So here is a group on X, called the New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, and these guys messed up, but that’s okay, they are blessed by DOJ.
This group a while back managed to get passed into a state law NM law 30-7-7.1, requiring a background check to transfer a firearm from one private citizen to another. This is part of what you have to do when you buy a gun from a gun store. At the gun store, you fill out the BATFE Form 4473, while the store/current owner goes to a website or calls a state 800 number, giving to the operator the buyer’s name, drivers’ license number and maybe an SSN. Once the background check is completed and the buyer passes the check, the transfer may proceed.
So back on December 16th, they apparently received three bolt-action rifles and two shotguns from a family. No paperwork was performed during this transfer. So, they’re in violation of the law they helped pass.
Then, as you see in this image, they sawed them in half. There are specific ATF approved rules on how to destroy a firearm, and this isn’t on the list. These are still firearms as long as the action works and it can chamber a round. It doesn’t matter if the round is sticking out of the weapon. What they have done in this instance is created a “Short Barreled Rifle” (SBR) and this is now a Class III weapon, and is treated just like a machine gun. You actually have to apply to the ATF and receive approval from them before you can alter the firearm to the SBR condition. Not being properly registered and not having received the appropriate paperwork, this is federal felonies #1 and #2.
THEN, according to a Tweet from them on 12/14, this group takes these Class III weapons onto a school campus, and performs a second transfer, to underage young adults, who properly destroy them by forging them into gardening tools. Felonies #2 (taking a gun into a federal gun-free zone), #3 (unapproved transfer of an unregistered Class III weapon), #4 and 5 (transfer of a weapon to a minor, transfer of an unregistered Class III weapon to a minor) and a second state transfer violation.
Here’s where the irony really kicks in. A Tweet from a person who the NMPGV “helped”, Kat’s family are ardently anti-gun. Including the dad. Yet, the anti-gun dad, apparently experienced some fear over the neighbors, or maybe the “Summer of Love” in general. There is no mention as to when he bought them, so that is all conjecture. However, he bought these weapons to protect himself and his family.
I find it typically hypocritical of a Liberal/Leftist to decry the possession and/or use of firearms, yet that’s the first thing they buy when they feel they are in danger.
Thankfully, the local Sheriff is investigating the matter. San Juan sheriff probes advocacy group's gun buybacks in Farmington.
I do not wish any ill on any person. That being said, I sincerely hope they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of all appropriate laws, local, state and federal that they have broken. Because, as Ulysses S. Grant said:
I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.Ulysses S. Grant