October 08, 2009

Bloomberg's gun "sting" catches perfectly legal behavior, but violates federal gun laws in the process

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday a sting operation his stormtroopers had conducted at gun shows in Tennessee, Ohio and Nevada where they caught private citizens engaged in perfectly legal gun sales. The "sting" was designed to highlight the alleged flaws in states with "gun show loopholes", where unlicensed private citizens can sell firearms to other private citizens without a background check.

Watch the horror unfold in this AP story:

Even in states that haven't closed the loophole, federal law bars "occasional sellers" from selling guns to people they have reason to believe would fail background checks.

This is where the Bloomberg operation says 19 out of 30 sellers broke the law during the investigation, in which undercover investigators posing as buyers wore tiny cameras concealed in baseball hats and purses and audio recorders hidden in wristwatches.

In each purchase, the investigator showed interest in buying a gun, agreed on a price and then indicated that he probably could not pass a background check. Most sellers allowed the purchases anyway, responding in some cases by saying, "I couldn't pass one either," or "I don't care," according to the videos.

Two assault rifles and 20 semiautomatic handguns were bought this way, the report said.

"What you just saw was willful disregard of the law, and it happened again and again and again," Bloomberg said, after showing several videos of those sales.

The 11 dealers who refused sales showed they knew the law.

Oooooh! Assault rifles! As opposed to the tickle-me-and-make-me-laugh rifles.

It is doubtful that someone saying "uh, I'm not sure I can pass a background check" was sufficient to make these "occasional seller" sales illegal. Saying that at any gun show I've attended would prompt a response of "piss off". And exactly how is a private individual going to conduct a background check on NICS?

Also note the bait and switch in the article. At the beginning of the quoted section above they are talking about "occasional sellers" but at the end they are talking about "dealers" - who hold federal firearms licenses (FFL) and are already required to do a background check.

If there are any FFLs who didn't follow the law, they should pull their license and send them to prison for no other reason than being profoundly stupid, let alone for violating federal law. If a FFL didn't do the required background check there's already existing federal laws to deal with such crimes - and no doubt ATF will be paying them a visit real soon.

But as the late Billy Mays would say, "but wait there's more!"

The private investigators who conducted these stings violated federal law by traveling to other states to purchase handguns and transporting them over state lines. Some states allow purchases for residents of contiguous states, but last time I checked Barack Obama's 57 state map of America, Ohio, Tennessee and Nevada are not contiguous to New York. Oops!

They also violated federal and state laws prohibiting "straw man" transfers by asking (or pretending, doesn't matter) their accomplice to make such purchase for them (the law works both ways, folks!). Also interesting that they didn't try this in Virginia, where Bloomberg tried this a few years ago, which specifically prohibits these kinds of entrapment operations. Bloomberg also got a nasty note from the DOJ last time he tried this.

Oh, they also violated Nevada law by videorecording the transactions without all the parties' consent (NV is one of 12 states that requires such). And at least one of the gunshows they attended in Ohio specifically prohibits any pictures or recordings, video or audio.

Don't worry, kids. The ends justifies the means.

In reality, there is no such thing as a "gun show loophole" no matter how many times they repeat the mantra. There's no difference between sales by private citizens INSIDE or OUTSIDE gun shows or in their own homes. Bloomberg and his goons want to ban gun and ammo sales between private citizens altogether. And since I'm at it already, how successful is New York at enforcing their own gun laws? Bloomberg has the situation under control in NYC, right?