“What this means is you take that pin out, I’m telling you you’re in trouble with this gun,” Tretola told the officer.

"There's no question that Mr. Tretola knew what he was doing,” said Rice. “He knew exactly what the state of the law is here in New York state, and was selling weapons and giving people the information they needed to violate the law."

According to Rice, an assault weapon is defined as a semiautomatic rifle that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least two additional characteristics, including a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon, a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor and a grenade launcher.

"These are assault weapons,” said Rice. “These are combat weapons, and that is what they are intended to be used for and they have no place here."

According to Rice, the stores represent five of the 11 gun shops in Nassau County that have federal firearm licenses. “You're talking about almost half of the gun shops here in Nassau County engaging in illegal behavior,” said Rice.

In two instances, she said, residents bought illegal weapons from the stores, were arrested and later returned to the stores to inform the owners that they had been arrested. Despite this, Rice alleged that the storeowners continued to sell the illegal guns.

Rice said that, if the storeowners underwent the appropriate procedures and recorded information for the people to whom they sold the guns, investigators should be able to track them down. As of now, neither Rice nor New York State Police senior investigator Joseph DeMaria could say whether any of the guns sold have been used in further illegal activity.

"This is something that we are going to continue to be very aggressive about here in Nassau County,” said Rice.