An illegal alien living in Ohio is on trial for being a foreign national in possession of firearms. The impressive part of the story isn’t that the Biden administration finally arrested an illegal alien for a crime. It’s that the man had built up a collection of 170 guns and passed the FBI’s vaunted background checks on them every single time. The feds say that Carlos Serrano-Restrepo lied on Form 4473 about his citizenship status every single time he purchased guns.
Serrano-Restrepo’s lawyer submitted a motion to dismiss the charges against him, claiming that his client’s Second Amendment rights were violated by arresting him. He claims that his illegal alien client has the right to bear arms. While that’s possibly true in a metaphysical sense, it’s nonsense under the law. The judge rejected the motion to dismiss the charges.
The judge noted that Serrano-Restrepo has been in the country illegally for 15 years and has never sworn allegiance to the United States.
“The swearing of an oath of allegiance occurs through the naturalization process, not through his asylum application or his years of living in the United States,” the judge wrote in his decision.
Serrano-Restrepo’s purchases included multiple AR-15s, a Barrett .50-caliber rifle, and dozens of handguns. He insisted to the judge that the firearms were “his collection” and that he had only purchased them “for self-defense.” Those would be great arguments if he were an American! Unfortunately for him, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court (in the Bruen decision) have ruled that the Second Amendment does not apply to people who enter the country illegally.
While the media would no doubt call Serrano-Restrepo’s collection an “arsenal,” most gun-loving Americans would call it “a nice start.” The real question that everyone should be asking is how Serrano-Restrepo managed to purchase all those guns in the first place.
Serrano-Restrepo obtained an Ohio driver’s license, but he was still an illegal alien. Every time he purchased firearms, he filled out Form 4473 and lied on it by checking the box asking whether he was a US citizen. The FBI brags that its background check system is nearly 100% accurate. Yet Serrano-Restrepo managed to pass it every single time he was buying guns in Ohio. They only caught him when someone thought it was weird that he had bought 22 firearms in a single purchase.
Incidentally, this is the same crime that Hunter Biden was going to be sentenced for committing later this month. Joe Biden’s son lied on Form 4473 when he said that he wasn’t addicted to narcotics at the time of the purchase.
The problem is the fact that many states have decided to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, which complicates the issue. If we want to keep guns out of the hands of foreign criminals on our soil (and we should), there are a couple of simple solutions to that that wouldn’t infringe the Second Amendment or require more stringent background checks.
Congress could ban states from issuing driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. That method would be fought in the courts for years to come, and the outcome would be uncertain. The other option that would more likely pass constitutional muster would be to require all driver’s licenses to state whether a person is a US citizen or a foreign national. FFL holders could then refuse the sale anytime they check a purchaser’s ID and notice that they’re not an American.
