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Puzzled question
- Thread starter CMDRShepard
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The OP is not really asking about a "straw purchase." If you buy a new gun from an FFL dealer, keep it and use it for a while, and then decide to sell it to a random stranger who answered your classified ad, that's okay. The gun was really yours at first, and you were the true purchaser who filled out the Form 4473 and who did the background check or showed your GWL as a substitute to prove you're a good guy. Not a straw purchase.
Now as to the second part of the question, you should not have any criminal or civil liability about what some later-purchaser does with the gun UNLESS you knew, or should have known, that the person you sold it to was a criminal, or was going to supply the gun to criminals, or the guy you sold it to was a nut who was obviously not to be trusted with dangerous tools, or the guy you sold it to was legally a "prohibited person" who couldn't own guns or ammo.
A CLOSER QUESTION, and one that I don't know the answer to offhand, would be whether you could be held liable (either civilly or criminally) if
(1) An out-of-state resident answered your ad, and admitted that he wanted to buy the gun in an interstate transfer but without involving an FFL, and
(2) You meet the guy in GA and sell him the gun, knowing he's going to take it out of state, but you figure that he's basically a good guy, and he didn't seem like a criminal or nutcase, and
(3) You were dead wrong on judging this guy's character, because the first thing he does with that gun is go to the diner where his estranged wife works waiting tables and blows her away, hours after buying the gun from you.
Does your commission of the federal felony crime of selling a gun to a resident of a different state bring any additional consequences because of what the buyer did with the gun?
It's something to think about.
Now as to the second part of the question, you should not have any criminal or civil liability about what some later-purchaser does with the gun UNLESS you knew, or should have known, that the person you sold it to was a criminal, or was going to supply the gun to criminals, or the guy you sold it to was a nut who was obviously not to be trusted with dangerous tools, or the guy you sold it to was legally a "prohibited person" who couldn't own guns or ammo.
A CLOSER QUESTION, and one that I don't know the answer to offhand, would be whether you could be held liable (either civilly or criminally) if
(1) An out-of-state resident answered your ad, and admitted that he wanted to buy the gun in an interstate transfer but without involving an FFL, and
(2) You meet the guy in GA and sell him the gun, knowing he's going to take it out of state, but you figure that he's basically a good guy, and he didn't seem like a criminal or nutcase, and
(3) You were dead wrong on judging this guy's character, because the first thing he does with that gun is go to the diner where his estranged wife works waiting tables and blows her away, hours after buying the gun from you.
Does your commission of the federal felony crime of selling a gun to a resident of a different state bring any additional consequences because of what the buyer did with the gun?
It's something to think about.
As to the second question, that is interesting! Since it is across state lines and your crime had ended before his began, my initial inclination is that you could not be charged. I'll have to think on that some more. Lax might have some insight on that, as he is fresher out of school (which is when you are most equipped to answer "law school" type questions) and I have not done much criminal work in the last 10 years or so.
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Is the question that you sell it in ga knowing they are not ga citizens? And then what culpability do you hold for 2nd party criminal actions?
Pretty much. I don't think any, since your crime is completed and you are not actively involved in in the second crime. Furthermore, I am not sure that you could use a crime from one jusrisdiction to create culpability in another like that - ala Felony Murder
If proper mens rea exist then sure, but they have to prove you knew the gun was going to be misused.
But with no knowledge of their future use you may only be civilly liable.
Regardless of your actions a BOS pretty much guaranteed they can't charge you, so long as the font is comic sans
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