haha, I dont think that’s on the roadmap at all.
lets put this into different terms.
You sell a 2005 ford mustang to come kid, you write TWO receipts, one for the real price, and one for a much lower price…you technically are selling the car illegally, or atleast doing something illegal in the sale.
The kid goes and gets drunk, and ends up running over a mom, she dies, he goes to jail for manslaughter and you have to go to court for selling him the car and you are a possible accomplice to this killing…
Too different, poor analogy. There’s a difference between skating on the sales tax on a car and avoiding super-harsh gun laws. Also, no one is charging him as an accomplice to the killing. They’re giving him the strictest sentence for the crime he did commit because of what happened because of it. If you want your analogy to hold true, you’d be going to court for the stiffest penalty for tax evasion on selling the car. I do agree that charging him for accomplice to murder was wrong though. Apparently the jury did too, since they threw it out.
Why not hold the manufacturer of the gun criminally liable too? Afterall, if they did not make the gun the gang banger could not have bought the gun illicitly from the person convicted.
That is part of the issue Jay, the notion of “don’t commit crimes and you have nothing to worry about” is inherently flawed because the issue is the crime.
A murder charge for selling a gun?
You might say: “don’t kill anyone and you wont be charged with murder,” yet here is a guy that did not murder anyone being charged with murder or accessory to.
I realise he was not convicted of that charge but a murder charge doesnt go away. Ever. There was a case on CNN very recently where a dude was let out of jail after having been cleared of 1st degree murder charges and he cannot get a job anymore becuase it shows up on a background check.
Quoting again:
One degree down from the selling a gun = murder.
Same as someone else mentioned, this borders on selling a gun legally and then being charged as an accessory. Moreover, what if you know the purchaser and know that they are a risk for gun crime but they meet all the requirements to buy the gun… what happens if you sell it to them and they commit a gun crime? You’ve now sold legally and are still liable as an accessory.
What if you sell a gun to someone using fake documentation of identity etc. and they go kill someone with the gun…are you now an accessory because you should have caught the fake ID?
The slippery slope commit here is the right one. All judges are different and one degree of intent from another leads to very poor consequences.
yeah, I guess this is kind of the same type of case with the srt-4 and the mustang race last year…
innocent (sort of) people being held accountable for other peoples actions
I guess you totally missed the part THAT THE GUY WASN’T CONVICTED OF MURDER, MANSLAUGHTER, OR ANYTHING ABOUT MURDER. Or the fact that I too argued in this very thread that he should never be charged with murder.
But if a murder did take place as a result of his illegal gun sale I have no problem hitting him with the max sentence for his felony gun conviction.
the worrying thing for me is that somebody who sells one gun illegally probably has sold many more…
Agreed. The man should be charged with selling the firearm illegally, and in this case MY BE an accomplice to murder because, well…what else do you sell an unregistered handgun for illegally? But, I DO NOT believe that the seller of a LEGALLY sold firearm is in any way shape or form responsible for anything that happens after said sale.
I agree for the most part about that.
agreed.
I would like to know exactly how the gun was sold illegally and if the man intentionally sold it that way.
Though I do realize that ignorance is not an excuse it would sway my determination on sentence length.
yeah i know…