Prison Run And Gun Show

Apr 21, 2016  The fisherman convicted of felony holding fish in the wrong tank can probably attend a gun show. Can anyone cite a case where a felon legally out of prison (paroled, sentence served, debt to society paid) has ever been prosecuted for attending a gun show (or shopping at a WalMart with a hunting department)? Hunt was a felon who had spent time in prison for abducting a girlfriend. That used to typically just mean sales at gun shows, or through.

One gun's path to destruction“I know from my own personal experience as an investigator that a lot of firearms that I’ve seen recovered in violent crimes have come through the hands of unlicensed dealers,” said Thomas Chittum, a veteran agent and top supervisor at the headquarters for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington, DC.“Some get prosecuted,” Chittum said. “I would say most do not.”At the heart of the problem is a vaguely worded federal statute that has frustrated efforts by law enforcement to combat the problem of illegal gun dealing, and effectively helps sustain a marketplace for black market gun sales.

The law is fuzzy on the distinction between a casual seller of firearms who is not required to conduct background checks on prospective buyers and a gun dealer, who is.It’s a problem that law enforcement officials and gun control advocates say would be greatly mitigated by the passage of proposed universal background check legislation that last month. The issue could come up in the Senate next week, when the judiciary committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on another gun control measure.CNN reviewed dozens of cases of illegal dealing across the country, including some in which sellers were warned by the ATF that they might be breaking the law, but continued selling firearms nonetheless.The sellers were in many cases unlikely suspects: upstanding, seemingly law-abiding citizens with no previous criminal record. Among them were, federal agents, a fire department captain and a with a national security clearance.Guns that passed through the hands of unlicensed dealers have turned up at crime scenes and in police investigations from coast to coast, CNN found, including cases of armed robbery, carjacking and murder.The story of how Easy Chang got his gun cuts across American society.