Kevin Williamson thinks straw purchasers should be prosecuted, not necessarily the gun shops where they make their illegal purchases.
This week in Wisconsin, the Milwaukee County Circuit Court is hearing arguments in a lawsuit filed by two police officers, both of them shot in the head by a young man named Julius Burton back in 2009. The officers are suing the former owners of the defunct gun shop that sold the pistol Burton used to a straw purchaser, Jacob Collins. Burton was at the time too young to legally purchase a handgun.
Like many other jurisdictions, Wisconsin doesn’t really take straw purchases of firearms very seriously. At the time of Collins’s crime, the offense was only a misdemeanor.
Reality is that the gun dealers in the this case could easily have been charged with conspiracy. The real gun buyer walked into the shop with his straw buyer, pointed to the gun he wanted, and said, “That’s the one.” Surveillance video shows someone at the store helping the straw buyer falsify a form so that the sale could go through. Neither the shop nor the straw buyer were charged. Why is that?
The big reason? That's not where the money is.
Trials lawyers have lots of energy, though, especially when there’s somebody with lots of money: Never mind Bob’s Shotgun Emporium and Bait Shop in East Donkey, Ark. — this is about Remington/Freedom, Sturm Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and other big companies with big bank accounts. Democrats and their trial-lawyer supporters are looking for a way to claim a victory on gun control and get paid at the same time.
Thus, there is a movement under way to shift the responsibility for criminal violence away from criminals and onto third parties that are easier to police and blessed with much deeper pockets. Gun dealers are only the beginning of that: The real prize is firearms manufacturers.
Rule of thumb: If you are ever in doubt about the logic behind Democrats' legislative initiatives, follow the money. There is always somebody who stands to make a fortune out of it. Very often, as in this case, it's the trial lawyers.
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