Matt Opaliski Indicted for Illegal Gun Dealing
According to court documents unsealed Thursday, Matthew Opaliski, 40, of Greenwood was indicted by a federal grand jury last week on three counts of dealing firearms without a license and two counts of unlawful transfer of firearms.
Prosecutors allege the illegal activity took place on several different occasions between last November and earlier this month.
Opaliski, a tea party supporter and gun rights activist who has testified in the legislature on firearms bills, appeared in court Wednesday and was released on his own recognizance pending a Feb. 26 arraignment. […]
Opaliski, who chairs the Delaware Republican Party’s 35th Representative District Committee in Sussex County and has been a three-time candidate for state Senate, did not immediately respond to an email message Thursday. The voice mail system at his home was not accepting messages, and a cellphone number he has used in the past is no longer in service.
All the Sussex tea party officials now in control of the party appartus on the county and district level refused comment or did not return comment. But I personally loved the State GOP’s Executive Director John Fluharty’s comment
“Matt is part of the Sussex County Party structure and elected by folks in his local area,” said Delaware GOP executive director John Fluharty. “I’m sure the Sussex county executive committee will respond to this very difficult situation with the best interests of the party first and foremost.”
Translation: He’s not my guy, and he was elected by you teabagging dolts downstate, so he is your responsibility. But here is what is going to happen immediately: he is gone, and you guys are going to make him gone.
If these charges are true, and if Mr. Opaliski is convicted, then he is now the perfect symbol of the kind of criminal who get guns to people who do massive harm, such as murder and massacres. He would also be the kind of criminal who thinks he is supporting the Second Amendment when in fact he is directly harming it. Mr. Opaliski should stand trial, and if the facts are proven beyond a reasonable doubt, he should be convicted and he should serve time behind bars. Then these federal prosecutors need to check all the illegal weapons he sold, ever, because we know it is more than what is in the indictment. If any one of them were used in violent crimes, Mr. Opaliski should be charged with those crimes as well. In other words, throw the fucking book at him, and every single Second Amendment supporter in this small state and nationwide should agree, and they must agree.
I’m sure “freedom” will figure into his defense. Also, “Obama is a Muslim, close the borders, militia and the Ten Commandments”
Don’t forget Agenda 22, or whatever our plan to allow the United Nations to take over the world, is called.
Word on the street is that he was taken into custody by jackbooted storm troopers.
The culling has started! I wonder what FEMA camp he has been sent to?
Still, on a serious note, it seems Sussex County Republicans have their share of legal difficulties.
They answer to a higher power. In all seriousness – they do not feel bound by civil laws that they disagree with. You see that time and again.
100% true, Jason. Law and order for thee, but not for me.
DD,
Not sure I agree with your take on Fluharty’s statement.
To me it sounds like: “I may be the state party’s executive director but I don’t want to get my hands dirty by touching this mess. Do what you want. It’s OK to follow Sussex County rules.”
Flutey knows that if he says Opski should go, that would guarantee he would be serving as the Chair of the 35th from the Federal Pen.
Shylock sob!
It’s not unlike the stuff that went down with Tyler Nixon. [2A/Pot]-style libertarian arrested for [guns/drugs] by the cops.
They think that what they are doing SHOULD be legal, so they justify it in their minds. Once the cops raid the house, it’s victim time.
Released on his own recognizance, even. While his counterparts in Wilmington get held for arraignment or at least have to post bail.
The difference between this and Tyler Nixon is that what Tyler Nixon did — possess pot for personal use — is about to be decriminalized. What this guy did, not so much.
Hmmm…
source
I should also add that the quantity that Nixon was charged with possessing was almost a pound. That is not considered “personal use” anywhere that I have heard of. It’s 80x the limit for a sale in the Netherlands.
The herb never killed anybody. Guns, on the other hand…
Would be nice to know the details of what he is exactly charged with and how the charges came about.
Facts are helpful before going all, “he’s an arms dealer selling to crazy ISIS school shooters.”
@liberalgeek–pretty much a false equivalence, and I think you really know that.
Tyler was charged with a very technical weapons violation that had nothing to do with transferring firearms illegally or acting as an unlicensed dealer. It had to do with one of the firearms in his collection having what could be considered an illegal modification, and the State was never able to prove that Tyler did the modification or was even aware of it. In fact, the weapons violation disappeared pretty quickly as they got close to trial.
Opalski is charged with trafficking in firearms illegally. Very very different.
As for trying to equate possession of any amount of marijuana with trafficking in the sense that you then try to make that somehow equivalent to a firearms trafficking charge, c’mon, you know better.
I know that both men believe(d) that the laws surrounding their particular crimes (proven or otherwise) are too restrictive and have advocated toward that end.
@liberalgeek: that’s the weakest equivalence argument you’ve ever made.
