Bloomberg Breaks the Law Again?
ACK tells us that Bloomberg sent investigators to gun shows in Nashville to illegally buy guns. The AP report is here:
Investigators hired by New York City conducted stings at gun shows in states that have not closed the “gun show loophole” and found some vendors openly selling weapons to buyers who admitted they couldn’t pass background checks.
The stings, described in a city report released Wednesday, were conducted at seven gun shows in Tennessee, Ohio and Nevada. Those states are among the many that permit private unlicensed dealers, known as “occasional sellers,” to sell weapons at gun shows without conducting background checks.
A few things. Stings are done by police under color of law, which investigators from NY are not when in Tennessee. The gun show loophole is a scary catchphrase for lawful citizen to citizen transfer of a firearm. And occasional sellers are just regular citizens selling personal firearms.
That said, last time Bloomypoo tried this, the Feds were none too happy because he compromised their investigations.
Private investigators came to Tennessee and unlawfully purchased firearms. Now, if I were Bill Haslam, I’d probably come out with a harshly worded presser right about now blasting Bloomberg’s unlawful actions.
Update: In comments:
Notice that they stayed out of Virginia this time?
Update: In comments, Sean notes that the investigators could have been local. But there was that whole section of the report where they tried to buy guns while saying they were out of state and the dealers were pretty good about asking for drivers’ licenses. That would be illegal in the case of handguns.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
HAHAHAHAHA; what an IDIOT! He cant enforce the law in his own state, what make him think he can enforce NY law in TN??! What a fuckin maroon! That guy needs to come visit in my neck of hte woods, they would just call him REVINUER’ and tar and feather his ass which is JUST what he NEEDS:)
October 7th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
If there was any justice, the next headline would be something like “Federal Agents Bust Gun Smuggling Ring Mastermind” with a big picture of BATFE agents loading Bloomberg into a patrol car outside of city hall.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Hmmm, I’m actually wondering if the purchases were unlawful. The investigators presumably were not actually prohibited by law from purchasing firearms (assuming for the moment that the investigators in question were legal residents of the states where the purchases were made; we don’t know whether this was true, but it is possible). So that brings up the question, if I go to a gun show, tell a guy that I’m not able to pass the background check (even though I CAN pass the background check and am in now way prohibited from owning the firearm in question) and he sells me the gun anyway, was a crime committed?
October 7th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
YOu can’t buy a handgun out of state.
October 7th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Notice that they stayed out of Virginia this time?
I wonder why
October 7th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Gloomberg bought a public official in Utica, New York. Doubled the guy’s salary and is paying two thirds of it, through the city payroll. I guess Gloomie has too much money to bother with petty bribery. When he wants a public official working for him, he just buys the guy outright.
http://www.uticaod.com/news/x1692324019/Angelo-Roefaro-new-role-Mayor-s-aide-and-illegal-gun-opponent
October 7th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
1.5 million dollars spent on shifting the blame for New Yorkers killing New Yorkers onto people in other states. It’s popular in NYC. New Yorkers don’t want to be blamed, so they go along with a trumped up story about other people being to blame. Pushing for more gun control is what Bloomberg does instead of something. Where’s the death penalty for gangbangers who kill? Why is Gloomie going outside his jurisdiction, going around the country and attacking our freedom, instead of going after his local trigger pullers? Are there that many crooks in New York City that it would be politically more dangerous?
October 7th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Everyone should be calling the state of TN and the city of Nashville and demanding they press charges for the violations committed by Bloomberg and his people.
October 7th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
If the news account is correct the violated Nevada’s wiretap laws
October 7th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I waas at that show a few years ago when our local Channel 5 news tried to do the same kind of thing. They got caught with the hidden cameras attempting to make unlawfull purchases. The film was used as evidence in thier prosecution for breaking the law in an attempt to get dealers to break the law. The dealers did what they were supposed to do and turned them away every single time. This issue in this article is moot. First, they are rellying on NY law to point at other states say that its wrong, well folks this is not NY its TN. There are purchase overlaps that verie from state to state. In some states you can buy over state lines in others you cant. This is individual state law and goes to the 10th amendment arguement and supports that position of federal exclusion, they only exercise federal law when it suits thier political needs. Second, sense the issue now established seems to be conflict over state law, in TN person to person sales are legal and unregulated. Its a personal property issue not a gun transfer issue, the only mitigating arguement is the in TN it is illegal to KNOWINGLY sale a gun to a convicted felon or a juvenile. If Bloomy doesn t like TN law, he can stay out of TN and i am quite sure NO ONE here will miss him. In Fact I am sure that no one will miss him if sets still for a few minutes:)
October 7th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
The problem with the ATF is that it fails to prosecute these attention-grabbing felonies while deploying its full array of enforcement resources against proverbial mom and pop gun stores (e.g. Red’s Trading Post).
The only good thing which happened to the GOP in 2008 is that Bloomberg left.
The door remains open for many others like him to follow suit.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Minor nitpick, “color of law” actually means not done under a lawful authority. That’s what happens when police try to enforce laws that only exist in their imaginations, like laws against openly carrying guns, for instance.
Sometimes stings are done under color of law, but the ones that are legitimate are done under lawful authority.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
i guess if you are rich, you can break any law and thats ok
October 7th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Via their report, the investigators were employees of Kroll, INC, which has offices here in Nashville…so they weren’t necessarily from out of state.
Either way, the “occasional sellers” in this piece seem anything but occasional.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
But some mentioned they were out of state and the dealers stopped in most cases. The investigators likely wouldn’t be felons either.
Yup. One guy with price tags and listing his sales numbers. Clearly an unlicensed dealer, even though that term is undefined in the law.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
The investigators likely wouldn’t be felons either.
