It seems someone had to complete a ATF form 4 to buy the gun. I would think there are not many sold so it should be easy enough to check out everyone that has bought one. I heard they have his cell phone so by now they can know who he had phone contact with. I am sure they know who he is at this point.
My understanding is that B&T only sells the gun packaged with the wiped suppressor, so yes, would have required a Form 4 to buy that package.
Its so rad anyone can buy a gun useful only for close range assassinations that has no real self-defense or sporting utility. What a country!
In reality it is a stupid choice for what he was doing. He was lucky he pulled it off using the weapon he chose. He probably would have done as well with a large sharp knife like other have used in NY City judging from the video they showed of the attack. Also it is not something that "anyone can buy" there is a application and background done before you can buy a suppressor.
Unless he bought it on the extensive grey market that exists in the US, since nobody ever checks to see if the person who filled out the form still possesses the object.
Ok ... 'anyone' that doesn't already have a criminal record or not willing to lie about it lol. And its not hard to get a gun second hand without doing any of that under your name. I do wonder given the expense involved here how that stacks up with "guy denied a claim" ... if you can drop 2000 dollars on the gun and silencer alone ... but I guess if you dont think you are going to get away with it then maybe it doesnt matter.
Stayed in a NYC Hostel. So weird. Brian Thompson shooting latest: UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect revealed his face after NYC hostel worker asked to ‘see his pretty smile’ | The Independent Brian Thompson’s masked killer revealed his face after a hostel worker asked to “see his pretty smile,” police said. The gunman was unmasked on Thursday as the NYPD released two photographs of the assailant without his face covering from inside Manhattan’s HI New York City Hostel. The female receptionist said the assailant removed his mask after she asked to “see his pretty smile,” a high-ranking NYPD officer who interviewed her told CBS. The suspect is said to have used a fake New Jersey identification to book the room upon arriving in Manhattan by bus on November 24, a senior law enforcement official told The New York Times. He is believed to have been staying at the premises for 10 days prior to gunning down the UnitedHealthcare CEO outside the New York Hilton Midtown on Wednesday.
There aren’t many people willing to put commercially made NFA firearms into the grey market since ATF knows who bought it originally, it’s a fairly severe federal felony to transfer an NFA firearm without a tax stamp, and all they have to do to prosecute you for that felony is show the Form 4 transferring it to you and that you can’t produce a Form 4 showing where you transferred it to someone else. Most people don’t resell NFA firearms (other than machineguns) at all because the multiple $200 tax stamps and accompanying waits required to transfer the firearm to a dealer and then have the dealer transfer it to someone else (both of which require a paid transfer tax stamp) make it cheaper and faster for the buyer to just go buy a new one themselves. The exception to that is machineguns, but that is only because new ones can’t be legally made for the civilian market and the sky high prices that transferables command dwarf the cost of the tax stamps.
This is expensive as in about $2,400. On that it’s not worth buying at least $400 in tax stamps and adding an extra 6 months wait for a two step-transfer when you can just buy a new one with only one tax stamp and only one wait. Machineguns, by contrast, you’re talking over $10k for even the very cheapest machineguns out there (and $40k or more for a lot of the popular ones) and there’s no alternative to the two-step process for buying a used one since there hasn’t been one that’s legal for a civilian to buy manufactured in almost 40 years. Said differently, because of the NFA transfer process it’s easier and cheaper to buy a new NFA item than it is to buy a used one. Because of that, the only kind of NFA item with much of a used market is the one where no new market exists (machineguns).
One would imagine that there would be a substantial markup for a grey market purchase. No clue whether he did it that way, but it seems like there would be value to the anonymity if you were planning to shoot a CEO with it. The likelihood of the seller being caught is quite low in the US.
I don’t think you understand how the NFA works. If the feds know what gun they’re talking about, the likelihood of the seller being caught for an unauthorized transfer of a commercially produced NFA firearm is effectively 100%, because they have the paperwork showing where you got it, and you not being able to produce the paperwork showing that a tax stamp was approved for you to transfer it proves an unauthorized transfer. (You fill out a Form 4 and buy a $200 tax stamp when you buy it. Every subsequent transfer - except for inheritances, which are processed on a different tax exempt form - requires another approved Form 4 and another $200 tax stamp. You would generally want transfers to go through a dealer because it’s required for a transfer across state lines, and even in-state most people don’t trust a stranger to keep an expensive gun they’ve already bought for months until the tax stamp gets approved. Using a dealer creates at least two transfers and requires at least two tax stamps. Transferring it without that tax stamp is a felony for both the buyer and the seller - an unauthorized transfer for the seller, unlawful possession of an NFA item without paying the transfer tax for the buyer.) Where you see a grey market for NFA firearms is primarily ones that weren’t legally manufactured in the first place (home built SBRs or suppressors made without a Form 1, illegally imported Glock switches, etc.).
I wonder if the shooter was an oncologist jk. “Please contact me if you need further information about how much you guys suck.” Read somewhere that United is using AI to review/deny claims.
Fair enough, you might need to go all the way to a black market to get one anonymously in this case (although, I suspect that you can find the rare version of this in a grey market as well). If somebody claims that the gun was stolen, would they be prosecuted?
ATF’s regulations require you to report the loss or theft of a registered NFA firearm to the ATF NFA branch within 48 hours of discovering the loss or theft, so whether you would be prosecuted or not probably depends on whether their investigation leads them to believe that it’s actually plausible that it was stolen and you somehow didn’t discover that theft until ATF showed up asking to see the approved Form 4 from when you disposed of the firearm.
Or declare it stolen in the first place after selling it. There are so many restrictions on what law enforcement can do in regards to guns that a vaguely intelligent bad actor can easily bypass the regulations for the right incentive.