I notice you ignored the fact that you got the details of the weapons equivalence wrong, and you ignored the fact that you got called out on the false equivalence of your use of “trafficking.” I notice you ignored the fact that ultimately the weapons charge against Tyler was dropped by the State, which means … gee whiz this is still America … he is presumed to have been “not guilty.” So in fact Tyler was charged with an offense (much less than MO) and never convicted, but don’t let that stop you playing your cute little game.
As for the idea that there is a moral problem with disobeying laws you don’t like, thousands of Americans have done so throughout the decades: people who have ignored either Fugitive Slave Laws or Immigration laws to create sanctuaries. Occupy movement people who refused to get permits to squat in protest. People who go to Mexico to purchase medications not available legally here. People purchased illegally scalped tickets, download music videos, or engage in monkey-wrenching for environmental causes.
Your pathetic attempt to conflate the cases of Tyler and MO is exactly that … pathetic.
Bullshit.
Tyler possessed enough weed that he was considered a trafficker. I can’t tell you that he ever sold any of it, perhaps he was waiting for the zombie apocalypse.
Matt is accused of trafficking weapons illegally.
I suspect that you are getting hung up on Allan Loudell’s words, not mine. Both men stood/stand accused of violating laws that they advocated against (Matt for guns, Tyler for weed).
Although, in Matt’s defense, he hasn’t yet tried to scrub the Internet of his arrest. Also, he was theoretically selling a product to someone that he acquired and possessed legally. So if your point is that it is unfair to Matt to compare him to Tyler, you may have a point.
LG I have no idea what Alan Loudell said–don’t listen to him. I’m going entirely on what you said, so no luck there.
And the bullshit is yours: Tyler possessed enough weed that he was considered a trafficker. Great slime. Here, let me correct that for you: Tyler possessed enough weed that he could charged with trafficking. That’s somewhat different, but accurate.
At no point was any evidence ever offered by the State that he had done so.
I know you have personal issues with Tyler, and maybe that explains your willingness to forego logic (you’ve now conveniently dropped all the gun issues with Tyler and are conflating a State drug arrest with a Federal firearms trafficking violation).
I’m quite content to let this stand here. You were the one, apparently, following Loudell, and you were the one with his facts wrong. For a person who has often called out other people for laughably false equivalences, it’s a damn shame seeing you go to the mat defending one.
Seems to me that Steve has fallen victim to the “crimes and criminals I like aren’t as bad” cognitive bias.
jason I like Tyler, absolutely. And Tyler committed offenses and got his sentence and his suspension. That’s not in dispute. In fact I agree with LG about Tyler “scrubbing” the internet.
But where I call bullshit is simply when LG tries to conflate two different cases and gets his facts wrong, then refuses to admit it.
Unless, of course, you’d like to make the argument that he has his facts right.
I don’t have issue with Tyler. The first person that he called on this blog was me.
I quoted (and linked to the source) a post by Allan Loudell. That is the only place that I mentioned Tyler’s gun charge. I posted that paragraph for 2 reasons. 1) Geezer maintained that Tyler’s charge was for mere personal possession. Conservatively, he possessed enough pot that he could comfortably smoke 2 joints a day for almost a year (per the google math I just performed). I admit that I am somewhat of a square and have never smoked a joint, so that’s all I’ve got to quantify what Tyler was busted with. 2) as a previously eluded to, Tyler has scrubbed a good deal of the local Internet of his arrest (including this blog).
If your friendliness with Tyler and possibly your belief that pot should be legal is coloring your view of the situation, you should say so. For all we know, Matt’s crime is that he didn’t run his sales through a third party properly. A technical foul to 2A types.
I like Tyler too. And the thing about Tyler is that, at least as far as I am aware, he was convicted and sentenced, and has served his sentence, and endured the further consequence of having his legal career destroyed. The only equivalence I seek to make is to make sure Matthew is treated likewise.
LG: If your friendliness with Tyler and possibly your belief that pot should be legal is coloring your view of the situation, you should say so.
My friendliness with Tyler: note I did just say that above. And perhaps it causes me to respond more viscerally when you mistake the facts. So be it.
My belief that pot should be legal: nice try. I’ve never argued that because I favor legalization that his possession was not actually a crime. I argued that (a) you mischaracterized it; and (b) the State case was based entirely on amount and not one shred of actual evidence of dealing. Personally I do favor the zombie apocalypse theory here.
But what MO is charged with (IF he is found guilty) is a Federal firearms trafficking violation not a violation of the DE State Code. Even if we assume that Tyler was “trafficking” in marijuana, that’s an entirely different sort of issue than illegally trafficking in firearms. You tried to make them equivalent. That’s my problem with you. You had the facts wrong, and you’ve yet to admit that.
