Hunter Biden, the president’s son, apparently faces no legal consequences for lying during a background check while buying a gun, unlike other Americans.
When buying a Cobra .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun at Flash Pawn in Memphis, for example, Everette Alexander said on his background check form that he wasn’t a convicted felon, although he was convicted 12 years earlier of possessing marijuana with intent to sell.
In June 2019, a judge sentenced Alexander to 10 months in federal prison followed by two years supervised release for lying on the form in December 2017.
Juan Sauceda went to a Walmart in Brownsville, Texas, in September 2018 to buy a 12-gauge pump shotgun and attested that he never was convicted of a felony–despite convictions on two counts of assault and battery with a deadly weapon in 2013, according to the Justice Department.
A judge sentenced Sauceda to 18 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release.
A month after Sauceda committed the crime that led to his conviction, Hunter Biden bought a .38-caliber revolver in Delaware on Oct. 12, according to an account first published by Politico.
The news outlet reported: “Hunter responded ‘no’ to a question on the transaction record that asks, ‘Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?’”
The purchase of the handgun came five years after the Navy discharged Biden, President Joe Biden’s second son, for testing positive for cocaine. The younger Biden writes about his drug addiction in his new memoir.
Police reportedly stopped Hunter Biden and found a crack pipe in his car in 2017. Someone also reportedly aimed a gun at him while he was trying to purchase cocaine in Los Angeles in 2016, when his father was still vice president.
At least as a public matter, the younger Biden isn’t under investigation for lying on a background-check form to buy a gun. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware, however, has been investigating his taxes and overseas business dealings since 2018.
Making false statements on a federal criminal background check, known as ATF Form 4473, could be a violation of federal law under Section 922(a)(6). It also could violate Section 922(g)(3), which prohibits a drug user from possessing a firearm with ammunition.
National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, wrote that the act also could violate Section 922(g)(6), which forbids someone who has “been discharged from the armed forces under dishonorable conditions” from possessing a firearm.
That said, prosecutions for lying on the background check forms in gun purchases have been rare, according to a Government Accountability Office report. In 2017, the report said, only 12 of more than 12,000 Americans found to have lied on the forms were charged and 99% of them got only a warning.
In November 2019, though, the Justice Department announced “Project Guardian” to crack down on anyone who would “lie and try,” meaning attempt to buy a gun after making one or more false statements on a background-check form, or “lie and buy,” meaning successfully buy a firearm after giving false answers on the form.
The president last week nominated David Chipman to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, a veteran ATF agent who in 2020 called for increasing arrests of those who lie on background-check forms.
“While at ATF, I conducted studies involving people who failed background checks to determine how many later committed crimes with a gun—many did,” Chipman said in a Reddit question-and-answer session last year. “This is a perfect opportunity to arrest people before committing crimes rather than responding after the fact.”
In the Reddit chat, Chipman referred to a news story on the topic of what’s called “lie and try” or “lie and buy.”
Interestingly, both Chipman and the National Rifle Association agree on more prosecutions for those who lie on a background-check form.
Hunter Biden’s handgun purchase in 2018 involved other assorted unusual elements. For example, his brother Beau Biden’s widow, Hallie, took Hunter’s gun and left it in a trash can near a grocery store, and the Secret Service got involved with the owner of the gun store, Politico reported.
Hunter Biden and Hallie Biden were having an affair at the time, when Biden’s surviving son wasn’t eligible for Secret Service protection.
The conviction rate might not be particularly high for lying during a background check, but a perusal of the Justice Department website shows federal prosecutors heralding each such case in recent years as highly important.
Here are some examples:
- Last October, a Wisconsin man was convicted of lying on a form by saying he was not subject to a restraining order, when in fact he was subject to a domestic protection order in Minnesota, according to a Justice Department announcement.
- In September, a Washington state woman pleaded guilty to several felonies related to purchasing firearms for others, including making false statements. This prosecution was part of Project Guardian, and the Justice Department called the case an example of “‘lie and buy’ firearms trafficking schemes.”
- In August, a Virginia man with seven previous felony convictions pleaded guilty to falsely claiming that he never had a single one. The man also had outstanding warrants on charges of abduction, larceny, assault and battery, and withholding a credit card belonging to another individual. The gun dealer recognized the man and notified police, who arrested him before he could proceed with the purchase.
- In February 2020, a federal jury convicted a Nevada man of making false statements during a background check. The jury found that he lied about his address over the course of buying 35 guns in 2017 and 2018. He got two years in prison.
- In December 2019, a judge sentenced a Texas man to 46 months in prison after he bought four firearms, claiming that he had no felony convictions. The man actually had been convicted in Puerto Rico on charges of theft by means of violence, robbery, carrying a firearm without a license, and possession of a controlled substance.
- A Louisiana man pleaded guilty in July 2019 to making a false statement when trying to buy a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol by answering no on a question about any pending felony charges. The man actually was facing charges of home invasion, simple battery, domestic abuse battery, simple assault, intimidating witnesses, and simple burglary.
- In March 2019, a federal jury convicted a Tennessee man for making a false statement on ATF Form 4473 by saying he was not a convicted felon, when he actually was convicted of felony burglary in 2008 in Mississippi.
In August 2018, two months before Hunter Biden purchased the gun and well more than a year before the Justice Department launched Project Guardian, then-U.S. Attorney D. Michael Dunavant of the Western District of Tennessee noted the importance of federal prosecutions for lying during a background check.
“A valuable tool in this prevention effort is the ATF Background Check Form 4473, which must be completed before a federally licensed firearms dealer sells or transfers a firearm,” Dunavant said upon Alexander’s indictment.
“Criminals and other prohibited persons who attempt to thwart the background check process by lying on the required forms threaten to undermine this important crime prevention tool, and such conduct cannot be tolerated,” he said.
The post Justice Department Prosecuted Others for Lying on Background Checks, but Not Hunter Biden appeared first on The Daily Signal.
0 Commentaires