Diversified Machine customer? You've got mail.....

dogtown tom said:

The plot thickens..........

https://blog.princelaw.com/2022/02/28/update-on-diversified-machine-products/

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Saw that.

Im no lawyer, but seems to me that surrendering these either renders those approved Form 1s they were built on unused, or ATF is gonna be owing a lot of refunds.

I emailed diversified machine once. Took 3 weeks to get back to me for a simple question. So I never bought anything from them. Hopefully they become a manufacturer and just sell really cheap silencers that can be taken apart and cleaned.

They are just trying to scare all the other domestic manufacturers into stopping.
Then more will just come over from china.

dogtown tom said:

Not sure what you're trying to say. The feds have been seizing the same solvent traps and fuel filters from China for a couple of years.

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You wouldn't know it.
For every crate they seize it would appear that a whole a shipping container made it through.

Is the silencer part of the NFA looking for a hole to crawl into and die?

Let's hope so.

The NFA has never been attacked like this.
They always hid behind the week USA vs Miller (1939), the case was argued in absentia and no surprise the government won, because jack miller couldn't make as he was already super conveniently dead, just the month prior. Wow.
Since then and until recently the high courts avoided NFA cases.
I think hiding behind that case for so many decades is great, shows how weak the law really is.

MachIVshooter said:

NFA branch really has no idea what's registered to whom. Really. If you lose your stamp and need a replacement, unless it was efiled, you're hosed.

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I can see that 100% but if it wasn’t a helpful service they could provide for you, I bet they could dig it up in a heartbeat.

If they couldn’t there would be little reason to have a “registry”. Everyone would just get a stamp, for something and print off their own forms, for whatever they want.

Texas vs ATF
Does not appear to be going well for the revenuers.
The AFT knows the NFA law is so bad that now they are claiming silencers aren't firearms at all and therefore aren't protected by the second ammendment and filed a motion to dismiss their case.
How does that work? The government passes a very poorly writen law like a hundred years ago making silencers their own class of uber dangerous firearms but, just like that they're not firearms?
If I didn't know any better it looks like the AFT finds losing at all costs acceptable, as long as it keeps NFA challenges out of courts.

I'm sure this will make some people or specifically someone one here very happy.

Put a lawyer on retainer now if you, own a silencer, have an sbr, have or had one of those triggers, have a braced pistol on a 4473 some where, heck even if you have a gun at all.
My goal is to have my lawyer on a $20,000 retainer by 2025.

Everyone should have a lawyer on retainer.
Just advice from my dad who got jammed up in a messy business deal in the 1970s. In hindsight he should have had a lawyer review the papers.
When you don't listen to your elders you are doomed to make the same mistakes they did, even if they are not exactly the same.

I’m hoping to pay off a truck I use daily to make money with by 2025, that cost less.

The False Economy of everyone with a suppressor needing a lawyer is akin to putting on a bee suit and then looking for a hive to bother.

One doesn’t need the bee suit if they only stay away from the nest.

Knowing the law first, and then not breaking it, is the only way.
Even the best lawyer can’t help a guilty man.
(My Dad told me that.)

N555 said:

My goal is to have my lawyer on a $20,000 retainer by 2025.

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There's only one reason a person would keep a criminal attorney on retainer.

I'm 40, been into guns my whole life and NFA for quite some time, and I manufacture & repair silencers for a living. Only legal counsel I've ever needed has been for civil matters; patents, contract law, and unfortunately family law.

And on that note, for those who were unaware, Chris has ended his own life. While he does appear to have committed some legitimate NFA violations, the overzealous Detroit ASAC tried to make an example of him, and it seems that facing significant prison time after having already been stripped of his livelihood and everything he owned was more than he could handle.

The ATF has been going out of their way to turn regular people into criminals.
It's very clear that the ATF goes after who they think can't defend them selves in court.
A few examples:
One, the original auto key card guy. Had no money, had a public defender.
He plead guilty and got sentenced and put together a viable defense team after the fact and last I heard the ATF filed a motion to dismiss the case they had just slam dunk won when auto key card guy appealed. His appeal hadn't even been accepted yet was my understanding.
USA vs Matthew R Hoover
Made it known he had cancer and was in the middle of a life change where YouTube was going to be his sole income and that he was broke for the foreseeable future, next thing you know they hit him with with conspiracy charges with the auto key card guy, coincidence? I think not. He raises at least $50,000 legal defense funds with his YouTube channel, last I heard the case is unwinnable for the ATF and their strategy now appears to be to drag out the case as long as possible and drag Matthew down to Florida as many times as they can to wear him down, as Matt lives in Wisconsin.
Randy weaver, probably didn't have any means to defend him self in court from a charge that would have had more holes in it than a screen door, assuming no one started shooting.
Chris, the diversified machine guy, it was my understanding he took a public defender, hadn't set any money aside for legal defense.
And who remembers the guy on here that got stopped at a DUI check point and they ran his gun serial number and it came back as stolen? Guy did nothing wrong, bought the gun from a dealer like 17 years prior and they were trying to lock him up for probably the rest of his life be cause he had "a stolen gun".
Here it is:
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-s-run-on-your-concealed-carry-weapon.904832/
So because someone fat fingered a serrial number entry for a real stolen gun or at some point an ffl forgot they sold or traded the gun to another ffl the gun got reported as stolen and this guy got jammed up.

