The Straw Purchase – Final Hope of the Anti-Gun Elite

By Gerard Valentino

Since 1987 when Florida passed the now landmark concealed carry law, each of the anti-gun movements sacred cows has been destroyed. One by one, the falsified statistics and claims of blood running in the street proved to be untrue, leading the tide of public opinion to turn slowly against the anti-gun movement.

It should have been easy to predict since they had lied about their motives and used fake statistics since they began to try and shape public opinion. Yet, a complicit establishment media put the pro-gun movement on the defensive and paved the way for what the anti-gun movement was sure would be the next in a long line of successes, the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

Something happened on the way to total gun confiscation however, the American public woke up and realized that years of gun control laws had done little to dissuade criminals from plying their dangerous trade. Many Americans also realized what the pro-gun movement knew all along, that disarming law-abiding citizens did little more than make everyone sitting ducks for criminals who refused to turn in their weapons.

Now that most of the anti-gun movement’s arguments have been refuted by the success of concealed carry, and the scheme to sue gun companies out of existence also failed, they had to find a different way to attack gun owners.

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The new holy grail of gun control as determined by its latest self-appointed leader, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is the straw purchase. Bloomberg contends that most guns used in crimes are legally purchased by people who can buy guns, and then sold or given directly to criminals. By implying that gun shops don’t do enough to stop straw purchases, Bloomberg tries to convince people that there needs to be more regulation on the sale of guns.

What he refuses to admit is that by definition a straw purchase is illegal and the people who take part in a straw purchase are criminals.

Regardless of whether the straw purchaser is ever charged with a crime, what they are doing is illegal at the federal and most state levels. Still, the anti-gun movement’s newest agenda includes blaming law-abiding gun shops when people defraud them by lying on the federal form that must be filled out when buying a gun. The form in question is the federal form 4473, often called the yellow form by gun buyers due to its distinctive color. It includes a section that explicitly asks if the gun is being bought for anyone else, or is the buyer intent on purchasing the gun for their own use.

Lying on the form is punishable by jail time at the federal level, and in most states. Yet prosecutors almost always plea away the gun crime when they are trying to get a conviction. When a prosecutor refuses to fight for a conviction for an illegal straw purchase it allows the anti-gun movement to use the same cases as reasons to push for stricter gun laws. They nearly always play both ends of the argument in these situations. Pro-gunners, however, point out that enforcing current gun laws would help to put an end to illegal straw purchases, and other gun crimes.

Criminals are a key element in the anti-gun’s vision for a gun free America. They count on shooting sprees, the killing of law enforcement officers, or other high profile killings to use as excuses for pushing their flawed agenda. They won’t acknowledge that there are enough laws on the books to punish people who commit straw purchases, and that most police departments and prosecutors don’t use the tools they are given.

There is little anyone can do about the inaction of prosecutors in the case of obvious gun crimes. The anti-gun minority, however, uses their wail and cry emotional tactics in an attempt to create a visceral reaction against guns. They also refuse to acknowledge that guns that fall into a criminal’s hands via a straw purchase require the commission of a crime.

Often, local prosecutors and police administrators try to claim they can’t do anything about straw purchases because it falls under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, as completing a straw purchase is a felony in most states.

A recent case in Cleveland, Ohio shows how an anti-gun prosecutor, a police chief and a complicit establishment media can create a compelling argument for making the purchase of a gun more difficult.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a local newspaper, a convicted felon used a friend to buy a gun that was eventually used in the murder of a law enforcement officer. Although an investigation by Buckeye Firearms Association later proved the reported got her facts horribly wrong, the article written about the history of the gun claims it was a straw purchase that put it in murderer’s hands. In the same story, the county prosecutor and Cleveland’s Chief of Police claim they are powerless to keep the same thing from happening again. Implying through their false frustration that there is nothing local officials can do to stop straw purchasers.

In Ohio, it is illegal to participate in a straw purchase. Instead of pursuing the case the county prosecutor used it as fodder for creating an anti-gun call to arms across the state.

Nobody is claiming the establishment media and anti-gun movement are part of a conspiracy against gun owners since both groups honestly believe the anti-gun tripe they foist upon the public.

But, the anti-gun movement, led by Bloomberg, has made inroads in their case for more regulation on gun purchases. Only by pointing out their duplicity, at every turn, can the pro-gun movement once again win the battle in the court of public opinion.

Over the last 20 years, gun owners have won in the legislature and at the ballot box. However, it will take constant and never ending vigilance to keep the anti-gunners from rising again.

Gerard Valentino is the Buckeye Firearms Association Central Ohio Chair.