I’m thinking we’re missing something here....
Yep. The other side of the story..
I hope so. If not, this is a travesty of justice.
He must have been seen voting Republican, otherwise no harm no foul
I used to know an ATF agent. One day he told me that they had to confiscate a full-auto from an old vet. He’d had the gun for decades and someone called him in.
My friend was actually sad because of what they had to do. They had two choices, destroy it or put in in the agents only ATF firearms Museum.
TO get jail time, there’s got to be more to the story.
Ownership of Full Auto Machine Guns are governed by two federal laws:
The National Firearms Act passed in 1934
and
the Firearm Owners Protection Act passed in 1986
Bottom line...this guy owned an illegal full auto machine gun.
This article shows that BATFE has zero tolerance regarding illegal full auto machine guns. Penalties are steep and you will be prosecuted.
The article linked below covers the subject quite well and is worth reading.
I carried an M-14 in basic training in 1966. As I recall, you had to have a special tool to change an M-14 to full auto. We were never issued any such tool. M-16 was all I ever carried that only required flipping a switch to auto-fire.
BATFE are just another collection of JBTs who prefer a disarmed public; of course, smuggling illegal weapons to Mexican drug lords, well, that’s another story.
Like why it took 38 years for BATF to get to him on their list? Or maybe they had a drug dealer in need of one and the BATF inventory was low.
M14s were never sold as government surplus. There were some M14 from private contractors, winchester & h&r, that became transferable mgs. This obviously was not one of those. I wonder if it being contraband govt property has anything to do with the severity of the penalty. Still pretty ridiculous. Confiscation seems a more just remedy.