Whipped Cream Difficulties

There is no joy in this one.

Larry Vickers pled guilty to federal firearm charges yesterday.

“But,” you say, “Larry Vickers isn’t a political figure.” Right you are, Bob.

Mr. Vickers was charged with four other men: Sean Sullivan, James Tafoya, Matthew Hall, and James Sawyer. Mr. Hall was the chief of police in Coats, North Carolina, and Mr. Sawter was the chief of police of Ray, North Dakota. This is where the flaming hyenas come in.

Sullivan was the owner and operator of Trident, LLC, located in Gambrills, Maryland, and was also an Intelligence Analyst with the Department of Homeland Security Investigations.

He was a Fed?! I know, I know, quel fromage! But really?

Sullivan and Trident were Federal Firearms Licensees (“FFLs”) and Special Occupational Taxpayers (“SOTs”), which allowed them, in certain circumstances, to possess, import, manufacture, and deal in fully automatic firearms (machineguns) and other regulated firearms. Tafoya and Vickers owned and operated firearms related businesses in New Mexico and North Carolina and were also FFLs and SOTs.

Allegedly, all of these guys came up with a really clever scheme.

The indictment alleges that, beginning in at least June 2018 through at least March 2021, the defendants conspired to acquire machineguns and/or other restricted firearms, such as short-barreled rifles, by falsely representing that the firearms would be used for demonstration to law enforcement agencies, including the Coats Police Department and the Ray Police Department. The indictment further alleges that Hall, Sawyer, and other conspirators signed law letters with no expectation that the weapons would ever be demonstrated to their respective law enforcement agencies.
The defendants allegedly intended to impermissibly import into the United States and resell the machineguns and other firearms for profit or to keep for their own use and enjoyment. Sullivan allegedly submitted the false law letters to the ATF seeking to import the machineguns and other restricted weapons. Once the firearms were received, Sullivan allegedly kept some of the machineguns and other restricted weapons and transferred some of the weapons to Vickers, Tafoya, and other conspirators.

Now, everyone else hasn’t gone to trial, and should be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

In addition to the indictment, Larry Vickers pleaded guilty yesterday to participating in the conspiracy to import and obtain machineguns and other restricted firearms and admitted that he received some of the imported machineguns and other weapons. As detailed in his plea agreement, Vickers kept some of the machineguns and other restricted weapons in his personal collection and transferred other machineguns and restricted weapons to other FFLs and third parties. Vickers also pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions against a foreign firearms manufacturer between July 2014 and March 2021, in the Southern District of Florida.

So just not illegal import of restricted firearms, but also sanction violations. “Between July 2014 and March 2021” makes me wonder who the sanctions violations were against.

I haven’t seen any coverage of this anywhere, including the usual gun blogs. The only reason I know about it is that Mike the Musicologist sent me a link to the Justice Department press release. I feel kind of bad for Mr. Vickers, who also was dealing with cancer a while back. But this doesn’t sound like BATFE “paperwork” violations. This sounds like a pretty serious conspiracy to illegally import restricted weapons under cover of the law enforcement exemption.

While I object to the idea that what these people did should be against the law, the fact remains that it is, and they apparently (“all suspects” etc) tried to camouflage it as “only ones”. You know, “we’re the only ones competent enough to have full-auto weapons. We’re the only ones competent enough to carry a Glock.”

That, I do resent.