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Judge Rudolph Randa (courtesy jsonline.com)

Travis Pike writes:

“Dontray Mills, 24, purchased a total of 27 firearms, mostly handguns, between December 2012 and April 2014 and pleaded guilty to one of the charges on April 22, 2014, after an ATF dealnvestigation,” jsonline.com reports. “As a result of the conviction, Mills will never again be able to buy firearms legally.” Result? Yes and no. “In giving probation with no jail time to a Milwaukee man charged with 55 counts of buying firearms with fake identification and dealing them without a license, a federal judge delivered a message: ‘People kill people,’ U.S. District Rudolph Randa [above] said, echoing a common gun rights slogan. ‘Guns don’t kill people.'” Hang on . . .

While I can certainly agree people kill people, and in a perfect free world firearms could be sold without the government’s permission. That’s not my point here. My point here is why isn’t this guy being run up the flagpole by the Anti gun establishment? The anti guns call for new laws constantly, but have no opinion on a case like this?

Do any of them honestly believe that this guy would have had his clientele do background checks if it was required by law? Or that any UBC law would have stopped him?

Randa said he had seen plenty of people facing similar charges who bought firearms for friends and then took no responsibility for their actions. Mills, he said, has accepted responsibility.

Well ain’t that swell. People who buy one firearm for a friend or family member are criminals, but they didn’t responsibility, but this guy did it 27 times, and used a forged ID, but thankfully he cried at the trial.

Still, where are the calls from Bloomberg front organizations calling for this man’s head? What am I missing here? Is the NRA really the bogey man they should be focusing on, or is it guys like this? He received probation on a count that carries a 5 year sentence, and 55 counts and 27 weapons. That shouldn’t add up to probation. Why isn’t the Shannon calling all 11 member of Moms Demand action to protest this?

But Mills, Randa said, did not come across as a typical defendant because of his good behavior since the charges and his life ambitions, which include becoming a rap musician. While on bail, Mills twice traveled to Los Angeles to work on a film and to pursue his musical aspirations.

What? A guy wanting to become part of a genre of music that has a long history of glorifying crime, and criminals within it’s wake is a good ambition for a criminal? Not only that, but as far as realism and success in the entertainment industry is very slim, and the court jester doesn’t offer much in the way of contributing to society.

As a result of the conviction, Mills will never again be able to buy firearms legally.

You mean until he finds someone like him who will do so. A background check wouldn’t have stopped this guy, he filled out at least 27 4473s so he knew what he was doing was already a crime. But one more law would have stopped him right?

I don’t agree with everything the NRA says and does, but if you wanted to combat gun violence, like really combat gun violence, you wouldn’t go after them. You’d go after guys like this, hold the Justice Department accountable, run this guy up a flag pool. But as we all know it’s not about the guns, it’s about the control.

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43 COMMENTS

  2. Why Are Gun Control Advocates Up In Arms About Illegal Gun Dealer’s Probation?

    I think you meant to ask why they’re NOT up in arms about his probation.

    And the answer is: Because his name is Dontray and he’s studying at the Sorbonne to become a rapper.

    • I am somewhat confused as well. I think you got it. Also, this gem

      “People who buy one firearm for a friend or family member are criminals, but they didn’t responsibility,”

    • A rapper? Seriously? If he were going to Julliard to become a classically trained cowbellist, then that’s showing me something, and maybe I could cut him some slack.

      But a rapper? Nuh uh. Too bad, so sad.

      • My son in law (black) was a gang banging (crips) rapper ( 2 live crew, ghetto boys….) turned his life around,and met my daughter in church, and now raps “testimonial “(crime bad, god good).

    • Good news, Ralph! The Title has been corrected!
      “Why In’t Anyone…”
      (as of 4:30 CDT)

      Priceless.

  3. “in a perfect free world firearms could be sold with the government’s permission.”

    Or maybe WITHOUT the government’s permission?

    I enjoy reader submissions, but I wish someone would proofread them first.

