File it under gun trades gone bad.
“Well, I just had ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) at my door,” wrote a guy named Will last month in a post to the Gun Owners of Maine Facebook page. “One of the guns I traded to another person on Facebook was recovered (by police) and traced back to me. The gun I received in trade for it was apparently stolen. Looks like I’m out a gun.”
He went on to warn, “I want to remind people. Do your due diligence before any trade or sale. I googled this guy’s name. I checked with Facebook, talked with him a bit beforehand. He seemed like a good guy. But I don’t have access to a NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) system so I could only get so much information. Unfortunately for me that was not enough.”
You won’t see Will’s last name here because, according to Rumford police Capt. Daniel Garbarini, fully identifying him could significantly compromise an ongoing criminal investigation.
But this much is clear: However unwittingly, Will has become the poster boy for Question 3, the proposal on the Nov. 8 ballot that would expand mandatory federal background checks to private gun sales and transfers in Maine, with certain exceptions.
Will’s Facebook post, which has since been deleted, was captured recently by Mainers for Responsible Gun Ownership, the group working to pass Question 3.
Now, let’s be clear here. Will has not been charged with any crime relating to his gun trade and has cooperated fully with federal and local law enforcement officials in their criminal probe.
Still, as Capt. Garbarini said in an interview Thursday, “I think there are some takeaways for him out of it – and probably for anyone who could learn from what he experienced moving forward.”
Which brings us back to Question 3.
In a lengthy exchange of messages on Facebook this week, Will told me most of his private gun transactions – all of which are currently exempt from mandatory background checks – involve family members or friends he’s known for a long time.
When he does business with a stranger, he said, he keeps meticulous records and does his own research – primarily via Google and social media – before sealing the deal.
“I’ve turned people down because they were charged with shoplifting,” Will said. “I’ve turned people down who had been charged with assault. I’ve turned people down who had ANY drug charge including marijuana. I’ve turned people down just because I didn’t like how they spoke. Their attitude seeming off.”
So why not add federal background checks to his to-do list?
Because, as he put it, a federal background check “only works if the person was a criminal before the deal happened.”
And because, he insisted, he’s perfectly capable of weeding out the convicted felons – who are legally prohibited from owning firearms – on his own.
“In almost every instance of arrest, there is a name published in the paper,” Will said. “It doesn’t mean they were convicted but to me that’s enough for me to feel confident.”
Let’s replay that.
He forgoes background checks because they catch only existing criminals. Which is precisely what they’re designed to do.
And rather than utilize a federal database that contains the names of countless convicted felons nationwide and has stopped sales to bad actors 2.4 million times and counting since 1998, Will relies on what may or may not have been reported in “the paper.”
That’s not due diligence. That’s wishful thinking.
Will said he’d have no problem doing background checks if the other party to a sale or trade insisted on one. In fact, he said, he’s passed five background checks himself just this year.
Nor would it be such a big deal, Will said, if he didn’t have to go to one of Maine’s approximately 1,000 federal firearms licensees to have a background check performed and pay what the proposed law describes as “a reasonable fee” for the service.
“If I could run a background check on someone using my cellphone at my convenience whether it be 2 p.m. or 2 a.m. (in a) McDonald’s parking lot, library, wherever I want, then sure … I would run a background every time,” he wrote. “But having to arrange a time where we both can meet at a (licensed gun) shop that is open during a time that works for both parties can be difficult.”
Understood. But how would he feel if he were to learn that a gun he’d traded away was used in a crime?
Or, worse yet, what if an undetected felon used his gun to shoot someone in a situation not involving self-defense?
“For lack of a better term I would feel like (expletive),” Will replied. “But it wouldn’t change my views. A background check will not stop someone who is out to do bodily harm. They will do it one way or another.”
To which I replied, “As for criminals being criminals, you’re right. No law will stop all of them all of the time. But to use that as an argument for no law strikes me as total surrender to the criminals.”
He didn’t respond. End of conversation.
Without a name, which police are loath to release at this point, there’s no way to officially determine the criminal status of the guy who got Will’s gun.
For what it’s worth, Will now claims that “this was a person who had not been convicted for anything other than minor offenses up until that point.”
This from the guy who boasted earlier that he can spot such transgressions from the comfort of his own keyboard.
What’s more, Will said, “there is no list of stolen guns for dealers to reference.”
Actually, hotgunz.com maintains an ever-growing database of weapons reported stolen, including a half-dozen currently from the Rumford area alone.
And as Capt. Garbarini noted, a chat with your local police can go a long way in determining whether a firearm is stolen before you buy it or accept it in trade.
But there’s a bigger picture to consider here with Election Day less than two weeks away.
Gun transactions involving licensed dealers already require federal background checks. In fact, according to FBI data, 5,501 of those checks prevented guns from getting into the wrong hands here in Maine from 1998 to 2014.
Not so for stranger-to-stranger hook-ups like Will’s. Haphazard Google searches notwithstanding, they go down every day all over Maine with no questions asked.
Why not?
Bill Nemitz can be contacted at:
bnemitz@pressherald.com
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