Maybe your feeling that gun laws should be a lot stronger is coloring your views, and it would probably be good to admit that as well.
The fact is that there is really only one standard by which we can go by, the law. Both have been accused of trafficking. You can argue all night about whether the law is brain-dead on how they define the word “trafficking” but in a legal sense, the word has an actual definition in both contexts.
There is an equivalence here. I’ve covered it pretty thoroughly. You can choose to accept it or not. You seem to be saying Tyler was just guilty of having too much of a good thing. I see pot-smoking libertarians and gun-toting libertarians as two sides of the same die. I’m sure there are other genres of them, but I haven’t completed my taxonomy of libertarians yet. I don’t particularly weigh either of possessing vast quantities of weed or selling a legal gun illegally to someone differently.
I guess you do.
It should also be noted that a black guy with the better part of a pound of pot or with a bunch of illegal gun deals would be called a thug on pretty much every conservative outlet imaginable.
Thank you for admitting that you don’t really understand the difference between drug violations and Federal firearms trafficking violations.
I see pot-smoking libertarians and gun-toting libertarians as two sides of the same die. OK just for the record, Tyler is a Libertarian, MO is not; not sure if that’s german to your position, but you’re having fun conflating things, so let’s get that out of the way.
Your only equivalence appears to be (finally) that the word “trafficking” was used in both charges (without any understanding that the noun can mean different things in different legal contexts)–sort of like conflating “justice” with “just us” without the wit to tell the difference.
Oh, and then there’s your observation that both disagreed with the laws under which they were charged. Funny how that works–if people agree with the laws under which others are charged, the law is righteous and the person is a hypocrite. When people don’t agree with those laws, the people who break them are highly moral protestors against injustice. No problem with that until you lose sight of your own subjectivity.
Then there’s there’s your “a libertarian” who got arrested represents all libertarians syllogism, which makes about as much sense as having John Atkins (or even Richard Korn–who was ruined even after having the charges dismissed) represent all Delaware Democrats.
I don’t mind that you want to pile on based on your own beliefs about libertarians or guns or drugs or MO or whatever. What offends me is that you play fast and loose with the facts and then double down when you’re called on it (your last comment is essentially, “this is a libertarian, so I don’t have to worry about the facts”).
I’m done here. You may have any last words you’d like. (Actually, I’d continue, but I’m getting in the car for a seven-hour drive–that’s honesty for you.)
It should also be noted that a black guy with the better part of a pound of pot or with a bunch of illegal gun deals would be called a thug on pretty much every conservative outlet imaginable.
Really, I’m getting in the car now. But so what? I’m not a conservative and I’ve never made that argument or supported it, and it has zip zero nada to do with what we were discussing unless only libertarians are covered by white privilege!?
Buh bye.
My original point was that both men disagreed with the laws that they were charged with. Of course trafficking has different meanings. For one, there is an apparent belief among some that one should be able to buy and keep as many guns as you like. Some people brag about how many guns they own. Some people stock up on pot (apparently). When you have more pot than you can use, the law assumes that you must be selling it (probably because they couldn’t catch some black guy was hoarding like you say Tyler was).
I guess the difference that matters here is that for gun trafficking, you have to actually get caught selling the weapons illegally, whereas for pot, the law made some assumptions that you aren’t willing to make. Fine. Whatever. Tell it to the judge.
I thought that Opaliski ran as a Libertarian candidate before switching to the R’s, but I concede that I could be wrong about that.
But I’m not conceding that both were arraigned for trafficking in their respective vices.
The thug comment wasn’t related to our sub-thread. Enjoy the drive.
Since you don’t know Tyler, and I did, I can tell you that the pot “collection” they found him with was just that — different strains of marijuana, more than a dozen, much like you would have found in one of the medical marijuana dispensaries in LA a few years back. Different strains give different highs.
Just as with the Robert Richards case, what it looks like is easily manipulated if you don’t know the actual case.
There is question that Opaliski obtained the firearms legally that he did possess. He was purchasing handguns from other states which must go through a licensed dealer no exception. Word on the street is Opaliski’s CCW was expired which if true required all firearm deals he did to go through a licensed firearms dealer. Considering all the ads he had on at least 2 Internet classified gun ad sites there is no doubt Opaliski was dealing/trafficking firearms without a license. The PR bail raises some concerns since the indictment was federal who is Opaliski going to throw under the bus to save his own ass. The SC GOP won’t do a thing Opaliski will become the new poster child for them replacing the sheriff of nuttingham.
What would the sheriff have to do with this?
The sheriff has nothing to do with this. The comparison was the same RWNJ’s that supported the sheriff are the ones who are supporting/defending Opaliski. They are the same ones who now rule the roost within the SCGOP like the wanna be 2016 candidate who made the infamous straight shooter video.