Second Amendment Blog
Spreading the Blame
Posted by:Sebastian on 
Dec 20th, 2009 | 
Filed under: Monica Yant Kinney, my favorite Inquirer editorialist, lays out a pretty textbook case of building and eventually prosecuting a case against a guy who was buying a gun from lawful dealers, and then selling them on the streets. Eventually he was prosecuted, convicted, and served 4.5 years in federal prison for the crime. Isn’t this an example of the laws working? From Yant Kinney’s editorial:
Watching the news, Jerome knows he’s partly responsible for the city’s crisis of violence. But he thinks there’s blame to go around.
“I knew it would come to an end for me. I just wish those gun dealers were held accountable.”
No, “Jerome,” you don’t get to assuage your guilt by trying to shift the blame onto the dealers you deceived about the legality of the sale they were making. You’re the one that swore to the dealer and federal authorities you were the actual buyer of the firearm when you signed off on 4473. You’re the piece of shit that took the guns and opened up your trunk and sold them to criminals. It’s all on you my friend. You served your time, not nearly enough in my opinion, but if you’re living the straight life now, congratulations. I hope you learned something. But if you really want to convince us you’re reformed, and not that bleeding heart Inquirer columnist, you need to start by accepting full responsibility for what you did.
Related posts (automatically generated):
December 20th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I’m shocked, shocked I tell ya.
She actually mentions this:
***Federal regulations require gun shops to report to the ATF anyone buying two or more weapons in a five-day period. Soon, a federal agent paid Jerome a visit, as is customary, to ask about his purchases.***
December 20th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
It not only goes to ATF, but also goes to the local CLEO, in my case the county sheriff, but for someone in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Police. I’ve bought multiple firearms at once before, and had the dealer do that paperwork, but ATF never came to talk to me. But I have a C&R, so they may have just put together than I was an FFL, so who cares.
Nonetheless, I’ve never heard that kind of investigation is routine, though I suspect law enforcement is more interested in patterns than one instance of someone buying two guns. There’s lots of reasons people might need to do that every once in a while.
December 21st, 2009 at 9:08 am
More blame the victim from the anti-freedom advocates!
“Hey if that bank didn’t keep all that cash in there, I wouldn’t have been so tempted to rob it! Banks should share some of the blame!”
“Hey if the boarder security force wasn’t so over staffed I wouldn’t have been able to smuggle the kilo of Cocaine into the country. They should share some of the blame!”
“Hey if the bartender hadn’t trusted me when I said I’d take a cap home after getting hammered, I wouldn’t have had that DUI conviction! He should share some of the blame!”
We’re creating a country of perpetual children, and sadly our federal and state government is perfectly happy to step in to play the role of Mommy and Daddy. *sigh*
December 21st, 2009 at 10:14 am
[...] darn gun dealers. Making me break the law and all of that. Oh, except that those darn gun dealers actually alerted the feds to the fact I was [...]
December 21st, 2009 at 11:47 am
My last purchase of firearms was a pistol and a rifle at the same time. Nobody came to visit me, customary or not, to check on my purchase. I think perhaps you might mean two or more handguns purchased in a northeastern city.
As for me, I think someone buying several cheap handguns and then a few days later buying several more should have set off all sorts of alarms somewhere.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:26 pm
So if you take his “160 bun buying spree” over 2 years, he bought about 6.7 guns per month. If he did it at one store, he might be recognizable as a guy buying a lot of cheap guns, but consider that he did it at multiple gun stores, who probably have multiple employees. If they get a reasonable amount of customers, they probably wouldn’t recognize him, let alone recognize what he was doing.
This is a pretty weak attempt by MYK to put blame on people running a legal business. Obviously, the Inquirer is going to call for more restrictive gun purchasing laws.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:33 pm
This is a pretty weak attempt by MYK to put blame on people running a legal business.
Yes, and she can barely disguise the fact that she doesn’t believe it should be a legal business, but given the fact that’s an extremist point of view, and doesn’t win politically, she’s not beneath smearing lawful dealers.
I would note that the guy still got caught. I would almost bet the dealers he was buying from were involved in that. We had that happen at a neighborhood gun shop near me. Guy kept coming in and buying cheap guns, repeatedly. Dealer put a call in to the ATF, and it turned out he was a straw buyer. They arrested and prosecuted him.
What Yant Kinney probably wouldn’t believe is that dealers don’t want to sell guns to criminals. They also don’t want to treat all their customers as potential criminals either. It’s a balancing act, and sometimes they won’t always get the balance right. But it’s still often dealers that tip off authorities if someone’s buying habits are suspicious.
December 21st, 2009 at 5:28 pm
[...] @ Snowflakesinhell is also blogging this (link) and appropriately levels “Jerome”: No, “Jerome,” you don’t get to [...]