Irresponsible (Illegal) Gun Owner of the Day: Joseph Roberts III

Pro tip: social media is called social media because other people are involved. As John Donne could have told you if he’d had a Facebook account, no man is an island in the storm-tossed sea that is the Internet. In fact, pretty much nothing you do online is private. Some people actually realize that. And most of the others who don’t, really don’t care anyway. They seem to feel a crushing need  – for some reason – to share the fact that the cone they just finished at Dairy Queen was the best…ice cream…EVAR! After all, what’s the harm? But from time to time, some people go a little overboard in the sharing department. As in TMI. As in criminal activity. Not that Joseph Roberts probably realized he was advertising his law-breaking . . .

Or maybe he did and figured no one who cared would see it. Roberts had done a stretch behind bars on a federal counterfeiting beef. And he waited for that trial in the Blount County, Tennessee jail where eagle-eyed social media maven Lisa Hoard works.

So, imagine Blount County Sheriff’s Office Detective Lisa Hoard’s surprise when she ran across postings on Roberts’ Facebook page earlier this year in which he wrote about firing guns and selling guns — complete with a photograph of an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle on his coffee table — U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives Agent Forest Webb wrote in a complaint.

“In the Facebook postings, (Roberts) states he needs to sell one of (his) rifles to generate cash to facilitate the building of a long range 5.56 (caliber semi automatic rifle),” Webb wrote.

According to Webb’s complaint, Hoard recognized Roberts’ profile photograph on Facebook because of his earlier stint in the Blount County Jail.

After a call to her colleagues at the ATF, a search of Roberts’ home revealed a SIG P250 and the aforementioned AR.

So Robers is now awaiting trial on a felon in possession of firearms charge. The article isn’t clear as to whether Det. Hoard is his host again this time, but we’re sure he’s in good hands wherever that might be. And while we don’t know of anything particularly irresponsible he’s done with his guns (other than, you know, owning them) we’re also sure that he’ll be getting one of our IGOTD awards. Maybe he can use the blunt object as a self defense weapon some day if he needs it. When he get out, that is.