A similar scenario plays out over and over again at American crime scenes: The investigation reveals the shooter did not legally obtain the firearm from a store or gun show, but instead obtained it from someone who did.
This from msn.com.
A law enforcement officer at the scene of the shooting during the KC Chiefs
NFL football Super Bowl celebration in Kansas City, MO, Feb. 14, 2024.
It’s known as a straw purchase. A federal law signed in 2022 has taken aim at the practice, and federal investigators have made combatting Straw purchases a priority. Those caught can face lengthy prison sentences. But despite that, evidence suggests straw purchases are becoming even more problematic.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives defines a straw purchase as buying a firearm for someone who is prohibited by law from possessing one, or for someone who does not want their name associated with it.
A federal report released in February 2023 showed that 54% of guns that police recovered at crime scenes in 2021 had been purchased within three years, a double-digit increase since 2019.
The report further stated:
The quicker turnaround can indicate illegal gun trafficking or a straw purchase. The increase was driven largely by guns bought less than a year before.
Attorney for Minnesota Andrew Luger at a news conference in Minneapolis Thursday,
March 14, 2024, announcing charges against an alleged straw buyer of the guns used
to kill three first responders in the Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville in February.
In 2022, Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a measure spurred in part by mass shootings including the massacre of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
The law made it a federal crime to traffic in firearms. It also created stronger penalties for straw purchases—up to a 25-year prison sentence if the weapon is used in an act of terrorism, or while drug trafficking.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice said it is has invested resources to investigate and prosecute violations involving firearms trafficking and straw purchases. The agency’s website says it has charged more than 60 people for violations since the law was passed and seized hundreds of firearms in connection with those cases.
Straw purchases were at the center of two cases announced this week.
In one case:
Three men in Kansas City, Missouri, were charged with federal counts related to the illegal purchase of high-powered rifles and guns with extended magazines. Two of the guns were connected to last month’s shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade and rallly, authorities said Wednesday.
The complaints do not allege that the men were among the shooters. Instead, they are accused of involvement in straw purchases and trafficking firearms, including guns used in the Feb. 14 shooting at the Chiefs’ rally that killed a woman and wounded nearly two dozen others, including children.
According to an affidavit:
[O]ne of the suspects bought an illegally trafficked AM-15—an Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 .223-caliber pistol recovered at the scene.
Also recovered at the scene was a Stag Arms .300-caliber pistol that the complaint said was purchased by another suspect at a gun show in November.
Prosecutors said:
[The] man gave the gun to the third suspect, who was too young to legally purchase one himself.
U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore said in announcing the charges:
Stopping straw buyers and preventing illegal firearms trafficking is our first line of defense against gun violence.
On Thursday in another case, authorities in Minnesota announced charges against a woman accused of buying guns used in the killings of three first responders last month at a home in the Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville.
U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger alleged at a news conference:
The woman conspired with the shooter, Shannon Gooden, to illegally get him guns.
Officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27, and firefighter-paramedic Adam Finseth, 40, were slain during a standoff. Gooden then killed himself.
Dakota County Attorney Kathryn Keena called the woman:
The reason he had an arsenal of firearms in his possession that ultimately resulted in the murder of three of Dakota County’s finest.
Final thoughts: Attacking “straw purchases” seems to be much smarter than trying to take guns from law-abiding citizens or attacking our Second Amendment in other ways.
God speed to smart law enforcement.
