madmike
Member
Bill Akins is now jumping onto blogs of people who are having ATF problems, trying to attach himself to their issues for sympathy votes.
It's been over a year since his issue. I've had to upgrade my perception of him from "eager and naive" to "conman."
As I see it:
He designed a recoil-operated machine gun that he thought MIGHT sneak through ATF rules.
They sent him a letter that didn't say one way or the other if it was legal.
He proceeded to sell a bunch of devices at $1000 each, that likely cost him about $100 each to make.
ATF did a proper test of his device and realized it was, in fact, a machine gun.
Everyone was ordered to disable said devices.
None of them have a refund (as far as I know). Akins is officially "broke," but kept the money.
All his cheerleaders started insisting this was the death of semiautos as we know it.
Bill is still pushing that line of BS a year later, even though ATF has made NO EFFORT to stop sales of Tac Triggers, Hellfires, or any other bump firers. There's a local guy on Youtube bump firing with a rubber band. He's not been hassled. He's written a letter to ATF inquiring. We'll know shortly.
Well, Bill, when ARE they going to come after the Hellfire that's "identical" to your mechanism? PS: if your mechanism is "identical" to theirs, why aren't you being sued for patent infringement?
All his cheerleaders find it "suspicious" the first test didn't work...yeah, it's also possible it's "suspicious" he didn't send them a properly working model. Doesn't say much for the quality, or his care on the subject. You can bet if I got a letter from Tech Branch saying, "We tried to test your device, but it broke," I'd get them a WORKING ONE ASAP, before I started selling $1000 possible full auto conversions.
I'm guessing he's still got a lot of fans who think he's some martyr for the cause. All I see is a man who was very incautious when he thought he could make a buck, hoping to find someone to front the money to bail him out of his self-made disaster.
I don't want to discuss the "it's a machine gun" "it's not" crap. ATF makes the rules. Insisting that ATF CAN'T DO THAT!!! after they have is pointless.
The question is, has anyone else REALLY had any problems bumpfiring or with semis or other devices for bump firing, or was it only Akins' machine gun?
Near as I can tell, it was the latter.
Frankly, having him show up on all these blogs whining about how he got screwed over, when he could as well have been jailed (others have, for far less), is driving me away from those and making me question THEIR credibility.
At the same time, I hate abandoning anyone to the wolves. It only makes them hungrier.
It's been over a year since his issue. I've had to upgrade my perception of him from "eager and naive" to "conman."
As I see it:
He designed a recoil-operated machine gun that he thought MIGHT sneak through ATF rules.
They sent him a letter that didn't say one way or the other if it was legal.
He proceeded to sell a bunch of devices at $1000 each, that likely cost him about $100 each to make.
ATF did a proper test of his device and realized it was, in fact, a machine gun.
Everyone was ordered to disable said devices.
None of them have a refund (as far as I know). Akins is officially "broke," but kept the money.
All his cheerleaders started insisting this was the death of semiautos as we know it.
Bill is still pushing that line of BS a year later, even though ATF has made NO EFFORT to stop sales of Tac Triggers, Hellfires, or any other bump firers. There's a local guy on Youtube bump firing with a rubber band. He's not been hassled. He's written a letter to ATF inquiring. We'll know shortly.
Well, Bill, when ARE they going to come after the Hellfire that's "identical" to your mechanism? PS: if your mechanism is "identical" to theirs, why aren't you being sued for patent infringement?
All his cheerleaders find it "suspicious" the first test didn't work...yeah, it's also possible it's "suspicious" he didn't send them a properly working model. Doesn't say much for the quality, or his care on the subject. You can bet if I got a letter from Tech Branch saying, "We tried to test your device, but it broke," I'd get them a WORKING ONE ASAP, before I started selling $1000 possible full auto conversions.
I'm guessing he's still got a lot of fans who think he's some martyr for the cause. All I see is a man who was very incautious when he thought he could make a buck, hoping to find someone to front the money to bail him out of his self-made disaster.
I don't want to discuss the "it's a machine gun" "it's not" crap. ATF makes the rules. Insisting that ATF CAN'T DO THAT!!! after they have is pointless.
The question is, has anyone else REALLY had any problems bumpfiring or with semis or other devices for bump firing, or was it only Akins' machine gun?
Near as I can tell, it was the latter.
Frankly, having him show up on all these blogs whining about how he got screwed over, when he could as well have been jailed (others have, for far less), is driving me away from those and making me question THEIR credibility.
At the same time, I hate abandoning anyone to the wolves. It only makes them hungrier.