  4. Given my poor spelling and habitually poor typing, this is certainly a case of the pot calling the kettle black but, shouldn’t the headline be “Why Aren’t Gun Control Advocates Up In Arms About Illegal Gun Dealer’s Probation?” instead of reading “Why Are….”?

    • ‘course I’d of wrote “Why ain’t they holler’n”

      btw, you misspelled ain’t,…. but I’m not sure it it’s actually possible to misspell ‘ain’t’ … so never mind.

  5. Heh, TTAG accepts a reader submission siding with the ATF because the victim likes “criminal rap music”.

    One wonders how much “rap” this guy has actually listened to, as opposed to just parroting moral panic garbage disseminated by holier-than-thou conservative culture warriors?

    TTAG might want to get Colion Noir on the editorial board. Or just anyone who is even slightly in touch with the black music scene. 🙂

    • The title, some of possibly contrary sentences in the article and what you pointed out.

      I am not sure if this is satire or poorly written or …

    • TTAG accepts a reader submission siding with the ATF because the victim likes “criminal rap music”

      A reminder to all trolls on the intertubez: if you’re going to use quotation marks make sure that it’s an actual quote and not something you just made up.

      • Before you criticize so-called trolls you may want to take a course in writing. Quotation marks can be used for referencing an euphemism.

  6. What is – or ought to be – the point of this case?

    The author is complaining that the Moms are not howling that this guy only got probation. Why do we – or anyone else – care about what the Moms or any other Antis take notice of?

    If there is a point to be made here the point OUGHT to be that the criminal justice system is simply NOT interested in such crimes. A young man used a fake ID, filled-out some 4473 forms falsely, and dealt in a couple dozen guns. There is no mention of blood on the streets; we don’t know what was done with these guns. (Probably wasn’t anything to be proud of; but, there is simply nothing here in the record.) So, with all the other violent crime to be punished – to say nothing of drug dealing – why fill a cell with this particular criminal?

    Everyone is entitled to his own opinion; the judge calls the sentence – probation.

    Maybe the criminal justice system really does have its priorities straight. Maybe they are filling prison cells with murders and robbers. Maybe they are giving probation to felons-in-posession, traffickers and straw-buyers because these are NOT malum in se; they are merely malum prohibitum crimes. If that’s so, it’s a relief.

    So, then, why do we have laws governing sales and transfers of guns at all? Mere malum prohibitum laws? The criminal justice system has no intention of enforcing these laws; they just want to brand the handful of perpetrators they catch with a felony conviction. Ah, yes; that’s it! The whole idea is to crank-up the sale and transfer laws to be more comprehensive until the final step: UBC! Then, the law-abiding will be cowed into a quasi-national registration system.

    Never mind the criminals running around with guns. They have never been of any real interest until they actually commit a malum in se violation. If they didn’t run around with guns they would use knives or blunt objects.

    This is the explanation we need to give when our neighbors ask about our opposition to UBC. We have to ask them if they are willing to pick up the tax burden when we get probation and lose our responsible jobs that make a taxable income.

    • The State of California agrees with you 100%. They even passed Proposition 47 to implement it. Crime rates are spiraling upwards as a result.

      Who do you think Mills is buying guns for — choir boys?

  7. I apologize for the spelling errors, I wrote this on an Ipad, and didn’t proof read. I wanted to go to bed, so typed it up and sent it without thinking. I’m not sure what was going through my head, but it certainly wasn’t anything involving common sense for submissions.

    • Not to worry, TravisP – neither your observations nor conclusions were obscure. The piece was decipherable and its points, comprehensible, without pause or criticism – apart from the ideological, I suppose. Authors are notoriously poor at proof-reading their own output. ‘Sleep on it’, is the preferred prophylactic, if you can wrestle an insistent muse to at least a draw.

  8. Yikes, not my favorite article. Small, strained point to begin with, I think as far as I can tell, and the unclear language makes it useless. Also, ragging on rap music is a needless distraction, and needlessly unkind to the accused.

