A jury in New York convicted a Saratoga County man of lying on a Federal gun background form while buying a rifle in 2016.
Michael Bramer, Jr., 32, faces up to a decade in prison and $250,000 fine for purposely concealing knowledge of a temporary restraining order placed against him 11 days prior in Malta Town Court.
According to court documents, Bramer visited Frank’s Gun Shop in Fulton County on Oct. 24, 2016, where he tried to buy a Savage .243 Axis rifle. When completing Form 4473, he answered “no” to the question ““Are you subject to a court order restraining you from harassing, stalking, or threatening . . . an intimate partner?”
The temporary protection order against Bramer expired in December 2016, according to a trial brief filed last week. After just one day of arguments, jurors convicted Bramer of lying on a federal background check form in an Albany federal court Tuesday.
The “lie and try” prosecution comes after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions promised the Department of Justice would amp up enforcement of existing gun laws as a result of several high-profile mass shootings across the country.
Sessions said, through Project Safe Neighborhoods, DOJ prosecutions for those charged with violating federal firearm laws reached a decade high in 2017. Violent crime prosecutions are likewise at the highest rate in more than 25 years and claims the department “is just getting started.”
Bramer will face sentencing in December, according to the DOJ.
The post Jury convicts New York man for ‘lie and try’ Gun Buy appeared first on Guns.com.