No body ever said "man I'm glad I talked to the police and didn't hire a lawyer".
You don't have to put thousands upon thousands of dollars on a lawyer, most have a minimum retainer of $500 to $2,500. But you get what you pay for.

N555 said:

No body ever said "man I'm glad I talked to the police and didn't hire a lawyer".
You don't have to put thousands upon thousands of dollars on a lawyer, most have a minimum retainer of $500 to $2,500. But you get what you pay for.

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Being able to afford an attorney is not the same thing as having already paid a hefty retainer, and if one did get squeezed, I'm not sure it would look too good to a jury when they found out. Normal people who aren't engaged in sketchy stuff just don't do that.

I think it would be much smarter to invest that $20k in something safe and have it available but also earning interest versus sitting in a law firm's bank account earning them interest.

As for the subject of this thread, Yes, Chris was generally a good guy by all accounts, yes, his crimes were victimless, and yes, they definitely went after him hard when similar and "worse" violations by others have often resulted in far softer punishments, but let's not be disingenuous about what he was doing that got him in that spot. We may never know, but based on numerous other examples, there's a very high probability that a cease & desist was sent and disregarded. And given his track record for not responding to phone calls or emails (Google "diversified machine won't respond" or something similar), if other methods of contact were attempted, they were probably also unsuccessful. Other unlicensed individuals I know of who were suspected of manufacturing NFA items received such letters, sometimes visits from local agents, and many of them were simply told in so many words "get licensed or knock it off, because next time you're in hot water". Some of them quit, some became 07/02s. ATF as an agency definitely isn't your friend, especially under the current administration, but you can certainly make things a lot worse for yourself if you give them the proverbial middle finger with some 2A rhetoric. Unless you have some really deep pockets and don't mind being taken into custody for a time, it's generally going to be best to offer a reasonable level of cooperation if they're after you. No different than the people who get pulled over for a simple moving violation and wind up going to jail because they were hostile and went on some diatribe about their rights and they don't have to show ID, where's the warrant, this is going on youtube, get a supervisor here, etc. You may well be in the right, but is it worth it? Might beat the rap, won't beat the ride.

If they ask how much retainer or why you hired an attorney beforehand, request council. Obviously.
And that's exactly what they want. For you to not have a lawyer until you need one.
You are much better off having one even on minimum retainer than being broke in jail trying to find one.
20k is play money. Every year millions of people flush tens of thousands of dollars buying new cars.
The "won't show ID" people are stupid. That has went all the way to the Supreme Court several times and every time they rule people are to show ID when asked by authorities.

N555 said:

that's exactly what they want. For you to not have a lawyer until you need one.

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Again, unless you're involved in shady stuff, no reason to anticipate needing one, and it's not like they can just proceed with interrogations and prosecution with you pro se because you didn't have counsel retained beforehand.

You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you.

You say "Laywer", any questioning has to stop until counsel is present. Otherwise, fruit of the poisonous tree. They could get a confession out of a serial killer, locations of bodies, and the whereabouts of the murder weapon with his name engraved on it, and it would all be inadmissible if it was obtained without counsel present after counsel had been requested.

That very thing happened in my county a few years back with one of the very few murder cases to have ever occurred here. Detectives failed to properly mirandize the suspect, the confession and murder weapon were thrown out. The case was very nearly dismissed. I read the judge's decision, and it was correct jurisprudence. He didn't want to rule that way; he had to.

Diversified machine had a public defender.
The auto key card guy had a public defender, pled guilty and got sentenced, assembled a real defense and now atf wants the case dismissed.
To me it's pretty clear how effective public defenders are.
This guy did nothing wrong and the DA wanted to lock him up for probably the rest of his life.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-s-run-on-your-concealed-carry-weapon.904832/
So "don't do anything shady and nothing will happen" is clearly just wishful thinking and not representative of reality.

dogtown tom said:

This is a great example of why YOU need to keep an attorney on retainer. Thats because you don't know what you are talking about, again.
1.The USSC has never issued a blanket ruling that "people are to show ID when asked by authorities." Simply. Hasn't. Happened.
2. There is no federal law that requires such.
3. In Terry v. Ohio, the USSC ruled it constitutional for police to temporarily detain a person based on an articulable reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, and that police could search that person for weapons, but only if they had a reasonable belief that the person has weapons on them.
4. In Hiibel v 6th District Court of Nevada the USSC ruled that a STATE LAW requiring a person to ID themselves after a valid Terry stop did not violate the Fourth Amendment. That ruling requires that the state statute first require reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. This ruling only applies to states with a "stop & identify" law.
5. Less than half the states have such a "stop & identify" law.
6. Some states have "stop & identify" laws that pertain only to motorists. Texas is one.

There are literally DOZENS of YouTube videos showing police illegally detaining people because they wont give their name when the officer asked. Sometimes that person files a lawsuit and gets paid.

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Oh you came back for more.
Chances are I would be in Texas so what I said is correct. If I get challenged by some TX authority show ID, don't play stupid sovereign citizen games.
So your point is to confirm everything I said?