Firearms – FIPOF — interstate commerce

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Firearms – FIPOF — interstate commerce

The government sufficiently proved a firearm was shipped or transported in interstate commerce via testimony from an ATF agent without personal knowledge of the gun’s manufacture.

“The agent not only works in Indiana, but her job involves determining the state in which a gun is manufactured (or in which it is not manufactured—because, to repeat, it doesn’t matter where the defendant’s gun was manufactured so long as it was not manufactured in the state in which he possessed it). The manager of Tri Town Plastics’ plant has a different job, the performance of which would be disrupted if he had to fly to remote locations any time a person was being prosecuted as a felon in possession of a gun believed to have been manufactured in that plant. It’s no surprise that the use of expert testimony to prove that a gun has crossed state lines is the standard method of proof of that element of the crime of being a felon in possession—evidence accepted as valid by (so far as we have been able to determine) all courts. See, e.g., United States v. Ware, 914 F.2d 997, 1003 (7th Cir. 1990); United States v. Lowe, 860 F.2d 1370, 1374 (7th Cir. 1988); United States v. Corey, 207 F.3d 84, 92 (1st Cir. 2000); United States v. Carter, 270 F.3d 731, 734–35 (8th Cir. 2001).”

Affirmed.

13-2745 U.S. v. Brownlee

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Miller, J., Posner, J.