Posted on 06/26/2008 9:24:55 PM PDT by Rebelbase
Federal agents raided an armory owned by security contractor Blackwater Worldwide in North Carolina and seized 22 automatic weapons owned by the local sheriff's office on Tuesday morning.......
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Only if the weapon in question was registered/taxed, *before* 1986.
But the fact that these weapons were owned by the local sherrifs' office changes all that. They are the gooberment, and the law does not apply to them. They can own a 155 mm howitzer if they want. If they haven't all been melted down, the steel sold to China to make ChiCom tanks, artillery, etc, there should be a pot load of early models of the self propelled 155 mm M109 series sitting around somewhere just waiting to be refurbished and painted with the logo of your local sheriff or worse your local big city police chief.
Well I guess instead of pens and hats Blackwater could hire Shaq and let the Sheriff have him on weekends. I hear Shaq is lookin for a sheriff gig.
The Sherrif and his deputies weren't there.
Blackwater's employees should have shot the JBT wanna bes. I'd have paid good money for the DVD of that action. Might not need a DVD, it would have been so short that it probably would have fit on a CD as an mpeg file. ;) .
suppose you have to give them credit.... who would have the brass ones to raid blackwater>?
Jerks!
Jeff: Why would anyone care what Blackwater owned? I would hope Blackwater had every weapon used in the Mideast, especiially Afghan and Iraq, to train their men with.
This is political or else some Blackwater VS. Big Brother pi$$in contest.
Harassment raid or not, the BATF has ruled on many, many occasions that the type of deal that Blackwater had going would not fly. You, a private citizen, can not go to your local PD and say ‘Hey, I wanna buy some automatic weapons, can I ‘give’ them to you afterward and claim that they’re yours and use them on the range? Oh, anytime you wanna use your weapons, that’s fine too.’
The reason why this doesn’t fly is not care and control - that’s fine, actually, as far as the BATF is concerned. However their previous rulings have been that if a deal such as this is arranged, a representative of the department must be present whenever the weapons are out.
Which is why a lot of folks are ‘reserve’ sheriffs. They are the representatives, and it counts.
Also, the purchase of the weapons then transfer to the Sheriff’s is likely another big mega hole which they won’t be able to get around.
However, this won’t stand up in court under the most recent SCOTUS ruling - outright bans are not permitted; reasonable regulation is. You can’t reasonably regulate that which you forbid.
My guess though is that Blackwater will just have an employee become a reserve officer and everything will be handled in the back room.
Sounds like a pretty lame bust.
ATF is a convenience store in the US ?
I’m with you ... it is totally reasonable to have a few examples of the enemy’s weapons on hand for training purposes. It’s not like they busted a warehouse full of cases of AKs.
Someone at BATF screwed up ... I hear the pounding of thousands of feet getting closer, attorney’s feet.
Google Waco + ATF and read of thier finest moment.
Although Blackwater's employees are certainly covered by the 2nd Amendment, I think the company itself and it's assets (hardware for war) are empowered and authorized under another part of the US Constitution: The Letter of Marque. This is what allowed the first organized private militias to exist in the form of privately owned warships whose express purpose was to harass the enemies of America on the high seas and allow them to keep any spoils gained by such acts of piracy in the name of patriotism. Blackwater is far more heavily armed than just a dozen AK's stored on behalf of the local sheriff. I'll bet that's what the whole thing was about: Whether or not the sheriff and his boys had adequate storage facilities to house AK's on their own. Possibly whether or not they were adequately trained in their use. That's the primary purpose of BATFE: Paperwork and organized persecution in the name of federal bureaucracy. Blackwater has a fleet of choppers that are armed with mini-guns. They have all the wheeled toys and hardware to make them lethal as the boys who wear our military uniforms.
OTOH, there is a risk of biting the hand that feeds him. This was an action against a local LEO agency, not specifically BW. It's very possible that BATFE called Prince in advance and explained what they were going to do and the BW Boys had the vaults open and the specific weapons already tagged and bagged for pickup. The local papers were then notified who ran the "raid" story.
I hope it would be advertised and reported in advance. I'd buy stock in "DEPENDS" (adult diapers for people with active and uncontrollable bladders) and get rich overnight.
I remember when the price of any Class III firearm, while steep at around 3 or 4 grand was still affordable. Today an H&K MP5 can top 30K after you pay the $200 tax.
the Feds would then have gassed the children. We know that lesson.
Well, the vast majority of Blackwater’s personnel are former Marines and/or Special Forces from the US military. So being trained in the use of weapons shouldn’t be a factor.
I just think this raid was carried out on the same day as the SCOTUS decision by gun control freaks in order show that private groups should not be able to own or possess sophisticated weaponry.
They’d rather we be limited to shotguns and pea shooters.
Did they forget to send their monthly payment to Washington?
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