Lawyers and legal types of M4C: What law (if any) did my former manager break?

[BoringGuy45]

6 years ago, I began a 3 year job at a gun store (I posted a lot of my stories from there on the old "dumbest things overheard at the gun store" thread). My first direct manager, whom I'll call "Scott" was, well, what you think of when you think of your stereotypical gun store guy. Matter of fact, he was basically what the anti-gunners think of when they think of every gun owner: Cocky, aggressive, ignorant, rude, unsafe with his guns, and very racist (HATED black and Hispanic people). He also loved to play fast and loose with just about every regulation you can imagine.

The store originally had a rule that employees could buy anything from the store at cost, and this included used guns. So, whenever a customer sold the store a used gun, if Scott wanted it, he'd just take the gun for himself, pay the store back whatever was paid out to the customer, and never even put the gun into inventory. He justified this by pointing out that there was nothing in the company handbook that required us to put any inventory out for sale, so he was doing nothing wrong. But here's where it gets really murky: If it was a long gun, he would never even enter it into the store's logbook or do a 4473. He claimed that because he immediately paid the store back and there was no paperwork specifying that the gun was possessed by the company, he technically conducted a private transfer between himself and the customer, thus meaning that he didn't need to do any paperwork.

Scott was eventually fired for a laundry list of things, some of which were somewhat related to this, but not directly. I was just taking a trip down memory line recently and this whole thing popped into my mind. Out of curiosity, despite Scott claiming that what he was doing was "perfectly legal", was there any law broken here? None of the customers were ever aware of what he was doing; they were always under the impression that they were selling to the store, and didn't know that they were taking part in a "private transfer". The fact that he was misrepresenting the actual buyer of the firearm seems awfully shady to me. Thoughts?

[Uni-Vibe]

If Trump can do that sort of thing, why not Scott? Sounds like Scott was the victim of a "rigged witch hunt. " Those were "perfect" transactions. Anybody that says otherwise is a snowflake.

[jpmuscle]

If Trump can do that sort of thing, why not Scott? Sounds like Scott was the victim of a "rigged witch hunt. " Those were "perfect" transactions. Anybody that says otherwise is a snowflake.

Dude, give a rest. Your gal lost. Get over it.





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[Outlander Systems]

Lol roasted hahahahaha

Dude, give a rest. Your gal lost. Get over it.





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[OH58D]

If Trump can do that sort of thing, why not Scott? Sounds like Scott was the victim of a "rigged witch hunt. " Those were "perfect" transactions. Anybody that says otherwise is a snowflake.

Is everything in our society somehow connected to what Donald J. Trump does or doesn't do? That is really odd....

Regarding the gun store, the harm is possibly to the customer. The customer attempts a legal transfer to an FFL holder, but the transfer is intercepted by an agent of the store, directing the merchandise to himself. The customer probably received something like a bill of sale or receipt showing the gun sold to a dealer, when it in fact was intercepted by that agent. If the firearm ever ends up used in a crime, the gun could be traced back to the seller who has to prove they did a legal sale or transfer to the store. The liability for this could vary from State to State. Technically, this could be a form of theft since the gun intended for the FFL was intercepted, and a violation of State law regulating the sale of firearms.

The harm to the store could also be the loss of the ability to re-sell the firearm for an additional profit. Used guns can be a lucrative business for an FFL. But since they had a rule allowing at-cost sales, then it should be no issue.

What is my expertise? I have an MBA with an emphasis on Contract Law. I am not an Attorney.

[AKDoug]

Is everything in our society somehow connected to what Donald J. Trump does or doesn't do? That is really odd....

Regarding the gun store, the harm is possibly to the customer. The customer attempts a legal transfer to an FFL holder, but the transfer is intercepted by an agent of the store, directing the merchandise to himself. The customer probably received something like a bill of sale or receipt showing the gun sold to a dealer, when it in fact was intercepted by that agent. If the firearm ever ends up used in a crime, the gun could be traced back to the seller who has to prove they did a legal sale or transfer to the store. The liability for this could vary from State to State. Technically, this could be a form of theft, and a violation of State law regulating the sale of firearms.

The harm to the store could be the loss of the ability to re-sell the firearm for an additional profit. Used guns can be a lucrative business for an FFL.

What is my expertise? I have an MBA with an emphasis on Contract Law. I am not an Attorney.

Pretty much how I'd look at it. The transaction was between the customer and the licensee, not the employee. It needed to be logged in, then a 4473 filled out by Scott to take possession of it.

[Whiskey_Bravo]

If Trump can do that sort of thing, why not Scott? Sounds like Scott was the victim of a "rigged witch hunt. " Those were "perfect" transactions. Anybody that says otherwise is a snowflake.

Your trolling shtick is getting really old.

[Adrenaline_6]

If Trump can do that sort of thing, why not Scott? Sounds like Scott was the victim of a "rigged witch hunt. " Those were "perfect" transactions. Anybody that says otherwise is a snowflake.

As far as the DB gun store manager goes, it sounds sketchy to me. I would think that if the customer got sale documentation that they sold it to the store, it would legally have to be transferred to the store first before transferring to him.

[BoringGuy45]

If Trump can do that sort of thing, why not Scott? Sounds like Scott was the victim of a "rigged witch hunt. " Those were "perfect" transactions. Anybody that says otherwise is a snowflake.

Nobody asked.

[BoringGuy45]

No. It would look way less sketch (depending on your states laws) if he paid cash direct from his pocket to the people selling in the parking lot.

But pertaining to his character, he kinda was taking advantage of his position and was attaining personal gain on the clock. He should have given them his number and bought the guns privately on his own time rather than OD on it like it seems he was doing. The little employee perk was there where the store still sees some profit while letting employees get a deal here and there. Illegal? No. unethical? Very much.

That's what I was wondering about. Because of this, which happened, I would say, probably a good 10 times a week, the company policy was changed after Scott was fired. Any used items had to go out for sale, we had to put it out on the floor for a reasonable amount of time and ask permission to buy it at cost if nobody else did.

What got Scott fired was that a handful of these "private transfers" were done with a woman who claimed her father had passed away and left an attic full of guns that she didn't want. It turns out, she was a drug addict and was stealing her father-in-law's guns and selling them to pay for her habit. So, she got arrested, and luckily, Scott didn't buy ALL of her guns, and the ones we did have in the store we gave to the police as evidence. However, Scott still had about 5 of the guns in his possession, and the police were demanding that we return them, as the woman had admitted that she had sold every gun she had stolen to us. They also were suspicious as to why these guns were not in our logbook.

The owner talked to Scott, who admitted what he was doing, but of course pointed out that it was technically legal, and technically not breaking any company rules. The owner told him to return the guns and Scott refused. He said that because he did not know that the guns were stolen when he originally purchased them, the transaction was done in good faith, and thus he was not obligated to return them. Second, he said, he had seen no undisputed, documented proof that the owner of the guns was being truthful about these actually being his guns. For all we knew, Scott claimed, he could be in on the scam. Third, because the transfers were private, done with cash, and there was no bill of sale, there was no proof that anyone would be able to produce that he (Scott) had those guns, or had even seen them before. Scott told me privately that his main concern was that while his actions were legal, they did LOOK shady, and he felt they would be used to throw him under the bus for everything. He eventually realized that he couldn't keep playing these stalling games forever without getting in trouble, so he brought in the guns and tried to backlog them into the system, which would have made it look like the other manager, whom he despised, had failed to properly enter them. Luckily, the owner caught him and he was fired.