It is not wrong.JimC wrote:That simply has to be wrong.Seth wrote:
...It was entirely ILLEGAL for them to even attempt to purchase a firearm, or ammunition while having the intent to use those items to commit a crime....
Wrong. It is not the "thought" that is illegal, it is the act of obtaining a firearm with the intent to use it criminally that is illegal, just as murdering someone after having contemplated and planned it is a more serious crime than an "heat of passion" murder, and it is certainly not impossible to prove that an individual had criminal intent in obtaining a firearm because it happens all the time. A rational inference may be drawn by a jury or judge that a person who obtains a firearm and then immediately goes out and uses it to commit a crime had formed the intent prior to obtaining the weapon. Combined with other evidence it may be that a jury will find that the individual intended to, and did acquire the firearm in violation of the law beyond a reasonable doubt and therefore can convict him or her of that offense. You see, there is a category of crime called "criminal attempt" which requires the two following things in order to convict: a plan to commit the crime and an overt act in furtherance of the commission of that crime. This is the same standard as used for conspiracy to commit a crime.You are talking thought crime here, and retrospectively at that. When they bought the weapons, they did so legally - no one could ever prove that they had an intention to commit a crime when they did so.
If two people make a plan to rob a bank and then gather disguises and obtain weapons that is sufficient for a conviction. The same is true of individual intent and an overt act, like buying a gun.
And keep in mind that "obtain" is not limited to purchasing a gun at a gun store. "Obtain" means to take physical possession of the firearm. The criminal act takes place when one forms the intent to use the weapon unlawfully and then so much as touches the weapon even if one previously lawfully owned the weapon. Therefore, a husband who, in a domestic rage, grabs the gun out of the nightstand and threatens his wife with it has committed not only a domestic violence assault, but felony menacing and illegal possession of a weapon with the intent to commit a crime, which unlike the domestic abuse charge is a FEDERAL crime which can put him away for five years all by itself. Now it is not often that this happens, but that's because the feds choose not to prosecute such charges, but it's still illegal.
This is a lie.The simple fact is that obtaining guns in America is as easy as buying toothpaste, whether you are an upstanding citizen, a wannabe terrorist or a crazed, drooling lunatic...
I don't expect you to join us, I expect you to die on your knees pissing and shitting yourself as you weep and beg the terrorist not to shoot you.The US has made its own gun bed, now it must lie in it. Just don't expect the civilised world to join you...