Sometimes a small staff PD tries to buy a mini gun. This guy is nuts!
Nuts in a good way, and I like it.
So quickly scanning the article, were any of his actions actually illegal or is DOJ just grasping at straws because a peon police chiefs wants a lot of guns?
Seems like a crime of degree not matter? Seems legal, but at an odd scale.
Should anyone who sold their Blue Label Glock to a non-LEO be worried?
ATF prosecuted a cop on the east coast somewhere for buying his father in law a Blue Label Glock.
He was personally profiting from his position as chief. Among other things, the article said he sold four submachine guns owned by the department and personally made 75k. If true, I’d say yeah, that’s illegal.
ATF takes a dim views on using a FFL, especially a SOT, to simply enhance your personal collection. With his small staff PD, he went a bridge too far trying to justify his “happy switch” collection. They can go after him for a number of things, but more importantly they can revoke his FFL. If he takes a “firearms” conviction, he’s done. He can never lawfully possess a firearm and his LE career is over.
Given that Iowa is not a complete NFA state (allows SBRs and suppressors, but not MGs) he couldn’t associate any of those firearms with his gun biz, so he ran them through his PD but still hosted stuff like MG shoots for profit. It’s going to be an easy conflict for any prosecutor.
I buy MGs from PDs all the time. Nothing wrong with it. I hold the licensing to do the transfers and the person in charge of the PD can simply put the profits into a slush fund and be fine. Usually the money is put towards newer stuff for the PD and it sounds like he purchased enough to offset those profits.
His problems are going to be from treating the PD inventory as a personal firearm collection and obtaining weapons for the PD that he couldn’t obtain with his FFL. If his FFL doesn’t have a SOT associated with it, he’s really toast.
Yeah… that was kind of an ethical and legal problem right there.
Another case of “Being Stupid can Really Hurt”.
No love for the BATFE and infringements on the 2A, but this guy is a F-ing moron of epic proportions.
My thoughts exactly. Trying to get a mini gun for a Po Dunk department? On top of all the other dumb stuff…
According to the article he also tried to get a .50 M2 for “special operations and high-risk prisoner transportation details.”
…and got rejected TWICE on a “minigun”.
Bless his heart.
You figure after the first time he’d get the hint.
I’m sure the BATFE guys we’re like “really, he’s that f-ing stupid? Ok, lets take this MFer out.”
I wonder how many dogs they were able to shoot???
My old boss was Iowegian. I don’t remember him mentioning all this high risk criminal activity. LOL.
As another conflict of interest, seems his side business as a FFL (and presumably a SOT) was a LE supplier. He should have KNOWN that would be a bad idea. He was also hosting machine gun shoots and promoting “Come shoot a MP7” which is obviously a LE only weapon. ATF isn’t gonna have too much of a hard time demonstrating he treated the PD inventory as a personal firearm collection.
There were plenty of guys in plenty of PDs who offered to obtain various “post samples” on my behalf so long as I paid for them. And as much as I might have wanted a $600 Type 3 AK 47 or a $700 HK G3 I knew it was a bad idea. There is a line that exists and if you are gonna be a LE supplier, you need to remember where it’s drawn. But I guess when you are both the chief of police AND the department supplier you just think anything you do is perfectly fine.
Which is completely stupid of that LEO.
As long as I can remember GSSF members can buy one blue label per year.
Its a $25 membership that anybody can join.
He was prosecuted for not being the actual buyer. They only became aware of it because he wa under investigation for a bank robbery and a search found receipts.
He does a pretty good amount of sales on Gunbroker too and has over 30k of feedback under bwk9.
This is what makes no sense to me, surely he was not able to obtain 4 pre 86 transferable’s in 2019/20 for $75 k below market price. If they were post 86 it would suck to be a buyer.
In July 2021 and February 2022, Wendt allegedly sold four submachine guns purchased in 2020 and 2019 and registered to the Adair Police Department to buyers in Florida and Alabama. For selling the four lightweight, fully automatic guns, Wendt turned a personal profit of almost $75,000, the indictment alleges.