I guess he and Meg Whitman should have known to racially profile eh? For those who don't know Austin is like a little slice of San Francisco transplated in the heart of Texas. TEXAN CONVICTED FOR SELLING A GUN TO ILLEGAL ALIEN WITH TEXAS DRIVER’S LICENSE In Federal District Court on July 20, 2010, the ATF won a conviction from an Austin jury that defies logic and reason. In a trial before Federal Judge Sam Sparks, government lawyers conceded Texas resident Paul Copeland did not know his buyer was an illegal alien, but the jury they should convict him anyway because he "had reasonable cause to believe" he was selling to an illegal alien because the two men and a boy who were present at his table at the time of the sale: 1) were Hispanic, 2) spoke Spanish, and 3) wore cowboy clothing. And the jury did as asked. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Freel acted as lead prosecutor in the case. The firearm transaction at issue occurred on January 16, 2010, at a gun show at the North Austin Events Center, at 10601 N. Lamar Blvd., in Austin, Texas. Undercover ATF agents followed Mr. Huerta, his son, and another Hispanic male, Hipolito Aviles, around the "Texas Gun show" that day, and claimed to observe Huerta’s transaction. Austin P.D. used Copeland’s case as the reason to close down the gun show, leading to a protest by Austin residents in front of APD headquarters on January 25. Mr. Copeland is a 56 year old Cedar Creek resident and Vietnam veteran who liked to buy, sell, and trade firearms as a hobby. On January 16, however, he had the misfortune to sell a handgun to Leonel Huerta Sr., who spoke both English and Spanish. Huerta Sr. negotiated his purchase from Copeland in English, showing Copeland his Texas Driver’s License. At Copeland’s trial Huerta admitted on the witness stand, that he is in the country illegally, (Huerta Sr. had previously admitted this fact to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Agent Leo Buentello). ATF Agent Shawn Kang claimed he saw Huerta later hand off the gun to Aviles. Despite these admissions, Huerta Sr. was never arrested, charged, or deported. Instead, his presence at the gun show was used to entrap an American citizen into an unwitting violation of a federal gun control law. Huerta Sr., who is a resident of the City of Austin, appeared as a witness at the trial, admitted he was in the country illegally before federal prosecutors and a federal judge, yet he was allowed to leave the courtroom under his own power. To date Huerta Sr. has not been prosecuted for his purchase, possession, or disposition of the handgun he bought from Copeland, while Copeland is now a convicted felon. "Instead of busting the illegal alien for buying, they bust the citizen for selling," commented Paul Velte, attorney and founder of Peaceable Texans for Firearms Rights, a gun-owners rights advocacy group from Austin. Velte asked, "who was in a better position to know the buyer’s immigration status, the buyer or the seller?" He also said, "What happened to Paul Copeland should enrage all Americans. The Federal Government is using illegal aliens to entrap citizens lawfully exercising their right to sell firearms. The illegal alien walks free, but the citizen gets convicted. The same government charged with controlling immigration is the one using illegal immigrants to attack its own citizens. Does this make any sense? It makes no sense unless the purpose is to discourage attendance at gun shows and frighten citizens from selling their firearms to other citizens." Velte pointed out that "There is no way for a citizen to know who is here legally or not. In fact, under Austin’s ‘sanctuary city’ policy, not even the police officer at the door of the gun show was allowed to ask a person’s immigration status, yet the average Texan inside the show is expected to assume that a person standing before them with a Texas driver’s license is in the country illegally just because they look Mexican and speak Spanish." Velte noted that the federal government’s lawsuit against Arizona was based on that very type of conduct: Concluding someone could be here illegally based on their looks or their language. Velte said gun owners in his group are outraged, and they want to know: Why is the illegal alien who purchased the gun, Leonel Huerta Sr., still living in Austin? Why does he still have a Texas Driver’s license? Why is ATF using illegal aliens to set up and convict American citizens? What has he been promised for his cooperation? Why has he not been prosecuted? He committed three distinct crimes: he purchased a firearm knowing he was an illegal alien, he possessed the firearm, and he transferred the handgun to another illegal alien (Hippolito Aviles, who was convicted and given time served on June 30, 2010). Why has Huerta Sr. not been deported? Judge Sparks sentenced Copeland on August 27 to six months confinement and 24 months of probation, and called Copeland "a liar" for not admitting guilt. ATF confiscated Copeland’s entire gun collection and initiated forfeiture proceedings. Copeland was also fired from his job due to the indictment, and he would have lost his home to foreclosure, if not for his family stepping in to pay his mortgage while he serves his sentence.
The ATF really needs to be disbanded. It will either happen soon peacefully, or it will happen later ...
Weren't Texans suppose to bbq illegals and praise W ? Anyway this is .... well retarded in every aspect .
If this is their solution to effectively ending the flow of guns to Mexico, I'd say they need to rethink their policies. To me, this looks like a direct attack on the second amendment by the Federal government. The fact they used and excused an illegal immigrant to effect such an attack seems to me to be further evidence the Obama admin cares very little about the laws put in place by those who came before him. Its starting to look a lot like tyranny.
And that makes you the second wise American I know that says that in the last week . "Tyranny in the US" now that's a scary thought .
That's embarrassingly unjust, arbitrary, capricious, and generally boneheaded. [And yes, I just signed the petition.] The ATF, ICE, and the Justice Dept need to jointly hang their head on that one. Reminds me of the inappropriate and nazi-like actions the "Justice" Dept meted out under Janet Reno. Neither Ruby Ridge nor the raid at Waco were done according to the rule of law, the tenets of human ethics, or in accord with common sense. In Waco for example, Koresh could have been arrested peacefully in town any number of times without the camera-worthy sensation of frying his followers alive. WTF was the FBI doing using incendiary grenades and then denying such use until definitive proof was presented? [Ohhhhh, THOSE incendiary grenades.] It's a shame guys on the federal bench apparently are allowed to pick and choose which parts of Federal law they wish to enforce or which parts of the Bill of Rights for that matter. What a monumental travesty of justice.