baffled wrote:Officer Friendly has a keen business sense. Even if it's illegal business.
http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/02/deput ... erstand-ho
Two Sacramento deputies face federal charges for selling guns that officers and active military members are allowed to own, but not us dumb, hapless non-uniformed folks. According to KTVU in San Francisco, at least two of the guns ended up in the hands of criminals and one was used in a police standoff:
U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagoner said the deputies were charged with serving as straw buyers by purchasing the restricted handguns. They then sold the handguns at a profit to unqualified buyers through licensed dealers, prosecutors said.
California law bars citizens from buying handguns that have not been deemed safe by the state Department of Justice, but the law exempts peace officers. The deputies are accused of using their peace officer exemption to buy dozens of weapons over more than a year then selling them to others for a profit.
Let me enlighten IGx how this scam came about.
CA approves every single new handgun sold in the State. By law, all new handguns sold within CA have to have a loaded chamber indicator and pass a CA lab ( and pay CA a hefty fee) drop test. If a handgun doesn't have a loaded chamber indicator the manufacturer can just fork over a bag load of $$$$$ to the state and get to sell them anyways. I believe this process must be repeated every two years for any handgun model.
So, as we can see, this has nothing to do about safety and all to do with raising money for CA. Plus, it severely punishes small handgun manufactures who can't afford the tens of thousands the state of CA extorts from gun manufacturers.
Now on to the cop scam. If a handgun isn't on the approved list, LEO is still allowed to buy them. For example, the Rugaer LCP is very popular handgun not available for civilian purchase in CA but cops can buy them. Now, even though civilians are banned from buying them from a FFL dealer, you can buy them from provate parties if the move into state with one and or they are part of a political protected class (LEO) that can privately own them. Off list handguns like the Ruger LCP sell for way above their retail price in the CA private party sales market. Supply and demand; with douchebag LEO in control of the supply.
The officer friendly types in this story where using their CA special privileges to buy non list handguns and sell them for huge profits. But, they got greed and fell afoul the BATF. You are not allowed to conduct business in firearms without a Federal Firearms license. The BATF tracks people that buy a lot of weapons; particularly a lot of the same type of weapons. To make matter worse for our officer friendlys, CA mandates all handgun private party sales by conducted via a FFL. There is a paper trail several miles long on this mess.
Have fun in the federal pen showers officer friendly.