Posted on 11/29/2001 1:35:24 PM PST by t-shirt
Raid nets 35,000 rounds of ammo
Agents seize 9 guns, explosives material from militia figure By Ty Tagami
November 29, 2001
Herald-Leader
Federal agents who raided the home of a militia leader in Garrard County on Monday walked away with nine guns, five plastic bags containing ingredients for explosives and more than 35,000 rounds of ammunition, according to federal court documents released yesterday.
The officers also seized Charles N. Puckett's computer.
Puckett says he is the commander of the Kentucky State Militia, a civilian paramilitary group that experts think is one of the most active in the country. Puckett said he suspects the government is looking for information to link him to a former member who became a fugitive in October.
Police have been looking for Steve Anderson ever since a Bell County sheriff's deputy said Anderson shot at him. Anderson, whom Puckett said was kicked out of the militia last spring, disappeared into the Eastern Kentucky woods, and has not yet been found.
``I got a sneaky feeling that's what this thing is all about,'' Puckett said yesterday.
But the officer in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents who conducted the raid said it had nothing to do with the militia.
``The focus on this is on an individual who was prohibited from having firearms and nothing more,'' said Carl Vasilko, of the Lexington ATF office. ``This is not in any way related to the militia.''
The ATF conducted the raid because Puckett is a felon, and it has been illegal for felons to possess firearms since 1968.
Puckett, 55, had a permit to carry a concealed firearm that was revoked not long before the raid, Vasilko said.
It's unclear how Puckett was able to get the permit. The Kentucky State Police approve permits after conducting criminal background checks on a federal computer network. A state police spokesman referred questions about Puckett's permit to a records office, which does not release information without written applications that can take several days to fill.
Puckett said he applied for the permit five or six years ago. He said he called the ATF yesterday to ask for his guns back, and an agent told him to get a lawyer.
The ATF has not decided whether it will bring charges, Vasilko said. He couldn't say how long the investigation will take.
The U.S. attorney's office, which would prosecute any charges, said yesterday that it disagrees with Puckett's contention that he was not subject to a federal law passed in 1968 that banned felons from possessing guns. He said he was grandfathered in because he was convicted in 1966 for breaking into and stealing from a Virginia grocery store.
However, Frances Catron, the first assistant U.S. Attorney, said through a spokesperson that ``we are quite confident that federal firearms laws apply to any convicted felon regardless of when their offense was committed.''
Reach Ty Tagami at (859) 231-3414 or ttagami@herald-leader.com.
It is clear from the article that the ATF is violating the law and Constitution by using a felony that was committed before the 1969 Gun Control Act was passed to deny this man his Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
No Expost Facto Law is Constitutional or legal.
Defend the Second Amendment.
The ATF is going after this guy (percuting him) for his political activism.
The "militia" he started with others was the main political actist groups which stopped the Kentucky and Tennessee governments from setting up a massive enviro-NAZI UN Biosphere Reserve in 20-some counties along the Tennessee/Kentucky border. The plan called for relocating all the people from those counties and re-wilding the land.
This group is also very active in stopping encroachments by the government on property rights and Second Amentment Rights from being "snuck" past the legislature.
You've posted some over-the-top Bravo Sierra before, but this one takes the Chalupa Grande!
You don't believe the government has been trying to "rewild" and remove roads from numerous areas throughout the country?
I suppose you've never heard of the roadless intiatives being enacted against citizens in the West and SouthWest either?
You belief system on guns doesn't change the expost facto laws prohibition contained in the Constitution.
And comparing it to drinking and driving laws doesn't change it either.
Megan's Law (mandatory notification) applies to those convicted of sexual predator-type felonies prior to the law being passed. The courts say it's legit.
Also, California's three-strikes law applies to those who had one or two felonies prior to the law's enactment. It has withstood court challenges.
Both of these involve "ex post facto" restrictions/requirements on felons.
5 posted on 11/29/01 2:47 PM Pacific by mbb bill
But yes, meanwhile mbb bill we must disarm the citizens....we wouldn't want them stopping or shooting any would be terrorists, now would we?
A challenge to Megan's Law was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.
As for the three-strikes law, that's winding its way through the courts in California, but it's survived thus far.
``we are quite confident that federal firearms laws apply to any convicted felon regardless of when their offense was committed.''
Do we want this law changed even though in this case one of the "good guys" has been snared by it?
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