Posted on 07/04/2008 10:54:38 AM PDT by neverdem
'The conviction of David Olofson is a gross miscarriage of justice'
A Wisconsin man today surrendered to federal authorities to begin serving a 30-month prison term for having a broken rifle, prompting the Gun Owners of America to issue a warning about the owner's liability should any semi-automatic weapon ever misfire.
"A gun that malfunctions is not a machine gun," Larry Pratt, executive director of GOA, said. "What the [federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] has done in the [David] Olofson case has set a precedent that could make any of the millions of Americans that own semi-automatic firearms suddenly the owner [of] an unregistered machine gun at the moment the gun malfunctions."
Officials with Gun Owners of America told WND they met with Olofson today before he surrendered to federal authorities for his prison term. U.S. District Judge Charles Clevert had imposed the sentence after the gun in question let loose three shots at a firing range.
"It didn't matter the rifle in question had not been intentionally modified for select fire, or that it did not have an M16 bolt carrier … that it did not show any signs of machining or drilling, or that that model had even been recalled a few years back," said a commentary in Guns Magazine on the case against Olofson, of Berlin, Wis...
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Bad news from Wisconsin.
Hadn’t read the affadavit, thanks for posting it.
Couple notes: eBay has a pretty strict ‘no-firearms’ policy, so that part of it is BS. ‘other firearms’ including the satellite-killing ‘50 caliber sniper rifle’ are irrelevant to the complaint. It’s ‘vise grips’, not ‘vice grips’ - one would think they would have someone with a good command of the language proofread those complaints before entering them...
Anyway, the guy was not too bright messing with an AR and putting ANY FA components in it. Not to mention loaning it out. He should get a fine and lose the firearm, but 30 months is (IMO) a little out of line with the ‘crime’ especially when you see violent criminals doing far less time.
Did ya mean to hit post 1?
Back in the day you could buy “drop in auto sears” for AR15 type rifles. To convert the AR15 to selective fire all you had to do was replace the hammer, trigger, disconnect, selector,and the bolt carrier, with M16 components add the auto sear which required no modification to the receiver. The ATF soon classified the “auto sear” as a machinegun which had to registered itself. Anyway a lot of AR15 types are still around with the M16 components left in the lower receiver. If you move the selector to AUTO the hammer will follow the bolt carrier forward and possibly slam fire or “double.” The definition of a machinegun in Federal law is any firearm that will fire more than one round with one pull of the trigger. With some difficulty this individual’s AR15 was made to double and he was convicted of illegally transferring a machinegun.
ping
That would be the BATFE.
WHY did he turn himself in? Why not go to Canada, or Mexico?
Thanks for clearing this up... it appears that the guy really was a jerk and was just asking for it...
From your link, the 3rd and 4th down on the signers list are direct ancestors of mine.
He didn't violate any laws that are in conformance to the Second Article of Amendment to the Constitution.
But notice two that the third position is supposed to be 3 round burst, yet when tested it emptied the magazine. That's the symptom of slam fire, not controllable automatic fire, let alone 3 round burst fire.
What the affidavit doesn't mention is that the first test, with the gun properly lubricated and normal "hard" primers, the gun would not fire more than one shot with a single trigger pull. Then the second BATFE test, with heavy lubrication and soft primers produced the 20 round burst behavior. Again the sign of slam fire or similar malfunction.
He may have violated BATFE regulations, if he put in an M-16 selector, but that alone does not make a weapon fire more than one round with a single pull of the trigger, the legal definition for a machine gun.
A stock factory AR15 was modified with an M16 selector at the very least, and quite likely other parts changed or modified.
Affidavit doesn't say that, and they had the gun to examine.
“..”What mattered was the government’s position that none of the above was relevant because ‘[T]here’s no indication it makes any difference under the statute. If you pull the trigger once and it fires more than one round, no matter what the cause it’s a machine gun.’..”
This is the kind of shyster reasoning that makes the Goverment, particularly the BATF, hated.
Wrong
The action was probably gummed up and it misfired, causing two cartridges to fire.
I’m pretty sure the guy didn’t have a Happy Switch on it.
And again, wouldn’t the lower have to be a different size to accept an autosear?
“And again, wouldn’t the lower have to be a different size to accept an autosear?”
No.
xDGx, nice catch!
eBay to Ban Auctions of Firearms, February 19, 1999
In comment# 14, you will find Jody M. Keeku's Affidavit In Support Of Criminal Complaint. Item# 16 alleges the eBay activity.
The forum is kind enough to link a copy of The Declaration of Independence. I read it yesterday after posting it on one of my threads. I try to read it at least once a year. It's too bad that King George III wasn't brought to justice.
If you never read The Flushing Remonstrance, have at it. I linked it in comment# 1. Happy Fourth of July!!!
By the BATF's definition, would not most double-barrel shotguns qualify as machine guns? After all, by their definition, something that can be readily modified to be a machine gun is a machine gun, and most double-barrel shotguns could easily be so modified (e.g. two-trigger models could be made to fire twice with one trigger pull by simply fastening the triggers together).
Thank you
Thank you for the informative post. I do remember the borrower was warned not to turn the selector to the third position. I didn’t know it has an installed M-16 selector.
Huh? What do you think a 3 position selector is? I guess you think every statement about a 3 position selector in the affidavit is a lie. Most of the absolutists think the affidavit is a total lie, all the Feds and LEO's lied, and the few that don't think it's all a big lie believe that Olofson did nothing wrong anyway.
You don’t think it’s strange the BATFE had to make the rifle intentionally slam fire, by using too much lubrication and soft primers?
And what’s this about ‘absolutists’? You don’t believe the Second Amendment to be absolute?
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