Gun sales Feds bust pawn shop

Danny’s Pawn and Sporting Goods Shop in McAllen has been around for a long time, at least going back to the 1980s when I first walked through its downtown front door.

Store Owner Daniel Gallegos, now 67, has undoubtedly worked a lot of long hours running the place, paid who knows how much money in federal taxes over the years, collected sales taxes for the state, provided jobs for a lot of people, and now the feds are accusing him of selling thousands of rounds of ammo to a guy he knew to be an illegal alien, aka, undocumented immigrant.

Hard to make sense out of it. Why would a guy like Gallegos who worked that hard for that many years risk it all for less than $5,000 in profit? Why risk a 10-year prison sentence?

When guys like Gallegos and me reach our mid-60s, every year going forward is like liquid gold. It finally dawns on aging Baby Boomers that the bulk of our good years are in the rear-view mirror, and we do what we can to enjoy the years we have left. Spending time in a federal pen, paying who knows how much in fines isn’t on the bucket list.

I called a buddy of mine who knows the gun business inside and out — such as prices and profits on guns and ammo — who said that based on the federal indictment filed against Gallegos last month, the profit he would have made off of the sold ammo listed in the indictment, which includes approximately 3,000 7.62 x 39mm caliber rounds, and other assorted ammo, including .50 BMG-caliber, .223-caliber, and .308-caliber wouldn’t have amounted to much.

Not when the average profit off a box of a thousand rounds of .222-caliber is about a hundred bucks (the box costs approximately $600). Some guys buy two boxes at a time. It’s not that uncommon. Nor is proof of ID required to buy ammo.

So, for Gallegos to have actively engaged in criminal activity, knowing that there are more federal agents in the RGV than there are snowbirds from Canada, just looking for gun violations (straw purchase — Person A buys guns or ammo for Person B), he would have had to actually convince himself that the risk of prison time, losing his business, was worth a couple thousand bucks.

Is that even plausible?

I don’t think so, but I could be wrong.

There are undoubtedly some decent federal agents down here, but I also know there are some overzealous investigators here as well, and I know there are some over-zealous assistant U.S. attorneys working the RGV beat, unless they’ve already been transferred.

Some of them, I know from personal experience, aren’t looking for the truth. Instead, they’re looking to put another notch on their belt, so to speak.

The problem for Gallegos is what to do now? Risk a trial in federal court that might cost him 10 years in the pen if he’s convicted, or cut a plea deal for two or three years, let’s say, even if he’s innocent?

That’s not even counting the half-a-million bucks, maybe a little less, maybe a little more, that it would cost him in attorney’s fees to battle the feds working toward that federal pension.

I already have reasonable doubt about this case. If Daniel Gallegos, from Danny’s Pawn Shop, was charged with a federal crime that might have netted him a million bucks, two million, for selling ammo to a guy he knew, according to the indictment, was in this country illegally, then maybe the five counts against him might seem more plausible; but to put himself in serious jeopardy for a measly couple of grand after a lifetime of toil, sweat, and taxes?

I’m not buying it, but then again, I've been wrong before.