Newspaper Blames Gun Shop, Not Biden for Illegal Handgun Purchase

Gannett’s flagship newspaper USA TODAY claims in a current story that if a Delaware gun store had “finished its job” in 2018, Hunter Biden would by no means have been in a position to illegally buy the .38 Particular Colt Cobra revolver, which led to his three felony convictions.

“By legislation, handguns might be bought by outlets solely to state residents, who should present a government-issued proof of residency, and Biden was not a authorized resident of Delaware in 2018. As an alternative, he supplied solely a passport, along with his title and birthdate,” USA TODAY reporter Nick Penzenstadler wrote within the story, which was titled: “Hunter Biden’s gun case was spurred by an ATF type. The store violated federal legislation.”

The identical allegations have been first introduced up in courtroom by Hunter Biden’s protection workforce, however Decide Maryellen Noreika accurately identified that the gun store was not on trial.

Penzenstadler by no means mentions that federal legislation requires the firearm purchaser to current legitimate identification and to be truthful on the ATF Kind 4473, which Hunter Biden actually was not. He hid his drug habit when requested “Are you an illegal person of, or hooked on, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or every other managed substance?” On the time, Hunter Biden was smoking crack cocaine almost each quarter-hour, in accordance with courtroom testimony offered throughout his trial.

ATF compliance knowledgeable John “JC” Clark, co-founder and managing director of FFL Consultants, mentioned the ATF Kind 4473 is greater than clear and warns the firearm purchaser that they are going to be held answerable for any falsehoods or misrepresentations.

“Mr. Biden failed to acknowledge that, regardless of the ATF Kind 4473 being supplied to him by a non-governmental entity, it stays a authorities doc. This type consists of express warnings detailing potential prison violations for offering false info. It’s uncommon for a authorities type to not solely instruct the person to ‘READ THE FORM,’ however to additionally require certification that the shape has certainly been learn,” Clark advised the Second Modification Basis Wednesday. “By signing the shape, Mr. Biden acknowledged his understanding that making any false oral or written assertion or presenting false or misrepresented identification in reference to the transaction, constitutes a felony offense beneath federal legislation.”

None of this was offered in Penzenstadler’s story. As an alternative, to bolster his nonsensical claims, he resurrected a as soon as notorious “gun management activist,” David Chipman, the runty former ATF bureaucrat and paid anti-gun activist whom Hunter’s dad tried unsuccessfully to substantiate as ATF Director. The Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked on Chipman’s nomination alongside celebration traces, and Joe Biden was pressured to withdraw his title from consideration.

“We don’t give drug sellers a go to get the possessor,” Chipman advised the newspaper reporter. “It’s prison investigation 101. How the federal government has bent over backward to clarify away the extra critical felony is stunning.”

If Penzenstadler’s title sounds acquainted, it ought to. He was as soon as a part of Gannett’s company anti-gun propaganda workforce, which paired paid activists from the Hint, the propaganda arm of former New York Metropolis mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun empire, with reporters and editors from the newspaper – a transfer that violated a few dozen of Gannett’s extremely touted moral ideas. Penzenstadler is now a part of USA TODAY’s investigative workforce, in accordance with his byline.

In 2021, Penzenstadler and a Hint activist interviewed Chipman for a glowing puff-piece titled: “Biden nominated him to go gun oversight. He went down in flames – however he’s not finished preventing.”

The story portrayed Chipman as heroic and claimed the “ugly and private affirmation course of hardened his resolve to deal with gun security and push again towards the business’s outsize affect on the company — even when he has to take action from the skin.”

Within the 2021 story, Chipman lashed out at everybody for his failed nomination, together with the White Home and the Justice Division. He blamed everybody however himself for changing into a laughingstock and on the time the best meme generator since Joe Biden.

Apples to Apples

Hunter Biden has but to be sentenced for mendacity about his drug use on an ATF Kind 4473 and possessing a firearm whereas hooked on, or utilizing, unlawful medicine. He faces as much as 25 years in jail, however most court-watchers and pundits say he received’t spend a minute behind bars. Whereas it may be problematic to check the sentence one defendant receives to a different, these searching for related circumstances to check to Hunter Biden’s prison gun expenses now have two examples to contemplate.

Final month, Alexander Wesley Ledvina, 27, was sentenced to 4 years in jail and three years of supervised launch after he was discovered responsible throughout a 2023 bench trial of 1 depend of possession of a firearm by a drug person and one depend of constructing a false assertion throughout the buy of a firearm.

In line with a Justice Division press launch, Ledvina claimed on an ATF Kind 4473 that he was neither a person of marijuana nor hooked on marijuana or every other managed substance. Nonetheless, throughout his trial, “Ledvina stipulated that he knew that he was utilizing managed substances, together with marijuana, THC, and cocaine.”

As beforehand reported, Miracle Star Vaughn pleaded responsible to creating false statements throughout the buy of firearms. Like Hunter Biden, she hid her drug habit on an ATF Kind 4473.

“Throughout the firearms purchases, Vaughn supplied false info relating to her tackle and her drug use,” a Justice Division press launch said on the time.

The ATF alleged that Vaughn, then 27 and residing in North Liberty, Iowa, bought seven handguns over an 18-month interval, and that two of the weapons ended up within the fingers of convicted felons. Vaughn, like Hunter Biden, had no prison historical past on the time of her firearm purchases.

Vaughn pleaded responsible to creating false statements on the 4473. On April 26, 2023, a federal choose in Davenport, Iowa sentenced her to three hundred and sixty six days in a federal jail. Vaughn was launched three months in the past and should now full three years of supervised launch.

Takeaways

Not too way back, USA TODAY was seen by hundreds of individuals, though most of them stepped over the newspaper whereas leaving their resort rooms. Nonetheless, for a day by day newspaper to unfairly goal a small, family-owned enterprise solely as a result of they have been unlucky sufficient to come across a Biden is unconscionable.

If Hunter Biden lied on a 4473 and received caught that’s his fault, not the gun store’s. Hunter Biden is a grownup who must be held answerable for his personal selections, good or dangerous. To indicate that the gun store ought to have identified that he was mendacity about his drug use and his tackle is unfair.

The world is just not made up of Hunter Biden minders, whose sole obligation is to maintain him out of hassle. There’s just one one that has that job – a 54-year-old self-admitted cocaine addict turned presidential advisor named Robert Hunter Biden.

This story is courtesy of the Second Modification Basis’s Investigative Journalism Challenge. Click on right here to make a tax-deductible donation to assist the mission.