Tuesday, August 18, 2009

2nd Student Sentenced for Gun Smuggling

inews880.com reports on the sentencing of the 2nd North Dakota student caught up in a gun smuggling ring between the U.S. and Canada.

A North Dakota college student looking for some extra spending money admits he made a "stupid'' decision to smuggle nearly two dozen high-powered guns into Winnipeg.

Curtis Rolle, 20, stood solemnly before a U.S. federal judge Monday to admit his role in an international drug and weapons operation.

He was sentenced to 366 days in jail and three years probation under a plea deal that rewarded him for co-operating with justice officials.

Rolle pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.
He is the second of three accused to be sentenced.

We discussed this case before when Rolle's partner Thomas Scher received the same sentence. The ringleader of the conspiracy, Gokhan Ozturk, 24, a Winnipeg resident, will be sentenced in October.

What's your opinion? Do you think the two younger boys, who actually did the gun running and turned the weapons over to Ozturk, were sentenced appropriately? I think so, although I find a one-year sentence surprisingly light considering they not only moved 22 guns into Canada, but were sometimes paid in ecstasy tablets and had become drug dealers back home.

Assuming it's not too late already for these two 20-year-olds, this kind of light sentence could prove to be a turning point in their lives. Longer sentences tend to make young criminals worse not better upon release, at least that's my opinion.

Shouldn't the gun shops and pawn shops be held responsible for selling so many guns to young boys like this? Do you think they bought the 22 guns in 22 different locations? Don't they have to be 21 to buy guns anyway?

What do you think? Do you think 90% of the illegal guns in Canada come from the U.S.? Poor Canada doesn't have all the other sources that Mexico has, they have to rely on their southern neighbor. What do you think?

Please leave a comment?

15 comments:

  1. You must be 21 to buy a hundgun, 18 for any long fun.

    A one year sentence seems a bit light when you consider the maximum would be 10 years for each of the 22 guns, or 220 years in jail.

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  2. The sentence seems light, but if you read the article you'll see that they got that sentence in exchange for cooperating with the Justice Dept.

    Give the little fish plea deals in exchange for helping you get the big fish.

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  3. "Do you think 90% of the illegal guns in Canada come from the U.S.?"

    I of course don't know the answer, but I would find this to be far more probable than the b.s. Mexican argument.

    The Mexican guns were mostly full-autos, grenades and other severely regulated arms while those in Canada are mostly regular rifles and pistols that are only illegal because Canada is run by a bunch of pants-wetting liberals.

    I would tend to believe the 90% figure when applied to Canada. Of course I still don't see where it is our problem. If Canada didn't pass so many silly laws, they wouldn't be "illegal" guns. Their fault, not ours.

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  4. The young criminals lied to get the guns, and almost certainly used false ID, otherwise the story would include the prosecution of the shops involved. You have to be 21 and pass a background check to buy from a dealer, and a pawnshop that deals in guns has to have a dealer's license.

    How many guns should a shop be able to sell to someone without being liable, assuming they follow all laws?

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  5. Sevesteen, I agree it's obvious the young criminals lied and used false ID. I can see how that would work for two or three guns all bought at different locations, but not this. 22 guns mainly at two different locations. Don't you think that's a littly fishy? What about the background check? Doesn't the NICS system alert the gun shop to frequent purchases?

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  6. The story you link too has most of the information you want. The guns were purchased in roughly equal amounts from three stores (6,7, and 9) over the period of 1 year. The most purchased on any one day was 3. The most in one month was 6. The NICS destroys records after 24 hours, it is not designed or allowed to be a de facto registration. Looking at the list of firearms bought, I would think that it is a little fishy that his last 9 purchases were the same type of firearm from the same pawn shop. Nothing illegal about that but it would certainly raise my eyebrows. The article says a confidential source tipped off the FBI to the smuggling. This source may have been a friend, neighbor, or a pawn shop employee.

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  7. What about the background check? Doesn't the NICS system alert the gun shop to frequent purchases?

    Not exactly. The feds get notice of frequent purchases, but that's meaningless since they passed teh background check.

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  8. MikeB,

    You seem to think that purchasing 22 firearms in a short period is excessive, is that correct?

