How unlicensed gun dealers find cover in a vague law

The prosecutor, however, pressed for prison time. Wince—as a cop—should have known better than anyone the risks associated with his black-market gun sales, he argued.But there was one issue on which both sides could agree: The law under which Wince was about to be sentenced that day in a federal courtroom in Virginia was badly flawed. It's "unconstitutionally vague," the defense attorney said."I'm not a big fan of the statute," the prosecutor conceded. Both men were referring to the Firearms Owners' Protection Act, a decades-old federal statute originally proposed by the National Rifle Association that dictates who is required to have a license to sell guns, and who is not.The law's fuzziness on that distinction and its provision that defendants must willfully violate the law in order to face prosecution, has frustrated efforts by law enforcement to combat the problem of unlicensed gun dealing in America, a CNN investigation found.Unlicensed dealers are a go-to source of firearms for criminals and others who can't pass the sort of background checks that licensed dealers are required to perform, according to a review of dozens of court cases and interviews with federal agents and prosecutors across the country.Guns sold by unlicensed dealers often turn up in the hands of convicted felons, at crime scenes, and in police investigations, including cases of armed robbery and murder, CNN found. Some dealers continued their illegal sales even after receiving warnings from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.Last year a gun sold by an unlicensed dealer was used in the slaying of an off-duty police commander in Chicago. In 2017, a gun allegedly sold by a suspected illegal dealer in Nevada to another individual was used in the fatal shooting of a California sheriff's deputy and the wounding of two California Highway Patrol officers."The crime

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