| Submit your comments on this article |
| Fifth Column |
| Obama's ATF Sends Texas Gun Dealer to Prison - Illegal Alien Walks Free |
| 2010-09-12 |
| Gun rights advocates are up in arms that a Texas gun dealer was sentenced to six months in prison for selling a firearm to an illegal immigrant, but a "middle-man" who bought the gun for the immigrant -- and who was in the U.S. illegally himself, but had a valid driver's license -- was never arrested, charged or deported in the case. Paul Copeland, 56, a Vietnam veteran, was sentenced to prison time and two years probation in federal court last week for selling a gun to an undocumented alien, Hipolito Aviles, at the Texas Gun Show in Austin in January. But Aviles wasn't the man who handed Copeland the money for the gun. That man was Leonel Huerta Sr., who presented as identification the valid Texas driver's license he had obtained before his visa expired in 2007. Copeland claimed he was presented with a valid driver's license and had no way of knowing that the man he was selling the gun to was an illegal immigrant, or that he intended to give the gun to another illegal immigrant. Huerta, in a phone interview with Copeland's attorney that was included in court documents, said he showed Copeland his driver's license in order to purchase the gun, and it wasn't until he was leaving the building that he handed the gun to Aviles. |
| Posted by:Neville Throling7649 |
| #3 Following the WACO fiasco, what little regard (and it was quite miniscule) for the BATF completely evaporated. They are, or have become little more than another federal law enforcement bureacracy, and surrogate for the FBI and DOJ. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-09-12 08:34 |
| #2 So, apparently, the Federal Government wants private gun sellers to profile suspected illegals, but not Arizona Law Enforcement officers. |
| Posted by: Grusorong Dark Lord of the Antelope9902 2010-09-12 01:42 |
| #1 So 'straw purchases' aren't illegal if you are an illegal immigrant or working for Mayor Bloomberg. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2010-09-12 01:21 |