SCOTUS Has Taken a Straw Purchase Case

...strawman buyer is almost never prosecuted. He says a typical situation is a convicted felon has his girl friend buy the gun...it would be very hard to prosecute a strawman if there is no paper trail. The girl friend could simply say she later sold it to her boy friend, or he took it without asking...
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I have no idea what percentage of various variations on such transactions might be prosecuted, but some time back in reaching case law I came upon a fair number of cases involving that sort of conduct.

So it looks like at least some such cases do get prosecuted.
 
I recall a case some time ago where women druggie bought a gun for her dealer. The judge let her off with probation so she could care for her children.
 
I don't see that this is a straw purchase case because he wasn't buying for a prohibited person. They got him for lying on form 4473, they can prove that he only bought the gun for his father.
Form 4473 says "I understand that answering "yes" to question 11.a. if I am not the actual buyer is a crime punishable as a felony under Federal law, and may also violate State and/or local law." Dude is toasted.
If you buy a gun as a gift for someone else and legally transfer it into their name for no money, that also is a violation of what you are signing on form 4473 question 11.a. More proof that telling the truth can get you in trouble.
 
Marred said:
I don't see that this is a straw purchase case because he wasn't buying for a prohibited person....
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That has nothing to do with it according to ATF. It's all covered in post 18.

Marred said:
...If you buy a gun as a gift for someone else and legally transfer it into their name for no money, that also is a violation of what you are signing on form 4473 question 11.a...
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No, read the instructions to Question 11.a. on the current Form 4473 (emphasis in original):
Question 11.a. Actual Transferee/Buyer: For purposes of this form, you are the actual transferee/buyer if you are purchasing the firearm for yourself or otherwise acquiring the firearm for yourself (e.g., redeeming the firearm from pawn/retrieving it from consignment, firearm raffle winner). You are also the actual transferee/buyer if you are legitimately purchasing the firearm as a gift for a third party. ACTUAL TRANSFEREE/BUYER EXAMPLES: Mr. Smith asks Mr. Jones to purchase a firearm for Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith gives Mr. Jones the money for the firearm. Mr. Jones is NOT THE ACTUAL TRANSFEREE/BUYER of the firearm and must answer ”NO” to question 11.a. The licensee may not transfer the firearm to Mr. Jones. However, if Mr. Brown goes to buy a firearm with his own money to give to Mr. Black as a present, Mr. Brown is the actual transferee/buyer of the firearm and should answer “YES” to question 11.a. However, you may not transfer a firearm to any person you know or have reasonable cause to believe is prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), (n), or (x). Please note: EXCEPTION: If you are picking up a repaired firearm(s) for another person, you are not required to answer answer 11.a. and may proceed to question 11.b.
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I quickly ran through the transcript. It is often a bad idea to guess the justices' votes based on their questions but I'll venture a guess or two. I think Kagan and Breyer are in favor of the government with Sotomayer and Alito leaning that direction. There's an outside chance Breyer might go with a lenity argument (interpreting a criminal statute in favor of the defendant if ambiguous). Scalia is solidly on the side of defendant with Roberts probably also there. Kennedy seemed to be leaning that direction. Thomas did not ask questions and I didn't get a read on Ginsburg.
 
Frank is correct on the law as it stands. We've been over this in other threads. It's a bad law, but is it unconstitutional? That's the question.

Based on KyJim's handicapping I'm not going to be making any bets on how this turns out.
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I will. I predict they'll uphold it. In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius last year, Roberts pretty much declared a new policy of judicial restraint. The idea is that SCOTUS should bend over backwards to uphold a law unless there's no other way whatsoever to justify it.

That worries me more than Scalia's vagueness in Heller.
 
Roberts can speak for Roberts, but judges have a tendency to think for themselves (especially the Supremes). And they'll sometimes vote the way they want to vote even when it's clearly wrong. (If not for that, Heller and McDonald should both have been 9-0 votes.)

