SAR 18#6

AMMUNITION
AZ
By Robert M. Hausman
2014 Firearms Directory
KY
OH
FL
AZ
NH
AUCTIONEER
Supreme Court Affirms Curb on
Buying Guns for Third Party
The U.S. Supreme Court has
ruled that federal law does not allow
a person to buy a gun for someone
else - even if both are legally eligible
to own firearms. The 5-4 ruling
on so-called straw purchasing came
down in the case of Bruce James
Abramski, Jr., who bought a Glock 19
handgun in Collinsville, Va., in 2009
and later transferred it to his uncle in
Easton, Pa.
Federal officials brought charges
against Abramski because he assured
the Virginia dealer he was the
actual buyer of the weapon, even
though he had already agreed to buy
the gun for his uncle.
The high court ruled that the
federal background check law does
apply to Abramski, rejecting Abramski’s
argument that since both he
and his uncle were legally allowed
to own guns, the law shouldn’t have
applied to him.
“We hold that such a misrepresentation
is punishable under the
statute, whether or not the true buyer
could have purchased the gun without
the straw,” the court ruled.
Writing for the majority, Justice
Elena Kagan said the federal government’s
elaborate system of background
checks and record-keeping
requirements help law enforcement
investigate crimes by tracing guns to
their buyers. Those provisions would
mean little, she said, if a would-be
gun buyer could evade them by simply
getting another person to buy
the gun and fill out the paperwork.
Kagan’s opinion was joined by Justice
Anthony Kennedy, who is often
considered the court’s swing vote,
as well as liberal Justices Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and
Sonia Sotomayor.
In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia
said the language of the law does
not support making it a crime for one
lawful gun owner to buy a gun for
another lawful gun owner. He was
joined by the court’s other conservatives
– Chief Justice John Roberts
and Justices Clarence Thomas and
Samuel Alito.
Abramski had been convicted for
knowingly making false statements
“with respect to any fact material to
the lawfulness of the sale” of a gun,
18 U.S.C. §922(a)(6), and for making
a false statement “with respect
to the information required... to be
kept” in the gun dealer’s records,
§924(a)(1)(A).
The court reasoned since the
dealer could not have lawfully sold
the gun had it known that Abramski
was not the true buyer, the misstatement
(by Abramski) was material to
the lawfulness of the sale.
Background
The question to be resolved in
this case, was whether, as the ATF
declares in Form 4473’s certification,
those statutory provisions criminalize
a false answer to Question 11.
a. – that is, a customer’s statement
that he is the “actual transferee/
buyer,” purchasing a firearm for himself,
when in fact he is a straw purchaser,
buying the gun on someone
else’s behalf.
The petitioner was Bruce Abramski,
a former police officer who offered
to buy a Glock 19 handgun for his uncle,
Angel Alvarez. (Abramski thought
he could get the gun at a discount by
showing his old police identification,
though the government contends that
since he had been fired from his job
two years earlier, he was no longer
authorized to use that ID.)
Accepting his nephew’s offer,
Alvarez sent Abramski a check for
$400 with “Glock 19 handgun” written
on the memo line. Two days later,
Abramski went to a dealer to make
the purchase. On the Form 4473
he falsely checked “Yes” in reply
to Question 11.a. asserting he was
the actual “transferee/buyer” when,
SAR Vol. 18, No. 6 102 Nov., Dec. 2014