    If so, how many firearms should a person be allowed to purchase?

    Do we have to submit to greater scrutiny, greater inspections, background checks, DNA scans, inventory of our collections because we bought more than X number of guns in Y amount of time?

    Would you put up with the same restrictions on your right to free speech? After all, if you are posting X number of times a month, you could be breaking copyright laws, could be committing fraud, etc; right?

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  9. Mike W. said, "The feds get notice of frequent purchases, but that's meaningless since they passed teh background check."

    I think it was Sebastian who said that the NICS is not required to keep the records so as not to become a de facto registration system.

    That would be the problem then. The background checks that they do perform are so poorly designed as to miss obvious red-flag situations. This is on top of that other little handicap the system has. 20% of the criminal records are not available and 80% of the mental health records. Yet, the Brady Campaign claims that 1.6 million have failed the check and been prevented from buying guns. Imagine how many more who should be prevented would be if the system were tweaked a bit.

    I wonder who's behind rules like destroying records, rules which directly lead to preventable problems?

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  10. So should all banks assume you are a bank robber and perform a strip search when you enter?

    How about if you deposit more than $100 cash in a month, the bank hold the money until they can verify that you aren't a drug smuggler?

    Maybe when you go to the DMV to get your license renewed, you just get denied because you have had 4 speeding tickets in the last 3 years?

    Or how about when you go to the Post Office to mail your Christmas cards, you submit to a background check and medical check to see if anyone might have flagged you as a could-be mail fraudster?

    Everyone could be a rapist, murderer, molester, confidence man, etc. simply by the fact that they are human. Once again you are advocating restricting people's rights based on what they may do in the future. If that isn't totalitarian in the worst, I don't know what is. At least the Soviets just imprisoned people for their beliefs, I don't know that they ever dreamed of imprisoning people for what they might do 20 years from now.

    If 20% of criminal records and 80% of mental health records (where are you getting these numbers? Please tell me you're not making stuff up again) are not available, that is the fault of the LEA and FBI and state governments who manage the data that goes into the NICS.

    The NICS was never designed to save records, it was designed to identify to dealers whether the person purchasing the firearm was a prohibited person. Since it is illegal for a prohibited person to even attempt to purchase a firearm and you would have to lie on the form (since it asks you all of the prohibited person questions) you would think that if 1.6 million were denied, then we would have 1.6 million convictions for committing another felony (providing false information on a federal form, prohibited person attempting to purchase a firearm). Do we? No, only about 200 people have been charged (not convicted) based on these denials.

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  11. "That would be the problem then. The background checks that they do perform are so poorly designed as to miss obvious red-flag situations."

    The destroying of records and the efficacy of the background check are 2 distinct issues. The records are destroyed AFTER the check has taken place, so that the Gov. doesn't use them to compile a registry of owners.

    Where are you getting that the background check system is "poorly designed" and "misses red-flag situations?"

    Another thing you're pulling out of your ass no doubt.

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  12. If 20% of criminal records and 80% of mental health records (where are you getting these numbers? Please tell me you're not making stuff up again)

    Well MikeB certainly has a history of making up facts to try to bolster his claims, so why not pull a few more numbers from thin air? He has to, since all empirically verifiable data disproves much of what he's pushing on this site.

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  13. Mike W., Your nasty attitude is starting to bother me. "Well MikeB certainly has a history of making up facts to try to bolster his claims."

    This is not true, I've never made anything up. Sometimes you don't like the way I arrive at my conclusions especially when the evidence I use is not "empirical" enough for you.

    I understand completely that you don't like what I write, but it's a dirty trick to keep repeating that I make stuff up.

    The idea that 20% of criminal records are not in the government database and 80% of the psychiatric records, I have read several times. I think I can find a footnote about this in Henigan's new book, which I'll try to provide for you sometime.

    Meantime, I'm asking you to lighten up on the personal attacks. There are no liars here and no one is making stuff up.

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  14. You were WRONG IN THIS POST MIKE.

    Of course that's not unusual for you, and you refuse to admit when you've been proven 100% wrong.

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  15. Mike W., I planned on looking for that 20% and 80% business and making a post about it but I forgot. Thanks for reminding me in your "mature" way.

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