Straw Purchase Ring Busted in Pennsylvania

Straw buys are illegal. If you buy a gun for someone when you know they can’t lawfully own one, that is a crime, and you may well end up in jail. If someone asks you to buy a gun for them, there’s a good chance they can’t do it themselves for a very good reason. Don’t do it.

But there’s also profit to be made by buying guns for others. Because most criminals don’t care about the law, do care about money, and don’t think they’ll ever get caught because they’re too smart, you get people who will straw buy as a career option.

And a ring of such people just got arrested in Pennsylvania.

Six people are charged, and one of them is still at large — all tied to gun-buying schemes in Berks County. The district attorney says the investigation is part of his efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

“How did these individuals obtain these firearms?” said John Adams, Berks County district attorney.

It’s the question that led to multiple arrests, including that of Wilson Rivera, who police say supplied a gun used in a shooting in the 600 block of Locust Street in Reading.

“Wilson Rivera was straw purchasing the firearms that were used in violent crimes,” Adams said.

Straw purchasing is when someone buys a gun for another person who’s not legally allowed to have one.

Among those arrested were a boy and his mother.

“Jonathan Vasquez — he’s only 16 years of age. He cannot legally possess a firearm, and he used that firearm in a home invasion arrest,” Adams said. “His mother, Joanna Vasquez, 41 years of age. She’s a convicted felon. She cannot possess a firearm. Yet, Wilson Rivera bought her a firearm.”

Of course, I’m sure Mr. Adams is mistaken. Straw purchases are illegal, and I have it on good authority that gun control laws work, so there’s no way Mr. Rivera, nor anyone else, could have taken part in such an act.

I mean, gun control laws work, so he physically couldn’t have taken part, right?

Or, and just hear me out here, criminals are criminals, which means they break the law all the time, and more gun laws don’t really do what we’ve been told they do.

Now, a lot of people are totally fine with felons being prohibited. I’m not getting into that right now, though I tend to disagree in most cases. 

The point we need to focus on, though, is that the entire process designed to keep them disarmed creates hurdles that we, law-abiding citizens who want to exercise our Second Amendment rights, have to clear in the name of stopping these people, but it only creates minor hurdles for them. We’re the ones who suffer.

Every single gun control law on the planet simply creates burdens for the law-abiding while doing nothing to the criminals, really. Even when guns aren’t available, they’re still hurting people. They just shift their weapons to something else. That’s it.

But the regular folks who aren’t a threat, no matter how heavily armed, have to deal with the legal roadblocks.

Straw buys happen regularly. They’re not as common as some want you to believe, but they’re common enough to illustrate that the laws in question do. Not. Work.

And the sooner we can open the public’s eyes to this fact, the sooner we can move onto looking at things that might actually do some damn good.

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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