By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
A Coeur d’Alene, Idaho man will be spending 46 months in a federal prison after being convicted for unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and this happened more than a year after he was convicted in December 2024 for the same thing.
Perhaps not surprisingly to Second Amendment advocates, the report about 53-year-old Shawn Allen Cline is hardly unique, and it underscores the contention that gun control law, which seem more designed to restrict law-abiding citizens, don’t prevent criminals from getting guns.
What may set Cline apart from others is that when he was taken into custody at his home, police “found him in the garage holding a beer in one hand and a marijuana pipe in the other,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Cline also admitted to having a shotgun, a homemade shotgun, and a pipe bomb, for which he explained, “he wanted to blow stuff up.” A bomb squad from nearby Spokane, Wash., disarmed the device.
As a felon in possession of a firearm, Cline has plenty of company.
A man in Aurora, Illinois is facing charges after police “recovered guns, suspected narcotics and drug-distribution paraphernalia” during a recent search of his home by police.
The suspect, identified as Hector C. Barillas, 29, was taken into custody during a traffic stop. He was wanted for possession of a controlled substance.
According to Fox News in Chicago, Barillas has been charged with two counts of possession of a firearm by a felon, “armed violence,” and several drug-related charges.
Up in Madison, Wisconsin, WKBT reported on the prison sentence handed down to Michael Raskie, Jr. for possession of “an illegal collection of guns and ammunition despite being banned from owning firearms.” This stems from a search of his home back in January 2025 which uncovered guns, ammunition, silencers and so-called “high-capacity magazines.”
Raskie may have company in prison with a fellow Wisconsinite identified as Marvin Coates of Madison. He was sentenced to 71 months behind bars after pleading guilty in March to being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.
Last August, Coates was arrested after he reportedly threatened someone and followed that person home. Video surveillance revealed Coates to have been carrying a T-shirt, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
After police confronted Coates, they searched the surrounding area and found two handguns, a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistol with nine rounds in the magazine, and an SCCY 9mm handgun with an extended magazine holding 28 rounds, the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a news release.
Coates had been convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm back in 2020, and was sentenced at that time to 51 months in prison. He was still on “supervised release” at the time of his August arrest.
Meanwhile, down in Independence, Iowa, KCRG News reported on a local man who was sentenced to five years in prison for “possessing a firearm while on supervised release.”
The fellow in this case is Robert Dettbarn, 34, who pleaded guilty this past January to having a gun when he was arrested n September 2025. He had to be forced from his residence via the use of tear gas. Back in 2018, he was also convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