If Alito votes to uphold this conviction I will be very disappointed in him.
 
On FOX this morning this was discussed with Judge Napolitano and both he and Steve neglected to bring up the issue of the money time line that exchanged hands. Hearing this FOX has dropped the ball. From what I have read here it seems that is the heart of this whole case the money time line and purchase time line.
 
The real question, as I see it, is whether or not the ATF can changes the rules and make something criminal when it is not given that authority within the statute at issue.

That goes to the heart of Form 4473, question 11.a.

If the Justices believe that such a power is not within the law, as written, then the case should never have been brought and form 4473 will have to be changed. It is instructive that from 1968 until 1994, this Government viewed the entire thing in the manner the petitioner is requesting. It was only in the last 20 years, that this ATF changed how things should work.
 
Listening to the arguments the first five minutes will make you cringe.

AUDIO

TRANSCRIPT

They describe a classic straw purchase and the lawyer, Dietz, says that it is lawful. :eek:

2 JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: What would happen if two

3 people walk into the gun store, one person hands the

4 money to the other and says, buy me that gun?

5 MR. DIETZ: Yes, Your Honor.

6 JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Is that not actionable,

7 according to your theory?

8 MR. DIETZ: Your Honor, the circumstance

9 where there are two lawful gun owners, that is

10 permissible. And I think a good way to illustrate that

11 is to consider the government's concession that in that

12 hypothetical, if the two people walked into the gun

13 store and the person looked and said, I'd like that gun

14 and points to the counter and then the person

15 standing --

16 JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: What's -- what's

17 truthful about saying you're the buyer -*

18 JUSTICE SCALIA: Please finish what you were

19 saying. I -- I didn't understand what your point was.

20 MR. DIETZ: Yes, Your Honor.

21 In that circumstance, if the person standing

22 at the counter then says, I'd like to buy that firearm,

23 that the person indicated, I'm going to give it to that

24 person, then even the government concedes that in that

25 circumstance, everything about that sale is perfectly

1 lawful and the buyer can take the gun, hand it to that

2 person standing next to them, who would leave the gun

3 store with the gun dealer and the government having

4 absolutely no idea who that person is or where the gun

5 is going.

6 JUSTICE KAGAN: I'm sorry. So you're saying

7 that in that case, the gun dealer runs the background

8 check on the person who hands the gun dealer the credit

9 card as opposed to the person who will be the actual

10 recipient of the gun? Is that what you're saying the

11 statute requires?

12 MR. DIETZ: That's correct, Your Honor. I

13 think the government concedes that as well in gift

14 circumstance at least, and there's certainly nothing in

15 the Gun Control Act that suggests that Congress was

16 distinguishing between those two circumstances at all.
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The real idiocy there is that you can buy with the intent to resell but you can't sell it (get the money) before you buy it. There is fundamentally no difference.
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The 4473 even states that you can give a person a gift certificate to buy a firearm and that is legal. The form also states that if the firearm is for a gift that you are to answer "Yes" that you are the actual buyer. The gifting question was removed from the form years ago.

I got into a protracted argument with a poster on another forum that you can gift a firearm to anyone while he argued that you may only gift the firearm to a family member which is not true. He claimed to be a retired gun shop owner but I believe he was arguing from the text of the old 4473 form prior to the removal of the gifting question.
 
JimPeel said:
They describe a classic straw purchase and the lawyer, Dietz, says that it is lawful.
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That's a confusing snippet of the transcript. The first section, he clearly indicates that a transaction is actually legal that we would all know is illegal... "one person hands the money to the other and says, buy me that gun"... but the way they go on to explain it... "the gun dealer runs the background check on the person who hands the gun dealer the credit card as opposed to the person who will be the actual recipient of the gun?"...is completely different, no more than a gift, which is completely legal.

Odd.
 
If anyone bothered to read the briefs, the Government had already conceded that point, Brian.

Fact is, there were a lot of concessions that we had thought were normally unlawful.
 
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