07-18-2011, 03:20 PM
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#33 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Derwood
Legal or not, the gun owner who knowingly sold one guy 80 assault rifles should be ashamed of himself
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I agree, but it is legal.
How do we stop this?
Quote:
On Dec. 11, 2009, 23-year-old Uriel Patino walked into a shopping-center gun shop in Glendale, Ariz., and allegedly bought 20 AK-47 assault rifles. A month later, he allegedly bought 10 more on a single day from the same shop – Lone Wolf Trading – and two weeks after that bought another 15.
By February 2010, authorities say Patino had become a regular customer, hitting the store every few days. On Feb. 15 alone, court documents say he bought 40 AK-47s.
But ATF is powerless to immediately stop these sales, said the bureau’s former official, Bouchard, because there’s nothing illegal about buying a large number of assault weapons.
“It doesn’t look right, but under the law, there’s nothing wrong with it,” he said.
Bouchard said ATF doesn’t have enough agents to put every straw buyer under surveillance, so getting a conviction often means getting a confession. In Fast and Furious, the investigative trail eventually allowed agents able to get wiretaps on Patino and use them to try to prosecute the person orchestrating the scheme. Patino was ultimately charged with 33 others. But the probe dragged on for more than a year.
A straw buyer must sign a form at the gun shop declaring that they are buying the guns for themselves. Lying on the form is a crime. But in order to prove the lie, a prosecutor often must prove what the straw buyer was thinking when he or she bought the gun. Unless that straw buyer immediately delivers the weapon to someone prohibited from purchasing a firearm – like a convicted felon—all the buyer has to claim is that the gun was bought for personal use.
A decision by the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, sets the standard even higher. Under that court’s ruling, a buyer may actually lie on the form, as long as he or she is not aware the purchase is for someone who could not buy the gun on their own. As a result, even prosecuting the lowliest worker bee in a gun-running scheme is a challenge, agents say. All the straw buyers have to say is they didn’t know the guns were for the cartel.
What’s more, even when prosecutors are able to convict a straw buyer, the sentences average only 12 months...
Weak laws, paltry resources hinder gun trafficking probes, say ATF backers | iWatch News
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Its not just a need for more resources to track all these purchases and build a case that is difficult to prove. At the very least, we should look to how we can strengthen existing laws.
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"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire
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