By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and CLAUDIA LAUER Associated Press
The group Everytown for Gun Safety used court records to trace more than 250 guns bought at nearly two dozen Academy Sports + Outdoors chain stores that had been trafficked over three years in a handful of federal straw purchasing prosecutions. The guns moved along familiar trafficking routes north to cities and states with some of the strictest firearms laws. Advocates say the cases highlights some of the red flags that licensed firearms dealers can ignore or miss as thousands of guns make their way to the hands of people otherwise prohibited from buying them. Academy Sports has not been accused by federal regulators of wrongdoing, and the guns trafficked north are a tiny slice of its overall sales.
By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY and JIM MUSTIAN Associated Press
On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country's police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed. The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols were presented during Patel's visit in July to open the FBI's first standalone office in New Zealand. The country's law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press about the gifts and why they were illegal to possess Tuesday. New Zealand law treats inoperable weapons as operable if they can be modified to work, and regulators deemed these operable. The FBI declined to comment.
A federal appeals court says a California law requiring background checks to buy bullets is unconstitutional. Voters passed the law in 2016 and it took effect in 2019. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling on Thursday upheld a 2024 decision by a lower court that found that the state law violates the Second Amendment. Last year, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez decided that the law was unconstitutional because if people can't buy bullets, they can't use their guns for self-defense. Many states, including California, make people pass a background check before they can buy a gun. California went a step further by requiring a background check every time people buy bullets.
