He sold illegal AR-15s. Feds agreed to let him go free to avoid hurting gun control efforts

By Scott Glover, CNN
Updated 2307 GMT (0707 HKT) October 11, 2019

(CNN) — For more than a year, Joseph Roh illegally manufactured AR-15-style rifles in a warehouse south of Los Angeles.

His customers, more than two dozen of whom were legally prohibited from possessing a firearm, could push a button, pull a lever, and walk away a short time later with a fully assembled, untraceable semi-automatic weapon for about $1,000, according to court records.

Roh continued his black-market operation despite being warned in person by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that he was breaking the law.

But five years after raiding his business and indicting him, federal authorities quietly cut a deal with Roh earlier this year and agreed to drop the charges.

Why?

The judge in the case had issued a tentative order that, in the eyes of prosecutors, threatened to upend the decades-old Gun Control Act and "seriously undermine the ATF's ability to trace and regulate firearms nationwide."

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