The Gun Blogs

New York Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg's decision to hire private investigators to conduct undercover stings at Southern gun shops has potentially jeopardized several criminal cases, law enforcement sources charged.

Four cases were compromised and an additional 14 were put at risk by the six-week sting aimed at gun stores in Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia, the sources said.

The sources argued that several suspects being watched by authorities had frequented some of the 15 gun shops--but are now cleaning up their acts or lying low because of the publicity. None of the ongoing cases was linked to New York, the sources said.

"A bunch of private eyes straight out of 'Barnaby Jones' run their own sting operation and all the real enforcement agencies find out about it on the day they are having a press conference? Not good," said a law enforcement source in Washington.

The Justice Department held a meeting last week to review potential problems, another source said. "The goal is to lock up gun criminals, not file civil lawsuits with publicity stunts," the source said.

Personally, I think Barnaby was smarter than that.  And didn't these guys actually break the law?  I guess that doesn't matter when you're authorized by one of the ruling elite.

UPDATE:  I sent the following politely-worded email to the news desk of the above newspaper.

I have a some questions in regard to the story, "Mike's gun shop stings may put holes in 18 cases" from May 21.

This and other reports I have read state that Mayor Bloomberg hired private investigators to conduct these stings, and conduct them in other states.

These were not law enforcement officers.  Even if they had been law enforcement officers of New York, they would have no authority to conduct such activity outside the state of New York.  Is this correct?  Such "stings" would require federal authority.  Is this correct?

As private investigators who have no legal authority, and if these purchases they made were really illegal and not just a publicity stunt, they themselves violated the law by making such purchases.  For these purchases to have been made as they say they were, they would have had to lie about their purposes for purchase.  Falsifying anything on the paperwork for purchasing a firearm is a federal felony.  There are undoubtedly other crimes that were committed in this "sting." For example, organization of such a sting, which involved intentionally illegal gun purchases, would also be criminal conspiracy.

Does Mayor Bloomberg have the authority to allow private citizens to violate the laws of other states?  Does he have legal authority to organize what would otherwise be a criminal conspiracy to commit illegal acts in other states?

This is the question that no newspaper report has asked thus far, to my knowledge.  Why are these questions not being asked?  Is Mayor Bloomberg going to be allowed to violate other states' laws?  If this is legal activity, a detailed explanation should be given as to why it was not illegal and how he is able to authorize such activity, which, if conducted by the average private citizen, would be illegal and actionable.

Crossposted from Blogonomicon