Which is why they couldn’t use this as evidence in a trial…but could still be fairly effective in a PR/lobbying campaign.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Could be. But someone just outright breaking the law does not a loophole make. Which is what they’re saying. It’s like saying when I drove to work this morning at 60MPH, I broke the 55MPH loophole.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
What’s the law that they broke…that they were from out of state? If the purchaser said, “I couldn’t pass a background check” and the seller says, “I don’t care,” that shows a weakness in the system…at least with those particular sellers.
Call it a loophole, call it a side-effect, call it a “few bad eggs,” it still doesn’t look good to have a “private dealer” brag about selling 350 weapons in the past year and be nonchalant about the background check laws.
October 7th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
It matters what you call it when what you’re saying is an attempt to demonize an event. So call it breaking the law.
As for laws, you cannot buy a handgun out of state. The seller saying ‘he doesn’t care’ isn’t breaking the law. But knowingly selling to a prohibited person is.
October 7th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Just to play devil’s advocate, what is the difference between what Bloomberg did and the fake pimp that went to ACORN’S office.
October 7th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
the fake pimp didn’t break the law.
October 7th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Markie Marxist sez: “We need to close the gun show loophole, so that we can move on to closing the private gun sale loophole, so that we can move on to closing the gun dealer loophole, so that we can move on to closing the private gun ownership loophole. It’s just common communist sense to make progress against private gun owners. That’s why we commies call ourselves progressives. You’re not opposed to progress, are you?”
October 7th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Could these possibly count as a straw purchase too? Somebody else sent them in to the show to purchase firearms. Unless they kept them for themselves I guess.
October 8th, 2009 at 12:47 am
They have a whole website:
http://www.gunshowundercover.org/
These guys aren’t helping our cause any. Look, if some jerkweed says he can’t pass a background check, then don’t sell to him, as he’s obviously a plant. What sort of idiot doesn’t understand this? Guys who can’t pass background checks but want to buy guns don’t do this. Maybe that’s why when the guy says “probably can’t pass a background check” the sellers act like he’s joking.
One other thing: the undercover gunshow dips claim that licensed dealers are required to undertake a background check on purchasers while “unlicensed sellers” are not. This is true, but one problem is that while “unlicensed sellers” are not required to do a background check on purchasers, they also CANNOT undertake one either! How about they open up the instant check system to us regular folks so that we CAN check potential purchasers? Otherwise we have to fork over a fair amount of money to a dealer to perform the check. No thanks.
October 8th, 2009 at 6:26 am
You know, not one of you guys is talking about the real point. It’s not that Bloomberg did some questionable sting operation that he might not have been authorized to do. The point is, at gun shows, criminals can easily buy guns. That’s the point.
And, as a kind of icing on the cake, some of the sellers admitted they couldn’t pass the background check either. What about that? That would be criminal to criminal. Is that what you condone? Is that what you want so desperately to defend? I had some more to say about it on my blog, if you’re interested, but that’s the main thing.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:47 am
‘the fake pimp didn’t break the law.’
What law did these guys break?
October 8th, 2009 at 9:05 am
it’s illegal to buy handguns out of state and to engage in straw purchases.
October 8th, 2009 at 10:35 am
“The point is, at gun shows, criminals can easily buy guns. That’s the point.”
Markie Marxist sez: “Exactly! That’s what we need to obsess on. Gun show! Gun show! Gun show! Once we get that out of the way, we can move on to private gun transactions generally. The goal is to require that all gun transfers go through an FFL. Then we move politically towards telling FFL’s that they can’t process private transfers anymore. The strategy is to narrow legal transfers down to controlled choke points (FFL’s) and then cut off all legal transfers at those choke points.”
“Mayor Bloomberg is helping us to advance our Marxist gun ban strategy to the next step. If we can get gun show restrictions in place, we can come back for more restrictions later on. We always do! Ha! Ha! All your gun shows are belong to us!”
October 8th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Call it a loophole, call it a side-effect, call it a “few bad eggs,”…
Sean,
If these guys had been doing the exact same thing out of their living rooms, would you still call it “a loophole” or “a side effect”?
I’d just call it “illegal”. And if it’s already illegal, what good will another law do?
Or would you support a law to make dark alleys safer by making it illegal to murder someone there?
October 8th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
In Virginia a buyer must pass a background check before either money or firearm changes hands. Is this true in Tennessee?
If it is, I don’t see why it matters that some buyers say they might not pass a background check. If they do in fact pass the sale is legal. If not there is no sale, right?
October 9th, 2009 at 2:14 am
Yeah, uh huh, Mikeb, that explains why less than 1% of crime guns come from gunshows.
Please don’t form opinions, or if you must, don’t share them with anybody if you intend to remain so damn ignorant.
October 11th, 2009 at 1:54 am
straightarrow, The old 1% story. I suppose you believe that and I’m the ignorant one? Is that it?
Open your eyes man, get a little honest about it. What Bloomberg showed is important. Why don’t you and other lawful gun owners do something about it? That’s the most amazing thing. You could do the self-policing necessary to clean that mess up, then Bloomberg would have nothing to investigate. Those jokesters highlighted on the videos give all of you a bad name.
October 12th, 2009 at 6:41 am
Well, let us examine the facts, shall we?
Yes, MikeB, you are willfully, malciously, and intentionally ignorant. Any other questions?
October 14th, 2009 at 4:35 am
Linoge, Some of those reports are as biased as you are.
Are you forgetting you’re the one with reason to be biased, so of course you are?
Don’t you think there are other reports that show a different story? I’m sure the Brady site has ’em. But, of course to those you just say they’re all lies.