As former Meet the Press host David Gregory can attest, all’s fair when there’s a narrative to advance. While Gregory wasn’t prosecuted for violating D.C.’s ban against possession of a “high-capacity” magazine — waving it at NRA Veep Wayne LaPierre on-air no less — Mr. Gregory damn well should have been. I mean, if anyone should be. Anyway, now comes word that ‘Under the Gun’ Director, Stephanie Soechtig, Confesses to Federal Gun Crimes. Popcorn ready? Schadenfreude good to go? Let’s begin [via ammoland.com] . . .
(I)n nakedly advocating for more gun control laws in a one-sided and deceptive piece of propaganda, Ms. Soechtig and her staff likely violated existing federal laws by apparently conspiring to unlawfully import firearms from Arizona into Colorado, and by failing to properly conduct an interstate firearms transfer through a dealer
It is clear from the fraudulent way in which gun rights supporters were portrayed in the documentary, and the unlawful way in which firearms were obtained to support the documentary’s gun control theme, that neither truth nor the law were concerns of Ms. Soechtig or her staff in creating the film.
It’s also pretty clear that the feds will give Ms. Kouric and Co. a free pass. Unless someone, you know, reports on the reporters to the ATF. Or the Colorado state police. Hey, it could happen. Soon.
Meanwhile, there’s this at the ever-so-pro-gun-control washingtonpost.com: Gun-documentary director shows no remorse for deceptive, demeaning edit. “Arrogance and disregard for people are horrible traits in someone who purports to explore one of the country’s most divisive issues,” Erik Wemple concludes. That’s gotta leave a mark.
File a FCC complaint?
ATF might care but the FCC won’t since firearms aren’t their area of expertise.
Realistically, we all know nothing will come of this other than more legitimate dumping on their integrity and ethics. Yeah, I know expecting ethics and integrity from “journalists” is ridiculous.
Left-wing groups would pressure feds for charges and rich cult Marxists with connections would make calls. Unless the laws themselves are bad, patriots should do the same thing or else balance is further lost.
When selling on Backpage in AZ, I’ve often wondered just how many of the tire-kickers you don’t hear back from are just these sort of people playing reindeer games; especially after they realize I’m going to need an AZ ID to conduct the sale…
wapo lynching one of their own makes me smile
Every time I see video of that smug f*cker, Gregory, waving that hi cap mag in LaPierre’s face, my blood boils. That a**hat should be in jail. And now so should Couric and Soechtig.
Well actually the mag should simply be legal, but yeah
I think it’s the whole “live by the sword/die by the sword”, or promote unconstitutional law/incarcerated by unconstitutional law.
“… or promote unconstitutional law/incarcerated by unconstitutional law.”
Ha! Don’t you realize that laws don’t apply to the ruling class and their propaganda minions?
That is why nothing will happen to these two arrogant tw@ts
Couric and Soechtig didn’t actually break the law, though. According to this video, one of their producers (a resident of Colorado) bought three pistols in Arizona without using an FFL. So that guy would be the one who broke the law.
Yes they did, it’s called conspiracy.
The producer was guilty of not only buying the pistols out of state and bringing them back, but it was also a straw man purchase – he was likely not using his own money, and he was buying the guns for someone other than himself. Whoever gave him the money and said, “Go buy me some guns.” was also guilty of breaking federal law, for setting up a straw man purchase.
Finally, depending on the guns and mags, it’s likely the producer also illegally imported hi-cap mags into Colorado.
These clowns really should be visited by the Colorado state patrol as well as a U.S. Marshall – on TV no less.
^ this. exactly. on the flip side, if they are not prosecuted, then is a precedent set? someone in the same situation can always say “hey, you let so and so slide. Why you bugging me?”
If I pay you to murder somebody, or rob a liquor store, is that not a crime?
Charles Manson never directly murdered anybody (as far as the courts can prove), yet he managed to get sentenced to death.
Manson was sentenced to life. He has numerous parole hearings, but it is quite clear that he will never be granted parole.
No, Manson, Tex Watson and the three girls were sentenced to death but after the state abolished the Death Penalty the sentences were reduced to Life Imprisonment.
I had a client who went to a gun show with his son. We are talking Dad is in his 60s, son is in his 40s. Son talks dad into buying a gun, some .22 pistol as I recall. Well Dad, who as I said was in his 60s, honestly forgot about a conviction for something he did when he was 20. I don’t remember what it was, something stupid, not terribly bad, but bad enough to prohibit him under Sec. 922. He only got probation but he could’ve spent more than a year in jail. State police charge him with lying on the 7743 form. Guy was otherwise law-abiding the rest of his life. We fortunately had a sympathetic prosecutor who resolved it for a summary offense (so, a fine) but if my indigent client has to go through that then f*cking-a right Gregory, Couric, and this other dingbat should have to bear that stress and risk as well.
That’s what makes my blood really boil.
