Indiana cops trafficking in FA firearms.

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Sounds like these guys were trying to give the ATF a run for their money...


Northwest Indiana cops indicted on gun charges

Three police officers working in the sheriff’s department of Lake County, Ind., are facing indictments for allegedly selling military-grade weapons on the Internet.

The U.S. attorney’s office says a federal grand jury returned firearm and tax violation indictments on Edward Kabella, Joseph Kumstar and Ronald Slusser.

The three allegedly bought 74 fully automatic machine guns and 92 laser aiming devices from a reputable dealer and resold them. Online sales of the guns and parts allegedly netted the officers thousands of dollars.

Federal prosecutors allege that some of the guns and parts were used in crimes in Canada and Mississippi.

“When you sell things like this to anybody on the Internet, you have no idea who’s going to end up with them,” said David Capp, U.S. Attorney for Northern Indiana. Capp made the announcment about the indictments during a Thursday afternoon news conference at the Federal Courthouse in Hammond.

The scheme occurred between September 2008 and January 2010, which would place it during the tenure of former Lake County Sheriff Roy Dominguez, who left office at the end of 2010.

http://www.wbez.org/story/northwest-indiana-cops-indicted-gun-charges-92358
 
Not many details to be gleaned from the story, it appears the "full-auto" part might be a distraction from the actual crimes as they seem to be parting the guns out, not selling them whole.
 
Crooked cops ? No way !

Crooked, but unless they were embezzling money (say using departmental funds to buy these guns) I don't see any "harm" here other than violating a bunch of malum prohibitum gun laws and making the IRS pissy about taxes. If the GCA68 BS wasn't in place, odds are most of what they did would be otherwise legal. BATFE just gets pissy because firearms or parts imported under an "LE pretext" aren't really supposed to be sold to mere peons. Like Cekim says, not really enough detail here. The cops -obviously- abused their positions in a legal sense.

-Mike
 
Its funny that the groups supposed to be enforcing the gun laws are the ones break them. I guess its just like the saying goes.... Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
 
Crooked, but unless they were embezzling money (say using departmental funds to buy these guns) I don't see any "harm" here other than violating a bunch of malum prohibitum gun laws and making the IRS pissy about taxes. If the GCA68 BS wasn't in place, odds are most of what they did would be otherwise legal. BATFE just gets pissy because firearms or parts imported under an "LE pretext" aren't really supposed to be sold to mere peons. Like Cekim says, not really enough detail here. The cops -obviously- abused their positions in a legal sense.

-Mike
Yeah, I am not going to close-read the article again, but I have to say on first read I didn't see anything but stupid and gaming the "we are more equal" system the ATF has setup for LEOs to become defacto gun-wholesalers.

Plenty of deep ethical questions, but selling parts from no-no guns is perfectly legal - many without any paperwork. For example, selling SBR barrels is fine for the seller - it's up to the buyer to ensure that they have the right credentials and paperwork to assemble it on to a rifle or to "constructively possess" it (what a crock, but ignoring that for a moment).

If they were dumb enough to sell SBRs whole or MG's whole (which again, I DID NOT SEE IN THE ARTICLE), then they are the dumbest dumbies in the history of dumbdom... but that's not what the article described.
 
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