NY Man Sentenced In Gun Trafficking Case

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Gun trafficking is and will likely remain a bit problem for some time to come. For as long as there are places and people who can’t get guns, there will be someone there willing to obtain and provide those guns.

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If there is a demand, someone will provide a supply. It’s just the way the world works.

But hey, New York-style gun control laws keep that from happening, right. Right?

A Buffalo man will face 21 years behind bars for buying guns that were part of a trafficking conspiracy that brought over 100 illegal guns to Buffalo from Ohio.

Chief U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wolford sentenced Titus Thompson, Jr., 38, on Wednesday for unlawful dealing in firearms, being a felon in possession of firearms, and maintaining a drug involved premises. Thompson was convicted by a federal jury.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua A. Violanti, who handled the case, stated that Thompson purchased firearms from co-defendant Deonte Cooper, who also sold heroin, recruited heroin customers to make straw purchases of more than 100 firearms. The purchases were made at gun shows and gun stores in Ohio and then transported to Buffalo where they were sold to local drug dealers including Thompson.

Oh.

Well…this is awkward.

I mean, doesn’t New York’s strict gun control prevent this sort of thing? Clearly, it doesn’t. A convicted felon was able to get his hands on numerous firearms which he then sold to whoever wanted them. None of that is legal.

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Hell, at no point in the process did any laws work. The straw buyers lied on their 4473s about both who they were buying the gun for and whether they were using illegal substances (two crimes). They were illegally transported across state lines with the intent to sell them (another crime). They were then transferred to different parties without a universal background check (a crime).

The most impressive thing here is just how many gun control laws they managed to break with just one crime. Well done, guys. Well done, indeed. I mean, if you’re going to do something illegal, you might as well try to do something impressive in its illegality.

So again, well done.

Meanwhile, though, those guns are likely to be used for the kinds of things that will eventually be used to justify still more gun control, despite that firearm’s mere existence in the state as evidence that gun control doesn’t work worth a damn. That’s kind of the problem we’re seeing, isn’t it?

Then again, it’s not like Gov. Andrew Cuomo will likely care about any of that. He’s too busy trying to keep the media from looking too closely at sexual harassment allegations. Gun control seems to be the tool to use if you want to distract the media. He’d definitely use these guns as evidence the state needs more gun laws.

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Not that those would do any good either, of course.

Once again, criminals will obtain guns no matter what you do. Gun control doesn’t stop them. It doesn’t deter them. All it manages to do is interfere with the average citizen being able to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

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