Reply #116: We have to figure the risk of capture into the equation as well

[Euromutt]

After all, nobody commits a crime thinking they won't get away with it (assuming they're in a rational state of mind). It doesn't matter how severe the penalty is if you think the cops aren't going to catch you, or even if they do, they won't be able to make the charges stick.

It occurs to me that straw purchasers can not, as a rule, be overly bright, or they have to be sodding desperate, because it's inherently a riskier offense than most, in that if a crime gun is recovered, there is a paper trail that exists that leads straight to you, and once you've relinquished control of the gun to the trafficker, you (as the straw purchaser) have zero control over how it will be used and whether the "end user" will dispose of it in a manner that the cops won't recover it.

But still people do it.