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http://www.startribune.com/local/89652512.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUT
http://www.startribune.com/local/89652512.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUT
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Bad guys use 'good guys' to get their guns
It's hard to identify and prosecute straw buyers, people with clean records who sell guns to criminals.
By JAMES WALSH, Star Tribune
Last update: March 31, 2010 - 11:30 PM
Brian Greer Murphy's shopping list for his gang-banger customers was extensive, if repetitive.
Hi-Point .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol. Hi-Point .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol. Hi-Point .9mm semi-automatic pistol. Hi-Point, Hi-Point, Hi-Point.
From July 15, 2002, to Dec. 9, 2002, Murphy bought 73 firearms -- almost all of them Hi-Point -- for criminal customers who could not legally buy their own. Yet it was the single, unloaded .45-caliber gun wedged between the seat and floor of his car, found last year by South St. Paul police in a traffic stop, that put him away for more than three years.
Prosecutors were able to obtain a heavier sentence for the one gun, thanks to his prior felony conviction for selling lots of guns.
While that ends Murphy's career as a gun runner, the problem of straw purchasers -- people with clean criminal records who buy guns for criminals who can't -- still vexes law enforcement. Time and again, guns bought by straw purchasers show up at crime scenes months, and sometimes only days, later.
"Almost all firearms in the U.S. originate with a lawful source," said Bernard Zapor, special agent in charge of the St. Paul division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). "But, at some point, they leave the legal retail process and hit the open exchange."
"The harsh reality of gun crime in America is that they're sourced from the gray market," he said.
Loopholes
Federal law makes it illegal for a convicted felon to buy or possess a firearm. It also is illegal for someone to buy a handgun for somebody else. When you buy a gun from a licensed dealer, you sign a form saying you are buying the gun for yourself.
You need a federal license to go into the gun-selling business. But nothing in the law forbids somebody from buying a gun -- or guns -- for themselves and selling it to somebody else later. The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives Americans the right to bear arms. It does not require ordinary people to keep records of the guns they sell, and they are not required to do background checks on the people they sell them to.
That makes sifting the straw purchasers out of thousands of legal gun buyers and sellers a tough task, officials say.
Lots of guns
One way federal officials can spot straw buyers is when they buy a lot of guns in a short period of time. Licensed gun dealers are required to file paperwork when people buy three handguns or more in a period of seven days.
That may be what first got Murphy on investigators' radar.
For example, in September 2002, he bought 11 handguns at Polar Bear Ordinance in Woodbury, including six from Sept. 3 through Sept. 8 and three more on Sept. 15, 16 and 17. In all, Murphy bought 39 guns from Polar Bear from August through December 2002.
Which raises a question: Didn't the dealers get suspicious?
The folks at Polar Bear Ordinance, located in a beige split-level home in a quiet Woodbury neighborhood, did not return calls seeking comment. Other licensed dealers who supplied Murphy also did not comment for this story.
John Munson, owner of Bill's Gun Shop and Range in Robbinsdale, said his staff keeps the necessary paperwork for all gun sales -- and his workers are vigilant for suspected straw buyers. Sometimes, such as when a girlfriend is asking for a gun she isn't familiar with, it's easy to tell, he said. Often, it isn't. Sometimes, legitimate buyers simply like buying a lot of guns.
"For some, it's like women buying shoes," Munson said.
Gun dealers can refuse to sell a gun to anyone for any reason, Munson said. It's a point driven home by the ATF, which has launched a public education campaign called "Don't Buy for the Other Guy." But while such programs help, Munson said, they aren't always effective.
"I tell my people all the time, 'If something doesn't feel right, call it in,'" Munson said. "But the truth is, mean people suck. And they're going to find a way around it."Often, guns bought by straw buyers soon show up at crime scenes. If investigators trace a lot of those guns back to a single buyer, they can sometimes build a case, Zapor of the ATF said.
While officials would not give specifics -- gun tracing data are not public -- law enforcement sources say "several" guns bought by Murphy were either used in crimes or were recovered on the streets.
Often, such guns are of a make, model and caliber popular with criminals, said Sgt. John Engle of the Minneapolis Police weapons unit. Hi-Points, like the ones Murphy bought, are such "crime guns" because they are less expensive.
"They turn up all the time," Engle said.
But the lack of a paper trail after the first purchase makes it hard to connect straw buyers to crimes. The lack of prior criminal records makes the penalty for being a straw buyer usually only a couple of years in prison -- not always a deterrent, officials say.
It certainly wasn't for Murphy, 32, who has struggled for years with drug addiction.
In October 2003, he was sentenced to two years in prison and three years supervised release for all those guns. Soon after he got out, he began violating conditions of his release and going back to jail.
Then, last April, he was caught with a gun and a meth pipe in South St. Paul. Murphy's attorney, Rachael Goldberger, said he hoped to sell the gun to buy methamphetamine. U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle sentenced him to 37 months in prison.
Federal investigators find solace knowing that Murphy's straw-buying career is over. Once, he was known as "the guy who can get guns."
Now, that's another guy.
James Walsh • 612-673-7428
