Constitutional Law

Great reporting by Associated Press

Right here.

The first sentence: "The U.S. agency that monitors gun sales has suffered a setback in its effort to increase scrutiny of the bulk sale of high-powered assault rifles in border state gun shops that are a chief source of weapons smuggling into Mexico."

But they must be very tiny rifles: ""It's not against the law, and it's not going to be against the law, for you to buy 40, 50, even 100 of these weapons and put them in the bumper of your car and drive them around or even down to the border," said ATF spokesman Scot Thomasson."

And "individuals on several occasions bought dozens of AK-47s as well as .50-caliber high-powered rifles capable of shooting down airplanes, even after rifles they purchased earlier had been seized."

The two themes consist of describing a scheme whereby straw purchasers bought from an FFL, and explaining why requiring FFLs to report multiple sales of rifles would deal with that, but it acknowledges "Howard [the FFL] cooperated with law enforcement during the investigation, calling agents when individuals purchased dozens of AK-47s at a time, according to a federal official familiar with the case, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing."

Oh, well, at least it's not as bad a slip as was this.

Hat tip to reader Jonas Salk...

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on February 11, 2011 (boomark / email).