More PA Gun Shops Sued by NYC Mayor Bloomberg

[PA Rifleman]

Originally Posted by FRISteve

Let's carry it a step farther - the article said that PIs did the straw purchases. PIs can NOT break the law - so how about arresting them, while we're at it.

Last I heard, BATFE was indeed looking into straw man purchase violations.

[Glock22xd9]

Originally Posted by DeltaII5

If you google "bloomberg gun sting" or anything like that you'll come up with a whole load of stories.

There's quite a few sites that states bloomberg is look at criminal and civil prosecution for what he did. PIs cannot falsify information for buying firearms. No one can do this.

It looks like 15 or so gun shops settled. But 2 gun shops have filed suites against him from what I can see. It breaks down to money. Suing NYC isn't exactly the easiest thing you can do no matter how good your case it. NY has the highest tax rate in the country and they'll be happy to use that to fight 2A.

As far as wiretapping.... I have no idea how that would work. I don't think that face to face conversations are considered such. I could be wrong.

But, someone did point out, that by falsifying federal fire arms records and doing such with interstate commerce Bloomberg in effect violated the RICO statues. If you read the OC statues its actually quite funny, because he did break them. Hopefully this shit bites him in the ass, but just like cops who shoot innonence people, or any gov't misconduct; nothing is going to happen.

Obviously that's not true if the ATF can set up undercover sting operations. Why can't P.I.'s? Or are you saying that the ATF is the only one that can set up stings?

[avizpls]

PI's dont have any special powers that allow them to break the law. Its just not what they do. So in breaking the law to do a straw purchase they have....broken the law!

[Glock22xd9]

It was a theory, not fact. I would still like someone to come up with something to support these answers either way. Interesting topic.

[DeltaII5]

Originally Posted by Glock22xd9

Obviously that's not true if the ATF can set up undercover sting operations. Why can't P.I.'s? Or are you saying that the ATF is the only one that can set up stings?

It's the same type of situation as a drug sting. A government agent can "sell" drugs to a person that wants to buy them. This isn't against the law because they are working for the Police, Feds, etc. Now if Bloomburg sent private investigators to PA to buy drugs and bring them back to NYC. They would be breaking the law.

PIs do not have any government abilities. They are private citizens. I was referring to private individuals, not gov't employees.

CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron added, “That fact that he hired private investigators who have no law enforcement authority to conduct sting operations in several states – an operation that apparently involved falsely filling out federal background check paperwork – could open Bloomberg up to prosecution under the federal racketeering statutes, and for conspiracy to commit multiple federal felonies, if nothing else. Private citizens, including so-called investigators, cannot give deliberately false information on a Form 4473. That’s a crime, and because Bloomberg set the whole thing up, he would be an accessory to that crime.

http://www.ccrkba.org/pub/rkba/press...ting_crime.htm

Trouble for Bloomberg is that if this is how it went down, then it’s not necessarily illegal, assuming that the man was not a prohibited person. If the man was a prohibited person, the investigators broke the law. Also, said private investigators from New York have zero law enforcement authority in the states wherein they committed these supposed investigations. They may have also committed felonies by giving false info on ATF Form 4473

http://www.saysuncle.com/?p=9825