Supreme Court Rules Against ‘Straw’ Purchases of Guns

[Don]

If I buy a gun legally, then give it to someone while fully knowing that the person cannot legally own a firearm, should I not be culpable? And not thru mind-reading by police, but by solid evidence of what I knew or clear evidence of what I should have known.

Isn't that already covered under "aiding-and-abetting"?

The issue of gifts within family hits close to home, as all my current firearms were either given me by my dad or inherited from him. However, should my child commit a felony such that he/she is no longer legally able to own a gun, I ought to have enough sense not to give one. I'm guessing only a tiny portion of legal-to-illegal straw purchases involve within-family exchanges.

Even if I give a weapon to someone with a record, if that person has "paid their dues" and never uses it to perform illegal acts -- why am I now a criminal?

And the last part of your post is the kicker: This law was meant to stop legal-to-illegal straw purchases; but it's now being used against families.

 

[OnlyaSinner]

Isn't that already covered under "aiding-and-abetting"?


Even if I give a weapon to someone with a record, if that person has "paid their dues" and never uses it to perform illegal acts -- why am I now a criminal?

And the last part of your post is the kicker: This law was meant to stop legal-to-illegal straw purchases; but it's now being used against families.

Don't know where the strawman purchase and aid/abet intersect, so I'll leave that to the lawyers. However, in many jurisdictions, a convicted felon cannot legally possess a firearm even if he's served his time and been clean for years afterward. One can logically argue that such a law is too harsh, but my giving a gun to such a person would still put me as breaking the law. (And some laws don't even require a felony. A friend was guilty of misdemeanor domestic abuse, was later pinched while hunting with another friend's gun, and a "crusading against domestic abuse" DA got the fellow put in a Federal pen for a year. No excuse for dom abuse and the guy should've known better than to carry the gun, but this seemed a bit much.)