The Court disagreed with this interpretation and held that the law cared about the final receiver, which is properly considered the person buying the gun.

Such straw arrangements, the Court held, are different from allowed transfers where a person buys a gun for himself and later decides to sell it.

[citation needed] In a dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the declaration about the ultimate recipient of the gun was not material to the sale, and that it is not included in the information that the dealer is required to keep on the records.

Later, Abramski was suspected of committing a bank robbery,[6] and his house was searched by Federal agents who found the receipt.

[citation needed] The District Court denied both motions,[10] and Abramski entered a conditional guilty plea, where he reserved the right to challenge the sentence.

[11][8] The Supreme Court noted that the Fifth Circuit agreed with Abramski's claim that falsifying the answer to Question 11.a is not considered material, if the true-buyer can legally buy and possess the gun.

Parties supporting Abramski included the National Rifle Association Civil Rights Defense Fund,[9] and West Virginia and 25 other states, while others, like the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and Hawaii and 8 other states (plus the District of Columbia), filed amicus briefs supporting Abramski's conviction.

"[17] The majority found Abramski's theory, that the federal law only cares about the person that is buying the gun and not the final buyer not to be true.

The Court's majority opinion, written by Justice Kagan, held that if you interpret the terms "person" and "transferee," to mean "the man at the counter", you would undermine the purpose of the statutes, which is to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands.

Such misrepresentation is material regardless of the fact that the buyer may purchase a gun legally, and the theory of "no harm, no foul" should not apply.

[20] Finally, the Court rejected Abramski's claim that the misrepresentation is not in violation of §924, because it is not part of what the dealer is statutorily required to maintain on his record.

[1] Additionally, the dissent criticized the government's use of the "agency law" principle to determine that Abramski was a third party's common-law agent for Alvarez.

[26]Although not considered a "ground breaking rule" by some law reviewers,[8] the case received responses from both proponents and opponents of gun control.

He noted, for example, that Hawaii's requirement to register guns hasn't solved a single crime in 50 years, though Lott cited no evidence to support his claim.

According to Lott, the Court "confirmed a horrible injustice, with no understanding of how gun tracing works, and without producing any increased safety for Americans.

[30] However, the case note argued that a narrower reading of the second count was more appropriate, because the statute explicitly requires the name age and residence, and not anything else.