AG: Gun dealers failed to conduct checks

Two Long Islanders were among 10 gun dealers statewide who illegally made sales to undercover investigators without conducting background checks, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said yesterday.

"This is a serious public safety matter," said Schneiderman at a news conference next to a table displaying AR-15 automatic rifles and other rifles purchased in the stings. "We don't know how many guns like this got into the hands of people who had criminal backgrounds, who had mental illness problems, who were perpetrators of domestic violence."

The eight-month investigation, dubbed "Operation Background Bust," focused on six gun shows across the state, including a Sept. 24 show held at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 25 building in Hauppauge.

According to a partial transcript from one sting, an investigator at a gun show said, "I can't buy a gun from a dealer because I've got an order of protection. I had a messy marriage." The gun seller, who was not identified, replied, "Then you buy this one."

Schneiderman called it "easy" for investigators to obtain firearms, "no matter how aggressively [they] asserted that they could not pass background checks"

Selling a firearm at a gun show without conducting a background check through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System is a misdemeanor in New York punishable by up to a year in prison. Federal law prohibits sales to purchasers who fail the check.

Long Island gun sellers Alexander Lasurdo of Wading River and Sam Savino of North Bellmore were charged Wednesday with failure to conduct a background check at a gun show. They were served with tickets to appear in court. Neither could be reached for comment.

Gun show organizers were not charged, though Schneiderman said the law should be changed to make them "police the sellers."

Don Fiore, who organized the Sept. 24 show, said guns can't be sold at his shows without a background check.

"I would hope that if that happened at my show, that I would be told about it so I'd be able to do something about it, because that's not allowed at my show," Fiore said. "Every law that's on the books, we follow."

Thomas King, president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, which lobbies for gun rights, said he had spoken to some of the people charged and that they didn't know they were supposed to do background checks.

"They're going to prosecute these 10 poor guys who didn't know they were breaking the law?" King said.

The state attorney general's office said the law has been in place since 2000. Schneiderman said some of the people charged had registered to sell guns at the shows, but others had not.