Most outrageous example of this I ever heard of was an elderly black dude who had a Jim-Crow era felony conviction for mere possession of a pack of playing cards with pictures of nekkid white ladies on them. (“Are gun laws enforced?”, USA TODAY, 6/10/99)
4473
One of the few times where I’d be totally okay with a tip being called into BATF. I do wonder if CSP, due to being less politicized, might do a better job.
So we’re allowed to illegally purchase and traffic guns so long as we’re making a movie? Ok!
Not just any movie, it needs to be the ‘correct’ type of mockumentary.
That’s how you skirt prostitution laws. It’s legal if you video the act. She (or he for you more open minded fellows) becomes a paid actress (actor) at that point.
Awesome idea!
I’m going to open my own porno production company! 😀
Boom chicka wow wow!
As I understand it, it’s because the guy paying her to be banged, is the producer of the flick, a different guy from the actor who’s doing the banging.
From the video interview referenced in this post, “Met in the parking lot [to purchase a firearm] … that sounds like black market trading.”
If I meet someone in a parking lot to purchase a blender, does that also sound like “black market trading”? How about if I purchase a popsicle from a van driving down the street? Is that “black market trading”?
The statist in that woman is shining brighter than the sun at high noon on a clear day. I can just hear the thinking process in her head, “All purchases of all products must happen through government licensed businesses with records of all transactions. Anything else is black market trading.”
I’m glad someone else latched onto that “black market trading” comment. So many people share that engrained belief that trade is “black market”/illegal/wrong because the government doesn’t know about it and can’t regulate it. It is a sick perversion of the limited purpose of government (to protect individual life, liberty and property).
What makes this instance even more egregious is that we’re talking about a natural and constitutionally-protected right.
I would argue that most forms of commerce (leaving aside, say, the slave trade) are natural rights too, so the first part of what you’re saying is not a distinction.
But you’re right about it not being constitutionally protected.
Ah, the yard-sale loophole. Don’t worry, it will be closed in due time.
Given the fact that the total cost of an AR-15 rifle and three handguns would cost somewhere in the range of $1200 to $2200, I highly doubt the show’s producer used his/her own money to purchase those firearms. Rather, the parent company gave him/her the money to purchase them. IF that is the case, would this not also be a straw purchase?
What about that value estimate rules out an individual buying them? I mean granted, I don’t have that kind of discretionary income free at the moment to make that kind of purchase, but if I sold a few of my guns I would. There’s a few readers here who have single firearms worth more than that collective purchase.
A person who, presumably, dislikes gun rights enough to take part in creating this propaganda piece is unlikely to want to drop $2200 on some items he’ll never use. It makes far more sense for the production company to provide the payment.
They could have given the money as a bonus and if there was no intent of any post purchase transfer e.g. Him keeping them it could be more kosher.
Still no excuse for out of state purchasing.
Get Trump into office, then file the complaints. Otherwise, a waste of time.
All this situation does is demonstrate, once again, that if you are producing Propaganda the State approves of you can do pretty much anything you want and never be held to account for it. Put away your shocked, outraged faces. It’s just more of the same old same old.
Well SOMEONE needs to get the prosecution ball rolling…no Trump isn’t doing a damn thing. Donnie is at best neutral at guns. Ted Cruz would put these azzwholes away…eck.
So a man who has a permit to carry in NYC, and does sometimes carry a firearm, and is a lifelong member of the NRA is “neutral on guns” ? Get real. You NeverTrump fools who only want a preacher need to wake up.
So lets call them out. Show us the weapon(s) purchased. Show us the serial #.
So either they self-incriminate, or it’s BS due to lack of proof.
Nothing is going to happen to Shady Kaitie Carwreck (or her team of character assassins). But if she was a single mother of two driving on the New Jersey Turnpike with a gun in her glove box, she’d be facing ten years in prison.
Exactly. Not too mention if that mom is black and these a**hats are as white as snow. Whose flaunting their white privilege now, hmmmm?
Couric’s despicable lack of ethics should be no surprise to anyone – she is, after all, a highly-paid employee of the Democrat Propaganda Ministry (aka, “the News media”).
Since they drove the guns back from Arizona they had to pass through anti-gun control counties in Colorado. I bet you can get a pro gun DA to go after them for violating Colorado laws.
I’m sure the BATF will find it in their hearts to forgive our beloved journalist elites. Laws are silly things that are only intended for the little people. Besides, these good-hearted journalists were working for the betterment of society (Think of the children!) and we can’t expect them to know everything about a Byzantine topic like state and federal gun laws. Knowing and complying with the law could have gotten in the way of the narrative, er… I mean the story.
I’d like to know what’s become of these “black market” firearms. Who’s custody are they in now?
I’d also like to hear from the seller…
We are in a more serious situation IMO. There are too many people with elected, granted, or assumed power that do what they want. Regardless. It happens so frequently these days that it is a shame from affluenza kids allowed to kill multiple people to confiscating and selling ones property at will (guns).
