Indianapolis Star reported<\/a> that King said in court that he had once worked as a police officer. Court documents also indicate that at one point he had been a federally licensed firearms dealer, a status he did not hold during the time of this investigation.<\/p>\n\nHis sentencing memorandum asked for leniency because he was 66 years old and “relies upon Social Security and a part-time job for his nominal income.”<\/p>\n
Selling guns, his lawyer wrote, started “as a hobby and a pastime,” and “the profit generated by this activity was nominal.”<\/p>\n
His\u00a0profit was nominal. Society’s losses will prove substantial.<\/p>\n
Before swallowing King’s sob story, here are the facts:<\/p>\n
Agents with the Columbus Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said King bought and illegally resold about 167 firearms in five months in 2020. He bought some from licensed dealers, but most from private sellers online.<\/p>\n\n
King resold 101\u00a0guns within three days, and at the time of his sentencing on March 15, 24 of the\u00a0firearms had been recovered by law enforcement in connection with various crimes. In one instance, a gun he sold was used in a crime just four days later.<\/p>\n
“The scope of the damage the Defendant’s unlicensed firearms dealing has caused therefore remains ongoing,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo.<\/p>\n
They talked tough after his sentencing.<\/p>\n
“Illegal trafficking of deadly weapons drives the violence plaguing our communities,” said U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Myers.<\/p>\n
True.<\/p>\n
“The individuals who funnel firearms to prohibited persons directly contribute to violence in our community,” said Timothy Canon, acting special agent-in-charge of the ATF’s Columbus Field Division.<\/p>\n
Also true.<\/p>\n
“Those who choose to knowingly and unlawfully introduce firearms into the underground gun economy will be held accountable,” Myers said.<\/p>\n
In the King case? We’ll call that claim mostly false.<\/p>\n
King pleaded guilty to a charge of dealing in firearms without a federal firearms license, which carries a maximum penalty of up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.<\/p>\n
Even five years seems like inadequate punishment for this.\u00a0 Federal prosecutors recommended a sentence on the lower end of the sentencing guideline. The government also agreed, as part of King’s plea deal, to dismiss 10 other counts of making false statements during various gun transactions.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson imposed the measly 18-month sentence. After his release, King will serve two years of probation.<\/p>\n\n
This guy pumped more than 100 guns into society to make a fast buck at a time when homicide rates nationwide were skyrocketing. Having worn a badge and possessed a federal firearms license in some past life, he knew without a doubt the depths of the shadiness in which he was engaged.<\/p>\n
“You got to love this business,” he said in one gun store, according to an agent shadowing him.<\/p>\n
King supplemented his “nominal income” by placing deadly weapons\u00a0in the hands of felons like Craishon Russell.<\/p>\n
During a search of King’s home, according to a criminal complaint, agents were curious where all his recently purchased guns were.<\/p>\n
“King stated they were gone,” agents wrote.<\/p>\n
They aren’t gone.<\/p>\n
God knows where they are right now.<\/p>\n
Tucked in the waistband of a young man bent on murder.<\/p>\n
Secreted under sofa cushions in a drug house, waiting to be used against police officers serving a search warrant.<\/p>\n
Tossed in the weeds to be found by some curious child.<\/p>\n
But they aren’t gone.<\/p>\n
Those guns exist, and they will keep turning up in crimes, spilling blood from Ohio to Chicago and beyond,\u00a0in the months and years to come.<\/p>\n
And each time that happens, King will be every bit as\u00a0liable as the person pulling the trigger.<\/p>\n
tdecker@dispatch.com<\/em><\/p>\n@Theodore_Decker<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]
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