Undercover Busts of Innocents at Gun Shows

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APRIL 17, 2013 More Surprises in New Bill: Undercover Busts of Innocents at Gun Shows One begins to wonder if Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Joe Manchin (D-WV) didn’t just take whatever verbiage Attorney General Eric Holder’s staff handed to them and put it in their gun control legislation without even reading it. The Schumer-Toomey-Manchin Gun Control Bill (STM)  facilitates undercover sting operations at gun shows to arrest people for conduct they have no reason to believe is against the law. The STM bill lets the Justice Department send people at gun shows to jail for up to five years for a crime they did not even know was a crime. Here is the zinger buried in the bill: Whoever makes or attempts to make a transfer of a firearm in violation of section 922(t) . . . to a law enforcement officer, or to a person acting at the direction of, or with the approval of, a law enforcement officer authorized to investigate or prosecute violations of section 922(t), shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than five years, or both. It is neither surprising nor inappropriate that, in accordance with applicable law enforcement guidelines, undercover FBI or ATF agents infiltrate, or send informants to infiltrate, a gun show to see if they can catch people breaking federal firearms laws. But this new law goes overboard, by eliminating any need for a federal prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury that the individual who allegedly broke the law had any kind of criminal intent. Congress has made gun laws so complex that even the well-meaning, law-abiding citizen who owns firearms will have a hard time learning about and complying with every firearms law and regulation on the books. It is unreasonable to assume that every person at a gun show will automatically know that it is a crime to transfer a firearm without a necessary background check. The STM bill’s new undercover sting provision is a trap for the innocent. With the STM bill, if you see an unattended gun lying on the ground at a gun show, do not pick up the gun and turn it over to somebody. The person you just transferred it to without a background check might be an undercover STM sting officer—and you just committed a federal crime! Undercover law enforcement operations have their place in our society, but not as a trap for innocent citizens. The STM bill sets up such a trap, punishing people when neither they nor any other reasonable person would know that what they did was a crime. Read and comment on Heritage gun-control analysis >> College Student Exposes Agenda of Politically Correct Universities Small Business Owner, You're Probably Breaking the Law New Research: The Need for a Mistake of Law Defense as a Response to Overcriminalization St. Joseph's Monks Win in Court, Bury Government Regulations Behind Closed Doors: Wiretap of Senator McConnell's Office   Livonia v. Boeing:   Claims of Trial Lawyers Don't Fly The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently sent a strong message to lawyers: Do your homework before you make assertions in court, or the court may impose sanctions against you. The court’s action should make less-than-careful lawyers think twice before they make unsupported securities fraud claims in court to try to gouge settlement money out of an innocent company when the cost of a defense in court would be more than the cost to settle. Read the rest of the story >>   The Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is the nation’s most broadly supported public policy organization. Heritage created the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies in 2001 to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution, legal principles and how they affect public policy. The Heritage Foundation | 214 Massachusetts Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002 | 202.546.4400 | heritage.org

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