Yes, there is another thread about the subject, but the originator deleted the original post and changed the title to make it meaningless.
(I edited the title of this thread because “downfall” alone may have given the wrong impression about my own opinion of the matter.)

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Prosecutors Say Police Aided Illegal-Gun Scheme

BY DAN FROSCH AND ZUSHA ELINSON

James Sawyer, the police chief and only officer in Ray, N.D., spent his days waiting to catch the occasional driver going over the 25-mph speed limit.

But one day several years ago he got a strange request, according to court documents. A man named Larry Vickers, who held popular firearms-tactics training sessions for law enforcement, needed a favor: Could Sawyer help him import a machine gun into the country? All he had to do was write a letter for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives saying his one-man department was interested in buying the highly restricted weapon.

Vickers was no ordinary instructor. He was a Delta Force veteran, revered by military veterans and cops, whose gun videos got millions of views on YouTube. Sawyer agreed to help. The chief went on to write letters saying his department was possibly interested in buying 73 different firearms, including machine guns and short-barreled rifles, prosecutors allege. He never saw the guns. The letters allowed Vickers and his associates to keep or sell them.

Federal prosecutors in Maryland last October announced that a grand jury indicted Sawyer, Vickers and several others for conspiracy to illegally acquire machine guns. Prosecutors allege that dealers and police officials from around the country worked together to illegally import numerous heavily regulated weapons into the U.S.

Most of the defendants have yet to enter pleas, but Vickers shocked his fans by pleading guilty in October to participating in the gun-import operation as well as other charges. He faces at least five years in prison.

Sawyer, who resigned from his post months before he was charged, also faces five years in prison if convicted. Neither he nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment.

In recent years, authorities have begun to crack down on a process meant to make machine guns available to police SWAT teams. Federal and local law-enforcement officials are making changes to their policies. One sheriff’s department ensnared in the case has stopped issuing letters of the sort prosecutors say Sawyer provided. The ATF increased scrutiny of such transactions.

It was a single gun sold online by an Arizona man that played a vital role in cracking the case.

Christopher Fiorentino dabbled in bitcoin, real estate and firearms made by the German company Heckler & Koch, hence his username on an online gun marketplace, Mr_Big_Koch.

ATF investigators grew suspicious when a dealer in Florida reported that a gun it had purchased from Fiorentino appeared to be a highly regulated short-barreled rifle. They discovered that Mr_Big_Koch was selling a lot of guns and didn’t have a dealer’s license, prosecutors allege.

When ATF agents raided the suburban Phoenix condo Fiorentino shared with his fiancée, they found more than 60 guns, including four short-barreled rifles that he hadn’t registered with the federal government, prosecutors allege. They also discovered he had a Heckler & Koch machine gun that wasn’t registered.

But it was his phone that revealed a much broader web. There were WhatsApp messages between Fiorentino and a former Homeland Security analyst named Sean Reidpath Sullivan who had a side business importing guns from Europe. Prosecutors alleged that Fiorentino was buying imported guns through an alleged black-market network Sullivan and Vickers had developed.

Fiorentino has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including possession of the unregistered guns and dealing without a license.

“Any transactions that he engaged in were through federally licensed dealers and anything they’re alleged to have been doing he was not aware of or involved in,” said Brian Russo, Fiorentino’s lawyer.

Sullivan also pleaded not guilty to illegal-gun-importation charges in September.

“We look forward to resolving in court the allegations that he unlawfully imported machine guns as part of his business,” said Jim Wyda, an attorney for Sullivan.

To help get the machine guns they wanted, Vickers and Sullivan appear to have zeroed in on small-town police chiefs such as Sawyer, prosecutors allege.

Prosecutors don’t say whether the police chiefs got anything in return. Text exchanges between Vickers and the chiefs included in the indictment convey the chiefs’ admiration for the celebrity gun trainer.

Last February, before townspeople in Ray learned about the charges, James Sawyer submitted his resignation letter. He said his health was deteriorating and he needed to retire from law enforcement.

For Vickers, the felony conviction means that one of the nation’s leading gun gurus can no longer own or possess firearms. He must forfeit his collection to the U.S. government.

“Nothing could be a greater punishment for him than his inability to possess, use and demonstrate the use of firearms,” said Gerald Ruter, his attorney.


The Legal Way Around the Machine-Gun Ban

The federal government first imposed tight restrictions on machine guns— which fire continuously with one pull of the trigger— and short-barreled rifles in 1934 to crack down on their use by gangsters. Anyone wanting to buy one had to register it with the federal government and pay a special tax.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed a ban on the manufacture of new machine guns for sale to civilians. Legal machine guns—those made before 1986—have soared in value because of their limited number. A fully automatic M16 can go for between $40,000 and $60,000, according to industry experts. Their owners are usually wealthy gun collectors.

There was an exception. Dealers could still get new machine guns to show off to police departments interested in buying them for their SWAT teams. All the dealer had to do was submit a letter from the police department to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Prosecutors and industry experts say some dealers began using the process to bring guns into the U.S. without any intention of selling them to police. “People started abusing it,” said an industry consultant. “Now you’ve got guys bringing in hundreds of machine guns a year.”

LINK

Vickers took advantage of the loophole as do many FFL's. If I had to guess, most of the law letters involve departments that will never buy class 3 firearms. There are thousands, probably tens of thousands, out there who have done this exact thing but the ATF is using this to discourage anyone else from using this legal loophole.

The Gun Control Act should have never been passed anyway.

The NFA is a bad law, as is the GCA 68 and 86 FOPA, but the current law is what it is, no matter how much I disagree with it. A local yokel agency writing demonstration letters for 90 different MGs, including WW1 vintage belt feds, is begging for trouble. Perfect example of idiots abusing the law and ruining it for everyone else.

quote:

Originally posted by mrvmax:
The Gun Control Act should have never been passed anyway.

I would agree that many parts of the GCA should never have been passed, especially the ban on imports. I’m not at all opposed to some felons being prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition. The amount of sex offenders that I arrested over the years for possessing firearms was definitely troubling, and I have no problem with sex offenders, and other violent felons not being able to have firearms.

Having said that, I do believe the NFA was unconstitutional, especially when viewed through the lens of Bruen. There is no question that the 1986 machine gun ban is unconstitutional. My hope is that gun rights groups begin going after that ban. We’ve made great strides, but many people, even supposed gun supporting Republicans (Trump included) look at NFA weapons, and machine guns in particular as some sort of toxic substance to be avoided at all costs. We need to normalize these firearms, indeed all firearms, instead of making excuses, and start swinging for the fences and trying to take out these restrictive, unconstitutional laws. The 1986 machine gun ban, and the NFA must go!

quote:

There are thousands, probably tens of thousands, out there who have done this exact thing...

This is exactly what Blackwater did years ago, the cooperating agency was the small rural Camden County Sheriffs Department, that allegedly needed MANY automatic weapons. ATF made a case, but Blackwater was well established with the US State Department, so it was squashed.