Trib Covers How Firearms Get Transferred to Illinois from Indiana
“Twenty-five more in four hours,” Tanksley told his customer, who was secretly working for law enforcement and recording the conversation. “Give me $5,000 and you can put your order in then. I’ll get you whatever, give me a list.”
As Tanksley, who police say has ties to a Chicago street gang, made his sales pitch, David Lewisbey was stocking up on more weapons at a gun show 40 miles away in Crown Point, Ind., one of several trips he made across the state border and back in little more than a day, according to federal authorities. Five hours later, Lewisbey, an unlikely gun trafficker then enrolled in college, was back in Chicago as Tanksley made good on his promise and sold the informant nine more guns, authorities allege.
A federal indictment charges the two with illegally selling 43 firearms to the government informant in just under 26 hours, a volume made possible by gun shows and less restrictive state laws in Indiana, by far the No. 1 source of out-of-state guns used in crimes in Cook County. Private gun sales in Indiana don’t require background checks, a waiting period or even a record of the transaction.
Sigh
K’s Merchandise, a big-box department store on a busy commercial strip outside Fort Wayne, Ind., has been shut for sometime. But on a recent Friday, a crowd swelled inside as shoppers slowly browsed hundreds of tables under bright fluorescent lights.
RIP about 2006–I worked at K’s in Normal and Cedar Rapids in high school, college, and a little after including selling firearms there. No other relevance, just interesting side note (at least to me).
The basic point thing about the article is that if your require a background check on every sale, then private sellers who make iffy sales can be held accountable. Currently, in Indiana the only standard is that you don’t have reason to believe the person is ineligible. With background checks, the good private seller also gets the security of having gone through the federal process and is less likely to be seen as a suspect when a gun sale goes bad.