    • Harvard University has a Hip-Hop Institute, established in 2002. Which proves either that hip-hop has become smart, or Harvard has become stupid. The bet is even money.

  9. The anti’s are not attacking as the matter is too complex and a surefire fail for their side. Any person who is willing to buy/trade/sell in the manner he has will likely continue to do so. He’s a skilled criminal mind and no law on paper stops physical action.

  11. It’s not even really about control — they could exercise control and prove they were serious about it by giving this guy the sentence he deserved under the law.

    The anti-gun Marxist “progressives are all about power. And prosecuting some loser named Dontray, about whom the general public will never give a shart, doesn’t gain them any power.

    Strangling the law-abiding public with ever more restrictive laws and labyrinthine regulations, on the other hand…

  12. Why does a 24 year old, I’m assuming black man based on the context the article gives, look like an older white guy?

      • Praise the lord! I was hoping for some explanation of this photo accompanying an article about a would-be rapper. The images in my mind made me dizzy. Now, how about somebody explain how this conviction will keep the perp from ever buying firearms again, when he was using fake ID THIS time? Is he now prohibited from breaking the law, or something? On pain of further probation? If he was using a fake ID, wouldn’t that hint that he was already a prohibited person?

  13. Not up in arms because what he did should be legal. Nobody should be required to have a license to buy/sell guns.

    I would have found him NG.

    • What I don’t get is how pro guns are criticizing the anti movement when the judge was solely in control of sentencing and sees mills actions as no big deal. Not an issue with adding or enforcing laws that don’t work. The judge failed to lay down justice because he is pro NRA quoting one of their slogans. Judge said he took responsibility and has had good behavior since. The anti gun people should be looking at the judge who was appointmented by GW Bush.

  15. the anti-gun crowd loves to demand more background checks and more gun laws. Not that they would have prevented the latest bloodletting.

    Take a look at the NICBS background checks and denials:

    First, checking NICBS background checks

    Applications: 6,037,394
    FBI denials: 72,659 (1.2 percent)

    So, what were the reasons for the denial.
    Here are some of the key reasons, with essentially one-quarter being a case of mistaken denial — even after weeks of investigation.

    No prosecutorial merit: 1,661
    Federal/state guidelines not met: 1,092
    Not a prohibited person: 480
    Closed by supervisor: 457
    No potential or unfounded: 396

    In the end, 62 cases were referred for prosecution, but most were declined by prosecutors or dismissed by the court. Out of the original 73,000 denials, there emerge just 13 guilty pleas.

    In the case of Mills, why weren’t there 27 charges of fraud? That’s one count for each 4473 he lied on. Worse, where did the 27 guns go? How many were/ will be recovered at crime scenes or from criminals?

    In short what good are more laws?

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-claim-that-the-brady-law-prevented-15-million-people-from-buying-a-firearm/2013/01/23/77a8c1d4-65b4-11e2-9e1b-07db1d2ccd5b_blog.html

    • This is – I think – the soft underbelly of UBC.

      The fact is that our criminal justice system is unwilling to ration its limited resources (prisons and DA time) to non-violent gun crime: illegal transfers; or, felon-in-posession. Nor will our society demand a re-allocation of limited resources in this direction. Victims of violent crime will demand resources for perpetrators of violence; those concerned with the scourge of drugs will demand resources for dealers. There is simply no appetite for putting a single mother behind bars for straw-buying for her “baby-daddy”.

      That being established, we now have to convince voters that even less attention will be paid to violations of UBC laws. The only citizens made to suffer significantly from these laws will be peaceable gun-owners. We will have travesties of justice analogous to that of Shaneen Allen.

      A receptive audience of voters will have to ask itself if it really wants to pick-up the slack for imprisoned taxpayers who won’t be able to pay their fair share while in prison and won’t be employable when released.

  17. The judge is an asshole. I’ve never heard of “oh he regrets it” and magically it’s all done with. The judge is doing something devious, and furthermore, he looks reptilian.

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