“May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.”


"This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people . . . better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave." ~ Captain Malcom Reynolds

Monday, January 23, 2023

Straw Purchase Observation

For some reason Blogger isn't letting me leave a comment on Tam's blog post regarding the typical lack-of prosecution for firearms straw purchases - where a person buys a firearm for someone else who is not legally permitted to own one. So, I'll do a short note here. I absolutely concur this happens, and will relate just one incident of several. My last case before the career change was a white supremicst/domestic terror case with multiple subjects involved. Not some coercion or entrapment either, these were legitimately bad people who were getting guns and explosives in order to start a race war and the works. But, the relevant part is this - wife/mom of a couple of the subjects is not directly involved in the case. However, when we do the search warrant on the house, lo and behold we find over 15 guns purchased for husband and son (both of whom were convicted felons) by mom. AND, mom confesses, on video to knowing they couldn't have them, and buying them anyway. You can't get much cleaner of a case than this. Each individual firearm purchase is a separate felony charge, and a legitimate case of someone knowingly breaking the law. Hell, even letting someone plead to just one of the charges is an easy win. Nope. US Attorney and ATF didn't want to do it. "Bad optics to charge mom too." "We're already putting the other two away." and so forth. No concern about enforcing an existing law. It wasn't a big enough story to throw the book at everyone, and they were more worried about the appearances rather than doing the right thing.

3 comments:

Glypto Dropem said...

FYI... Tam doesn't have comments enabled on her blogs. I have occasionally emailed her, but never got a response.

bolomk1 said...

I would bet though that the shops involved had their licenses yanked real fast. That can be done administratively almost without recourse.

Angus McThag said...

She was being heavily harassed by one commenter until she gave up on moderating her comments and simply closed them down.

I think it's had a negative impact on her writing and led her into the group-think world of the gun-writer.

C'est la vie.