| Abramski v. United States | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued January 22, 2014 Decided June 16, 2014 | |
| Full case name | Bruce James Abramski, Jr., Petitioner v. United States |
| Docket no. | 12-1493 |
| Citations | 573 U.S. 169 (more) 134 S. Ct. 2259; 189 L. Ed. 2d 262 |
| Opinion announcement | Opinion announcement |
| Case history | |
| Prior | United States v. Abramski, 778 F. Supp. 2d 678 (W.D. Va. 2011); affirmed, 706 F.3d 307 (4th Cir. 2013); cert. granted, 571 U.S. 951 (2013). |
| Holding | |
| It is a federal crime to act as a straw buyer of a gun, even when the true buyer can buy the gun lawfully. | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Kagan, joined by Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor |
| Dissent | Scalia, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Alito |
| Laws applied | |
| 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(a)(6); 924(a)(1)(A) | |
Abramski v. United States, 573 U.S. 169 (2014), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court found that making arrangements for a straw purchase of a gun is in violation of the Gun Control Act of 1968, and is different from re-selling or gifting a previously purchased gun. In the Abramski case, a former police officer from Virginia took advantage of a local discount to buy a gun for his uncle and later transferred it to Pennsylvania—the uncle's residence—using the appropriate federal procedure. During the purchase, Abramski falsely declared that he was purchasing the gun for himself.
Initially, Abramski's defense was that (a) the misrepresentation was not material since his uncle was legally capable of making the purchase himself, and (b) since the answer to the question of whether he was purchasing the gun for himself was not required to be kept on the firearms dealer's record, no law was violated. However, when the case came before the Supreme Court, Abramski modified his defense and claimed that the misrepresentation was not material because the law only cares about the person buying the gun from the dealer, not the final receiver of the gun. The Court disagreed with this interpretation and held that the law cared about the final receiver, which is properly considered the person buying the gun. Such straw arrangements, the Court held, are different from allowed transfers where a person buys a gun for himself and later decides to sell it. Accordingly, the Court found that the misrepresentation was material. Additionally, the Court found that the answer was required to be kept on the dealer's record. The Court thus held that the purchase violated 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6),[1] which makes it unlawful to falsify facts "material to the lawfulness of the sale," and 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(1)(A),[2] which prohibits misrepresentation with respect to information which a dealer is required to maintain on record.[citation needed] In a dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the declaration about the ultimate recipient of the gun was not material to the sale, and that it is not included in the information that the dealer is required to keep on the records. After the ruling, proponents of gun control stated that the Court's decision will help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, while opponents of gun control stated that the ruling is a "horrible injustice".[3]