Gun show loophole? Supremes say NO!," the headlines will read.
Without the ability to legally transfer a gun to another person without the intervention of an FFL, all lawfully-owned guns will eventually be registered - a name, an address, the model and a serial number will be on a Form 4473, either at ATF HQ, or in some gun shop somewhere.
Next, the Feds will make the leap, not far from where we are now, that Form 4473's are in the same category of information as cell phone metadata, because Abramski. Because someone, somewhere, might possibly conspire to give their uncle a gun. Then, the NSA will start hoovering up 4473's, to stop them "terrists" and their uncles.
At that point, they'll have the locations of MILLIONS of 'lawfully'-owned arms. They can either send LEOs to confiscate them, or use the information for blackmail, either to complete their registry, or for political intimidation. Or all three.
Want to go work for FedGov? Or, a cooperating state like Kommiefornia? The computer will say: "Checking 4473s for Mr. Backwoods Engineer... Found: 22... FLAGGED!" Turn in all the serial numbers of your guns, you "terrist"! Tell us what you have now! Because Abramski! If you don't, you might conspire to give one of them to your uncle! And by the way, you Tea Partying Threeper sovereign citizen, you're going to get an IRS audit to boot.
But what about the lawfully-owned guns that don't move in commerce anymore? Suppose you buy a few AR-15's, or even just a lower. Say you want to go out and shoot it. But the Feds get a ruling or a law, or the ATF demands that all shooting ranges have to log the serial numbers of all arms coming in their door. Because Abramski, and someone might conspire to give a gun to their uncle at the range! Horrors!
Tabulate, correlate, investigate, interrogate, confiscate, and exterminate.
The simple solution is NOT to take a check with the description of the gun on it BEFORE you buy the gun. If he had taken money for it AFTER he bought it, he would not have gotten into this trouble.
I believe that’s what we’ll see over the coming years if not sooner.
PS: American Thinker etc usually only print columns original to their websites. Perhaps you could rewrite (make an instant original) your Abramski piece and submit it around. It’s very cogent and beyond most folks orbit of understanding at this point in time. We need to be ahead of the curve, not behind it, and your piece would at least let us catch up a bit, conceptually.
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