Rogue Gun Dealer v. Rogue Gun Dealer Investigators

Jacob Sullum | July 24, 2006

Last week one of the "rogue gun dealers" targeted by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a recent federal lawsuit sued back, arguing that the mayor's investigators violated state and federal law when they simulated a straw purchase at Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, Georgia. The sting operation, which was supposed to be aimed at dealers whose guns frequently ended up in the hands of New York City criminals, involved an undercover investigator who handled the preliminary part of a handgun purchase and then called in another investigator to fill out the federal firearm purchase form. Adventure Outdoors owner Jay Wallace, represented by former Georgia congressman Bob Barr, says Bloomberg's investigators broke the law by falsifying the form and then slandered him by calling him a criminal. As I understand it, making a straw purchase is illegal for the buyer and the ultimate owner, but allowing one to happen is illegal for the seller only if he knows the ostensible buyer is not the real buyer. So I guess it's possible for Bloomberg's investigators to be on the wrong side of the law even if Wallace is on the right side. But if the fake/real buyer distinction was just pretend, and neither customer was a felon, did anybody break the law?

Comments

|7.24.06 @ 2:11PM|#

What IS a straw purchase?

R C Dean|7.24.06 @ 2:20PM|#

But if the fake/real buyer distinction was just pretend, and neither customer was a felon, did anybody break the law?

Unless the statute say "this does not apply to federal agents conducting a sting operation", it seems to me that the people conducting the "bogus" straw purchase violated the statute.

|7.24.06 @ 2:47PM|#

We are on a slippery slope, friends. Will we next be saying that the police can't sell drugs or solicit prostitutes?

|7.24.06 @ 2:49PM|#

Wikipedia link on straw purchases

A straw purchase is a situation in which a buyer uses an intermediary (a "straw purchaser") through which to acquire one or more firearms from a licensed firearms dealer. The purpose is to hide the identity of the true purchaser or ultimate possessor of the firearm(s). Straw purchases and theft are common ways that prohibited people, such as convicted felons, obtain firearms.

In the United States, straw purchases are a felony violation of the Gun Control Act of 1968 for both the straw purchaser (who can also be charged with lying on Federal Form 4473) and the ultimate possessor.

Larry A|7.24.06 @ 3:51PM|#

Unless the statute say "this does not apply to federal agents conducting a sting operation", it seems to me that the people conducting the "bogus" straw purchase violated the statute.

Not quite. The main problem with Bloomberg's "investigation" was that he left the Feds completely out of the loop. The people he had making the purchases were either Illinois law enforcement personnel or civilian investigators.

As I remember from working in a gun store, the Illinois folks can't legally buy firearms outside the state of Illinois, so if they participated in the sales they committed felonies. If the civilian investigators participated in straw purchases, they also committed felonies.

The dealers would only have committed crimes if they knew or suspected the purchases were illegal.

Larry A|7.24.06 @ 3:58PM|#

But if the fake/real buyer distinction was just pretend, and neither customer was a felon, did anybody break the law?

Participating in a straw purchase is itself a felony. The fact that neither purchaser was a felon or otherwise ineligible to possess a firearm is irrelevant to the violation.

R C Dean|7.24.06 @ 4:25PM|#

Will we next be saying that the police can't sell drugs or solicit prostitutes?

I guess that would be the end of civilization as we know it, no?

Larry - you say "not quite" and, unless I am missing something, go on to agree with me.

|7.24.06 @ 5:12PM|#

I used to dread the day they banned all firearms... but the quicker they ban firearms, the quicker the black market can completly take over and give us all unrestricted firearms at a much lower price. Right now the street price for a chinese SKS is about $100 (but an old chinese SKS is a bit scary - It just seems like it is going to explode in your face)... but the black market hasn't yet moved into providing really high quality firearms yet.

|7.24.06 @ 6:55PM|#

That's because most people who dabble in black market firearms don't much care if it's something they toss after a single use.

Contrary to what Hollywood has people believing, criminals don't carry $1,600 STI pistols custom built for IPSC competition, nor do they carry fully-automatic M16 or Kalashnikov rifles.

Paul|7.24.06 @ 7:44PM|#

What IS a straw purchase?

Good lord, public education...

A straw purchase is what occurs when a buyer, usually a farmer or some such owner of large animals enters into what is commonly referred to as a 'feed store'. The buyer approaches the proprieter of said 'feed store' and purchases straw, often kept in bails often bound with wire or nylon.

Does that clarify?

|7.24.06 @ 10:36PM|#

Barr is reduced to arguing that the activities the undercover agents pretended to carry out were illegal acts? You've got to be kidding me.

You know that coke the cops pretended to buy with all that money in that scene in "Scarface?" That wasn't legal, either.

Mofo please.

Robert|7.24.06 @ 10:39PM|#

No, the coke buy would've been legal, because officials engaged in the enforcement of laws relating to controlled substances are statutorily exempt from the registration requirements.

|7.25.06 @ 7:12AM|#

This reminds me of those stings they did to bust people soliciting minors on the internet. They would have an adult, usually a member of law enforcement pretend to be a teenage girl and then bust the guy soliciting her. If it's not really a teenage girl the guy is soliciting did he really commit a crime?