Former U.S. Army Soldier Sentenced For Illegal Sale Of Automatic Firearms From Iraq

[mrwizard]

Boy, people like this don't help us!!

http://www.gunreports.com/news/long...8-1.html?ET=gunreports:p298:143185a:&st=pmail

 

[mrwizard]

Oh yeah....he was from Bowie!!

 

[novus collectus]

Just goes to show the stupidity of gun bans. These were full auto rifles smuggled into the country which a sales or transfer ban did nothing to stop.

 

[kohburn]

could also mean trouble if they track down the people that bought them and they were part of the gun community

 

[IcedC]

Just goes to show the stupidity of gun bans. These were full auto rifles smuggled into the country which a sales or transfer ban did nothing to stop.

but if the guns were more tightly regulated, maybe he would feel bad for smuggling them and decide not to do it....
[/scarcasim]

 

[skooter525]

Just goes to show the stupidity of gun bans. These were full auto rifles smuggled into the country which a sales or transfer ban did nothing to stop.

+1

 

[t3tech]

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein stated, "Whenever we catch a criminal using a gun, we ask ATF to trace the gun to the source. We must stop the flow of illegal guns to criminals."

does that have to do with this?

Are they trying to say this guy filed Form 4's declaring the guns came from some Iraqi dude and were imported via "official goverment channels" or something, but were then sold illegaly? Obviously not since... "Further investigation connected cartridge casings recovered from Frohlich Lane in Hyattsville to these firearms, which were not legally registered to any person."

So what does tracing the gun to the source via ATF prove (besides leads for further investigation) and how does that do anything to stop the flow of illegal guns? Particularly in this case, that statement just doesn't make much sense.

Does tracing a gun to it's last point of legal transfer really make much difference as far as prosecuting the criminal that used it in a crime? If the last legal owner happened to transfer it illegally then you've just found someone else to arrest, but if it was stolen, etc. from the last legal owner then it should just be returned. But how often does a stolen gun really get returned to it's rightful owner after being recovered from a criminal?

In this case, there is obviously no legal owner to return them to, unless we presume that the transfer in Iraq was considered a legal transfer there. But even then as soon as the guns were shipped into the US they were considered illegal and without a legal owner. This is just one of many things that no law can do anything to stop.