The War on Lawful Commerce
A Wisconsin man has been convicted of two crimes: 1) possession of a machine gun and 2) engaging in lawful commerce:
The conviction of a Crivitz man dealing in firearms without a license sends a message to gun sellers that attempt to skirt licensing laws, federal officials said.
Failing to do required buyers? background checks also will not be tolerated, officials said.
Steven Biskupic, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, said a jury Wednesday convicted Steven W. Van Bellinger, 57, on charges of dealing in firearms without a license and possession of a machine gun.
The jury verdict came after a three-day trial before U.S. District Judge William Griesbach.
Biskupic said Van Bellinger faces up to 15 years in prison and fines up to $500,000 when he is sentenced. No sentencing date has been set.
The federal government also will ask the court to order Van Bellinger to forfeit about 60 firearms taken from his home when a search warrant was executed, Biskupic said. He said the charges stem from Van Bellinger?s sale of about 200 firearms, without a required federal firearms license, at gun shows in Wisconsin between 1992 and May 2003.
The machine-gun charge stemmed from guns seized from Van Bellinger, officials said.
The article mentions the machine gun possession only in passing to it’s larger point about the evil unlicensed dealers. However, if I had to guess, I’d say the bulk of the conviction is based on the machine gun. After all, a private citizen is not prevented by law from selling firearms that private individual owns.
The article and the BATFE agent in charge perpetuate the myth that terrorists buy guns at gun shows:
While a majority of the dealers at shows may be licensed dealers who follow rules and conduct required background checks, unlicensed dealers will attract buyers who know they will not pass a background check, Jones said.
?People know if they are not going to pass the background check, they can buy it there,? he said.
?If a person is illegally in the U.S. and they have intentions of doing harm, they are not going to Scheels sporting goods to buy guns. They are going to go to an unlicensed dealer, and they are going to pay cash and not show them ID if they don?t have to.?
And that, he said, can put the guns in the hands of criminals and terrorists.
?It isn?t like selling tennis shoes or anything. These are used in crimes,? Jones said.
First, to be smarmy, I’d say tennis shoes are used in crimes more often than guns (in fact this morning, I used my tennis shoes to speed to work). Second, a private individual may in fact engage in the lawful commerce of selling privately owned guns legally. Third, criminals tend to steal guns and I don’t know of a case where a terrorist has used a gun purchased at a gun show.
More:
But he said many sellers at gun shows who claim they are selling private collections cross the line.
?When a person goes from selling a small private collection to acquiring and selling dozens and dozens of guns for years, now you are in the business,? he said.
Yes, that may well be the case but unless it’s codified in law somewhere, I don’t see how a conviction could pass muster under federal law. I’m guessing the conviction rests mostly on the fact the man had a machine gun.
The man sold roughly 200 guns in an 11 year period. That’s about 18 guns per year. Or 1.5 per month. I don’t think that’s a business in the sense that the man was providing for his livelihood. If you know a lot of gun collectors like I do, many of these collectors go through guns quickly. Buy one, shoot it a few times, trade it away or sell it, and get another one. This man was obviously not moving significant volumes of guns.
June 15th, 2004 at 10:56 am
The BATF is building cases like these by the thousands all over the nation. They refuse to set a number on how many guns you must sell a year to be a “dealer”, its just however many they want to use to make a case.
1968 Gun Act ought to be repealed.
Wonder what Kevin Costner and Robert Duvals characters in “Open Range” would do about something like this?
Jury Nullification would work…but most juries very impressed by BATF and feds.
June 15th, 2004 at 2:00 pm
Let’s see…1.5 guns a month…you know, I’ll bet the guy’s wife is one of those “You have to sell one you have if you want to buy a new one” types. If he’s going to a gun show a month, selling one or two guns and buying one or two at each one, the math works out.
And, isn’t the definition of a dealer someone who derives at least a “significant portion” of their income from selling guns? If the guy wasn’t making a profit it should be pretty easy to prove. Actually, the government should have to prove that he was making a profit, that annoying “innocent until proven guilty” thing.
June 15th, 2004 at 2:23 pm
Oddly, I think that gun rights absolutists (like Uncle) and church-state separation absolutists (like me) share a common problem. If we start winning too many of our respective battles, we risk having the public make a stupid knee-jerk reaction. Like amending the constitution to weaken the 1st and 2nd amendments. I’d like to think it couldn’t happen, but it seems increasingly likely that it could.
If you polled Americans, asking them if they believed the country would be a better place, or they would be safer, if there were zero restrictions on individual gun ownership, I’d bet that better than 2/3 would answer “no,” and that’s all you need for an ill-advised amendment. Same thing goes for church/state issues. All you need is somebody with money backing them to mischaracterize the debate (e.g., “Terrorists are buying guns at gun shows!” or “They’re making it illegal to pray in the public square!”)
June 15th, 2004 at 2:34 pm
Interesting thought. Our victories do us in.
June 15th, 2004 at 3:14 pm
Same thing for Free Speech absolutists, for that matter. Howard Stern and Larry Flynt aren’t really doing our speech rights any favors by pushing the envelope in that direction.
June 15th, 2004 at 4:40 pm
Smarmy=funny, keep it up.
And 1.5 per month? I go through motorcycles faster than that, but I please don’t insult me by calling me a used moto salesman.
As for Larry Flynt and Howard Stern, I think they’re doing us a great favor by speaking out. Flynt has won several first amendment battles that have set precedent for less risque speakers.
And Stern might be a godless heathen, but he’s also incredibly popular. If he really offends common decency so badly, he wouldn’t have as many listeners as he does.
These people represent the extremes of the system in a way that makes me proud. But then, I’m pretty absolutist on first amendment issues. It’s not the FIRST amendment for nothing.
June 15th, 2004 at 4:48 pm
BH:
I tend to agree, but I have a tremendous fear that if stuff like that gets too prominent, it could backfire. Public opinion is a fickle thing. Too many people abusing first amendment rights (and yes, there is such a thing as abusing them) could erode the general public’s already-lukewarm support for it.
June 15th, 2004 at 8:52 pm
Commonly, they threaten to try a person on something that has life-in-prison/death penalty punishment and plea bargain down to seizing all the guns/impoverishing family/five years-and-a-felony conviction. I’d like to have seen this “machine gun”. Most of the BATFs machine guns are unassembled parts kits or non-functional firearms.
All the canaries are dead. It’s over. They could come get any of us at any time.
June 15th, 2004 at 10:40 pm
Tgirsch, from my POV, abuse of the first amendment would require something beyond the works of Stern and Flynt and their ilk. Sure they’re vulgar, but they only speak to people who are listening voluntarily, and they’re not spreading malicious lies (AFAIK), so I consider them pretty harmless.
Others don’t see speech as simply as I do, though. If backlash is the price of victory, we can only hope it’s two steps forward, one back.