FBI and BATF should invesigate subject of CBS report, says CCRKBA

Yesterday Alphecca commented on this CBS report:

The gunrunner's name is Florin Krasniqi, and he is seen providing a new shipment of weapons to Albanian rebels, who are about to smuggle them over the mountains into Kosovo. After a few days' journey on horseback, the guns will end up in the hands of a guerrilla force known as the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has been fighting for independence from Serbia for nearly a decade.

Krasniqi took these guns to his family's home in Kosovo. Most of them were easy to get in Albania, but not the .50-caliber rifles. 'This is, we get from the home of the brave and the land of the free, as we would like to say,' says Krasniqi, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Krasniqi came to America in 1989. He was smuggled across the Mexican border in the trunk of a car with just $50 in his pocket. Today, he's an American citizen, and the owner of a highly successful roofing business.

'This is what I do for a living,' says Krasniqi. 'This is how we earn the money in New York. There's a large Albanian-American community in the New York City area.'

Now from Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms:

Following the broadcast of its latest attack on American firearm laws and .50-caliber rifles by the CBS newsmagazine "60 Minutes," the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today called on the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to investigate the subject of that report, identified as Florin Krasniqi.

In his report, CBS' Ed Bradley acknowledged that Krasniqi entered the United States illegally from Mexico "in the trunk of a car" and that he is now a U.S. citizen and "highly successful" businessman. Krasniqi admitted on camera that he has also smuggled firearms purchased in this country for use by Albanian guerilla fighters, an act that may be illegal under U.S. export laws.

"We know why CBS reported this story," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. "They and other news organizations have declared war on the American firearms industry, because a vote is coming soon to protect gun makers from harassment lawsuits by grandstanding anti-gun politicians.

"They are also trying to influence legislation that would ban .50-caliber sporting rifles," he continued, "by falsely alleging that they could bring down commercial airplanes, and are a 'terrorist weapon'. If that's true, then they have Krasniqi on camera admitting that he supplied these guns to rebel fighters in Kosovo. Are these people terrorists?

"More importantly," Gottlieb observed, "CBS is continuing its tradition of attacking American firearms laws, portraying them as too weak to prevent lawbreakers from getting firearms. In reality, America has abundant gun laws, but they are designed more to trip up and penalize law-abiding citizens, rather than catch genuine criminals. As it stands, we're not certain Krasniqi isn't a lawbreaker, and that's why we think the authorities should investigate this man instead of allowing CBS and the Public Broadcast System to make him into some kind of hero.

"If this guy is running guns from America to a part of the world in turmoil, and doing it in violation of various federal and state gun laws," Gottlieb said, "he's hardly a hero."