Bush DOJ does it again.

National Guardsman Convicted In Weapon Malfunction: A drill instructor
in the National Guard has been convicted in a Wisconsin federal court of
illegally transferring a machine gun after a rifle he loaned to a
student malfunctioned, setting off three shots before jamming...That
means now that anyone whose weapon malfunctions is subject to charges of
having or handling a banned gun, according to an expert witness who
reports that the particular problem is a well-known malfunction and was
even the subject of a recall from the manufacturer..."Basically if your
Ruger 10/22, Browning Citori Over and Under or Remington 11-87
malfunction and fire more than one round at a time; the ATF will now
consider it a machine gun," he wrote.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59650

 

I don't agree with the conviction, but anyone that puts M16 fire control components in an AR should know better...

 

You must have read something other than the article that was referenced. Please post your source so we can be enlightened further.

 

How exactly is Bush in on this? I dont exactly like every thing about this guy but do you really think he is behind this or what?

This is not new news either the ATF has long tried to push this issue before about 20 or so years ago a guy with a Browning Hi power went full auto and the atf went to work. No conviction but they did keep the gun IIRC.

There are also provisions for broken parts ect. in the "rule book". I know I have read this before. Is there a news paper article or other source for this incident? A lot of this stuff is not adding up and seems really out of place? If possible can any one find another source for this story I cannot seem to find one.

 

There are a couple of threads on this in Legal. Basically the selector switch went to all 3 settings, leaving some question as to exactly what was inside the rifle.

 

It look to me like he took an AR and put on Da' switch with M16 guts.

That's Illegal,

Even if 86 was not a factor it wasn't registered,

Don't do the crime if you cant do the time, or don't loan your friends unregistered FA's.

 

Well "da switch" isn't enough to make it go full auto, I'm sure it was purely a malfunction and the firing pin hit some of those soft primers.

The problem it seems is one of appearances. If you make your AR to "look like" it does full auto, then it accidentally DOES go full auto, they hit you with intent.

You put that happy switch in there, even though it by itself doesn't do jack squat, then they say you "intended" for it to be a machinegun.

A 3 position selector switch doesn't do anything at all functionally, they still had to have ammo with soft primers and try several times to get it to go, but once it did, they claimed it was intended since that silly part was in there.

 

That may very well be but it also appears he had M16 parts (bolt etc) in there as well which is a big no-no.

 

Yep, it looks bad all the way around, no question.

That's why they hung him.

To say that there was some giant conspiracy to make the charges stick may very well be true but the guy certainly didn't help himself by handing the ATF a pile of "intent" arguments.

 

what parts are necessary to make an AR15 an M16, exactly? (note: I am not trying to make an NFA firearm - this is just to for knowledge). I ask this because i know quite a few guys who like to have M16 bolts and carriers in their guns. I also know for sure that they do not have FA, it's more for the owner's satisfaction than for any FA benefits.

so.. should one never use ANY FA parts in their guns? and is this law, or just "good sense"?

 

It's a little of both depending on who you ask.

The ATF Tech Branch sent a letter to Colt basically stating that an M16 bolt carrier itself was not a problem since Colt uses the M16 style in all their rifles.

The letter goes on to issue the usual warnings about not using anything else blah blah....

In the end it will end up in the hands of a jury and you have to convince that jury you were not up to something.

As for doing a proper conversion it takes many parts as well as an additional hole drilled into the receiver for another sear that does not exist in the semi version (that's for a "proper" M16 style conversion).

That said it's certainly possible to do it with fewer parts, the Lightning Link in particular does it with only 2 pieces of sheet metal.

 

I as well don't understand why you pin this on "The Bush DOJ."

If I get a speeding ticket in California, I don't blame "Schwarzenegger's LAPD."

Its ok to not support Bush, but to blame and bash him for thinks he has no responsibility for is inappropriate. No matter what the bumper sticker says, he is everyone's President.

 

I agree BobbyQuickdraw

Its not like the guy did every thing right. Fact is he did brake the law and got caught. Ignorance is no excuse

 

Wow... ignorance abounds.

The ATF tested the rifle once... and found it to function normally. The agent who originally asked for the test then demanded it be tested with soft primered ammo... of course, causing it to double.

The gun malfunctioned! There was no intent to manufacture a machine gun. NONE! It should be obvious that if a lawn mower malfunctions and explodes, it's owner isn't guilty of intent to manufacture a bomb!

 

But the gun had M16 parts in it, so selling "intent" to the jury apparently worked.

 

Back in the 80's Oly arms AR's were for all intense and purposes M16's minus the auto sear and they had a pin in the receiver to stop the selector from going to full auto, all internal parts were M-16, at the time they were made they were legal, but they could slam fire and that was the reason for the recall. Oly arms changed all internal parts to AR-15 at no cost to the customer they even paid for shipping. I still see guns in my shop that have not been changed over, they are rare but not unheard of, many of the owners are unaware of the problem, not everyone is up on the new laws or would even know which parts are legal, In most cases factory ammo would not slam fire but reloads would.

 

I just did a little reading on this subject, using a variety of sources, and quickly discovered there's more to the story than some guy who loaned a gun to a student for a couple of shots.

Legal documents posted on this looong thread make for interesting reading for starters - www.ar15.com/lite/topic.html?b=1&f=6&t=507483

 

Ya know, what makes me mad it we've got armed thugs out there actually commiting REAL crimes and the ATF wants to ruin some mans life over this BS. Gun laws are so stupid.

 

While I severely dislike Bush as well, I'd have liked him and the republican congress to clean up the DOJ/ATF while they had 8 years to do it. IT'll not happen for at least 8 years now. Wasted time.

 

Exhibit No 15: an Alliant Power Bill.

So far (still reading) it looks like the gun club members sold him out too.

The bolt was filed down,

It looks like he was selling guns without a license as well,

In his defense he told the dude at the range to NOT put it (the selector switch) all the way over, dude did and here we are.

I found this interesting too,

Seems to me (unless everybody here doesn't want to listen to me due to my stance on the ATF) that this happened to a High Roader last year, he bought 4 pistols freaked the ATF out and they wanted to talk with them, he went to ATF local HQ chatted and left. And nothing came of it.

 

Yup. It really shows you their motives, doesn't it? (to 'protect and serve' the people or to 'protect and serve' their power...)

 

Have a listen of the Len Savage interview here: http://www.jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/talkamerica.htm

 

The funny thing is it jammed after 3 shots.

 

What probably happened is the guy switched it to the "auto" position, it slam fired a few times and jammed up since it had no auto sear. Just a speculation.