John Jefferson
Guns owned by Carlos Serrano-Restrepo (The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive/WSYX).
A man living in Ohio illegally who pays taxes and has a Social Security number tried using the Second Amendment as an excuse for the 170 firearms he was caught with earlier this year, telling a federal judge that his “unlawful” arsenal — which included a .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle and multiple ARs — was “for self-defense” and part of “his collection,” according to court documents.
Carlos Serrano-Restrepo’s legal bid was shot down last week in U.S. District Court in Columbus by Judge Edmund Sargus, who chastised the alleged gun aficionado for his admitted weapons cache, saying people “who have not sworn allegiance to the United States” don’t have a right to own firearms, even though Serrano-Restrepo is a taxpaying citizen who has a work authorization card and driver’s license in the Buckeye State.
“Disarming unlawful immigrants like Mr. Serrano-Restrepo … comports with the Nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulations,” Sargus wrote in his Nov. 21 ruling, which was obtained and posted online Saturday by local CBS affiliate WSYX.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was behind Serrano-Restrepo’s arrest earlier this year, with federal prosecutors indicting him for “possessing a firearm with knowledge that he was an alien illegally and unlawfully in the United States,” per Sargus. His lawyer submitted a motion to dismiss the charge, saying he has the right to bear arms as an Ohio citizen who works and pays taxes.
Authorities say Serrano-Restrepo entered the U.S. illegally in March 2008 and filed for an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) from the Internal Revenue Service. He wound up obtaining an ITIN, Social Security number and work authorization card and was paying taxes as the founder of a “successful business,” per court documents.
“According to Mr. Serrano-Restrepo, his conduct reveals connections great enough to qualify him as a member of the national political community and entitled to protections under the Second Amendment,” Sargus said.
But Serrano-Restrepo still entered the country illegally, and it wasn’t until 2022 that he applied for asylum, authorities said.
In his ruling, Sargus argued that our Founding Fathers weren’t writing the Constitution with people such as Serrano-Restrepo in mind. “The lack of federal immigration regulation suggests that the presence of unlawful immigrants in the United States, and by extension their possession of firearms, was not a general societal problem that the Founders addressed in any significant manner,” Sargus said.
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Every time Serrano-Restrepo purchased a gun in the U.S., the Colombia native said he would submit a Form 4473 stating he had “citizenship in the United States” and that he was “neither unlawfully in the United States, nor admitted under a nonimmigrant visa,” per Sargus. A former Arizona resident, Serrano-Restrepo allegedly purchased over 90 firearms between May 2023 and January 2024 after moving to Ohio in May 2022. After one such purchase of 22 firearms, ATF agents started conducting surveillance of Serrano-Restrepo, officials said.
Sargus rounded out his opinion filing by stating that “persons unlawfully in the United States are not presumed to have any allegiances to the United States,” with the legal precedent being to restrict “the possession of firearms by those who refused to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States,” he said.
“The swearing of an oath of allegiance occurs through the naturalization process,” Sargus concluded. “Not through his asylum application or his years of living in the United States.”
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