Posted on 06/25/2014 7:37:06 PM PDT by richardb72
In what’s being hailed by many as a victory for gun-control advocates, the recent Supreme Court decision on “straw” purchases of guns has completely muddled the whole issue of background checks and “straw” purchases for potential gun owners.
The court ruled 5-4 that, as The Hill.com put it, “one legal gun owner may not acquire a firearm on behalf of another — a practice known as "straw" purchasing.
The case heard by the high court involved a Virginia police officer, Bruce Abramski, who bought a gun, a Glock 19 handgun, for his uncle. The police officer, who could get a discount on guns, bought the gun in Virginia. He then transferred it to his uncle, who lived in Pennsylvania, through a second licensed dealer in the state.
The Obama administration successfully prosecuted Abramski for two felonies. The Justice Department said that the same federal background check form where Abramski indicated that he wasn’t a straw purchaser involved perjury as well as for providing false information to the gun dealer who sold the gun.
The five Justices who supported Obama’s prosecution, claimed: “That information helps to fight serious crime. When police officers retrieve a gun at a crime scene, they can trace it to the buyer and consider him as a suspect.”
But there are two big problems with their claim. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Exactly.
If you look at the form 4473 there is a block (11a) you fill out stating that you are the transferee. It makes exception for gifts which are explained in the instructions. The instructions at the end of the form for block 11 a state that if you were given money for the gun before the purchase you must answer no, you are not the transferee. It also explains the conditions for a gift, which this transfer did not meet. I read in an article somewhere that the uncle wrote the guy a check two days beforehand with “for Glock handgun” written in the memo line. This guy lied on the form and ignored the instructions. I do not know how the feds got alerted to this and I think this is a BS prosecution but this LEO should have known better than to blatantly lie or let his uncle give him a check that said what it did on it.
How the hell did this even get to court? The guy must have figured it was OK, and just blabbed about it until some hammer toting DA saw a nail sticking up...
“Now, whether or not the straw purchase law is a good idea or not is another matter. But, in my opinion, the Supreme Court did not expand the straw purchase law at all—they just didn’t contract it.”
The problem is the “straw purchase” part. The BATFE added that part of the law. It is not original law, it is regulatory add on. You can argue that the original law is ambiguous, but as Scalia noted, ambiguity is to be decided in favor of the defendant.
I think the key is that the uncle sent a check for the gun a couple of days before the original purchase. That was the evidence of a “straw” purchase - to get the police discount.
FWIW.
That's the intent of the law that they ignore. It's odd that they would go after someone like this when there are a log bigger fish to fry.
Exactly. There was no intent in this particular case to break the law. The only intent was to save some money on the purchase price of the firewarm. There is no dispute that both parties were legally able to purchase the firearm. I see a lot ot comments on threads about this case saying "well the law is the law", and my answer to that is that in this case, the law is an ass and so are its supporters.
The supreme court missed an opportunity to support a common sense application of the law.
Not correct.
Where I used to live, the local cops would call gun shops with the serial number of the weapon seized or found in order to locate the original purchaser.
Not sure if it ever worked out or not, but I was present for a number of calls in different shops (I knew a few of the cops at the time, and they confirmed it is what they did).
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