These folks in the story above broke the law outright if I read the context correctly. When is it OK ever to break a law? When it becomes more and more rationalized to do so we are in trouble. We are in even more dire straits when after the law is broken, the law is not enforced; not enforced because someone pre or post judges the act then as OK and dismisses their responsibility. We also have more and more elected officials breaking the law, or disregarding ethics to push their agenda, in this case gun control. In my state we have an approved gun roster and a bunch of regulations that ensure that a firearm model is tested and approved and that the list is managed. Glocks are on the list, our Dem AGs don’t like Glocks, so they use consumer product laws and their power to ensure that they are not sold. One can buy a Glock but an FFL will be run out of business if they sell or transfer one. Its against policy to have a personal server for Gov’t activity. A staffer or hired individual would be fired on the spot. To Hillary its a ‘mistake’. Its not the act anymore its the arrogance.
“When is it OK ever to break a law?”
When the law is unjust. You may still have to suffer the legal consequences, though (unless you are one of the influential elite).
We are in the post-rule of a law era. That is the real legacy of the Obama presidency. The Hillary presidency will be a criminal enterprise, straight up. In few years we will probably reading about how the F-35, Zumwalt, and the Navy’s rail gun blueprints were on Hillary’s unsecured, private Blackberry left accidentally in a Hong Kong hotel room after a couple million dollars were donated to the Clinton foundation.
To Hillary, Mexico is an inspiration.
Don’t forget the former naval base in California that Slick Willy ordered to be sold to Chinese interests, with absolutely no customs controls. It is said drugs, guns, and people trafficking pour through that port unchecked.
“When is it OK ever to break a law?”
Ask William Penn, Harriet Tubman, or Rosa Parks. As it turns out, it’s not just OK, but you may eventually get a state named after you, or get your mugshot on some currency.
Hopefully, justice will be swift and severe.
Time for a warrantless, door busting search in the middle of the night by the boys in full gear, maybe take out a couple of pet over weight dachshunds in the process.
“It was the gun used in Newtown”
F U
Accords and Camries killed more people than civillian owned ARs
For the life of me i cant get what’s so special about GUNS
Well, the point of all the persnicketyness of all the persnickety regulations is “prohibition by other means.” Make it so difficult and fraught to own a fire arm, that while not explicitly prohibited (depending on what the meaning of “is” is), there’s effectively a criminal sentence imposed if you do. Remember, “The Process Is The Punishment.”
It’s a riff, a talking point, an example, a “bit” to commit to memory and deploy as needed. I have some small hope that the recently slightly clueful NRA media operation will craft and use something like this.
This is more fodder for the citizen gun ownership side to use to “push back twice as hard.” (I know, our current President of All the People said something else, but really, as long as it’s still a conversation, let’s limit the metaphor to pushing.)
/Rant-y Version. Needs less words, but The Same Beats
“I think professional emoter Couric, and her producer provide a fine example of the kind of prohibition by stealth the Anti’s go for, when they can’t get guns outright banned, always under the misdirection of “safety” or “common sense.” The game is to make owning a gun legally so risky they might as well be banned. It’s a tactic. It’s deliberate. They only do it because they can’t win the argument straight up. And it pisses off people of a different opinion, because if you’re just gonna inflict your preference by any means at hand to you, this ain’t a conversation, and it certainly isn’t a referendum.
So, yeah, it’s easy for lawful people to have guns. Couric and her producer, who have a freaking staff for making their movie, found it so easy they committed somewhere from 3 to 10 felonies in wrangling their props. Thing is, that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. The anti’s want to criminalize having a gun. If they can’t do it straight up, they’ll do it this way, and hope nobody notices.
Now, just like Mr. G from DC, Couric and company will get off under “prosecutorial discretion”, but that’s just the point. These persnickety laws aren’t there to keep guns away from people. They’re there to punish people who have the wrong opinion about citizens having guns. You can tell by how the anti’s celebrate how hard they’re gonna whack any of those gun nuts who slip up. Or the cheering and jeering when they get to do it.
BUT, when somebody on the right side of the issue makes a little mistake … they get off.
You don’t like the NRA? This crap is why we need a membership organization for people practicing their natural, civil, and constitutionally enumerated right to arm themselves. Citizens who own guns are in the cross-hairs – if you’ll pardon the expression.
You don’t like the NRA? They’re simply responding to years of being trained, which BTW, their membership picked up on way faster. You wan’t to propose a “common sense” gun law, for safety or something? OK, we just assume it’s prohibition by other means, meant to inflict process and penalties on peaceful, responsible gun owners. You know why? Because that’s how it’s been.
This is also why gun owners are so angry at the anti’s and don’t trust a single thing they do. You want to have a conversation about gun regulation? Start by enforcing what’s there – consistently, evenly, responsibly. Start with Couric, her producer and Mr G from DC. Until you can produce the indictments for those folks you might have a problem talking about “common sense” gun control, with anybody who isn’t a “banner on the sly.”
You talk about doing it for safety, and some gun owners might remember that single mother who, through a slip of mind, nearly lost her job, kids, and everything else, because she peacefully and responsibly carried a gun in her glove box. Then peacefully and responsibly informed the cop during a traffic stop, that the gun was there. Then NJ threw the book at her – “No Discretion for You.”
Charge Couric, her produce, G-man from DC, or shut up.