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What kind of a people are we, when, as a jury, and confronted with the fact that a weapon broke down and misfired, we go along with the government and call it a machine gun and send the defendant to prison?
I smells a rat. I need more info.
Me too.
Like what, for instance?
Automatic gun transfer nets prison sentence - JSOnlineI need to find out where I can read about the case, I don't expect transcripts but is there a place I can read the court's decision?
Automatic gun transfer nets prison sentence - JSOnlineI need to find out where I can read about the case, I don't expect transcripts but is there a place I can read the court's decision?
Kiernicki testified Olofson told him the third position was for automatic firing, but it jammed, court records indicate. He also testified Olofson told him he had fired the weapon on the automatic setting at that same range without a problem, according to the records.
A search of his home turned up books on converting rifles to fully automatic, and e-mail on his computer showed he bought M-16 parts, records show.
Olofson had contact with vigilante groups and professed to be part of the sovereign movement, which doesn't acknowledge federal laws as applying to them, Haanstad said.
Quite the charmer, eh?I think that's hearsay. If it was admitted as evidence then there must be an inclusionary rule at work here. In my jurisdiction it is entirely possible to have hearsay admitted (with the appropriate weighting) but some fairly tight rules have to be adhered to.Kiernicki testified Olofson told him the third position was for automatic firing, but it jammed, court records indicate. He also testified Olofson told him he had fired the weapon on the automatic setting at that same range without a problem, according to the records.
That evidence could possibly be admitted here under the similar fact evidence rule. It shows a propensity.A search of his home turned up books on converting rifles to fully automatic, and e-mail on his computer showed he bought M-16 parts, records show.
Reality check.Olofson had contact with vigilante groups and professed to be part of the sovereign movement, which doesn't acknowledge federal laws as applying to them, Haanstad said.
Okay, that's a bit better.
Quite the charmer, eh?
Lou Dobbs never presents all the facts, I've noticed.Quite the charmer, eh?
I'm not surprised the ATF built a case. I admit I was a bit nonplussed at first. The more I read about it the more I'm un-nonplussed.
Lou Dobbs never presents all the facts, I've noticed.Quite the charmer, eh?
I'm not surprised the ATF built a case. I admit I was a bit nonplussed at first. The more I read about it the more I'm un-nonplussed.
Quite the charmer, eh?I think that's hearsay. If it was admitted as evidence then there must be an inclusionary rule at work here. In my jurisdiction it is entirely possible to have hearsay admitted (with the appropriate weighting) but some fairly tight rules have to be adhered to.Kiernicki testified Olofson told him the third position was for automatic firing, but it jammed, court records indicate. He also testified Olofson told him he had fired the weapon on the automatic setting at that same range without a problem, according to the records.
That evidence could possibly be admitted here under the similar fact evidence rule. It shows a propensity.
Reality check.Olofson had contact with vigilante groups and professed to be part of the sovereign movement, which doesn't acknowledge federal laws as applying to them, Haanstad said.
Okay, that's a bit better.
Which has exactly nothing to do with whether the weapon was an automatic or not.
Which has exactly nothing to do with whether the weapon was an automatic or not.
No, it's much more complex, it actually goes to the veracity of the charge against the defendant but please do continue to take a laughingly simpllstic approach to cases like this.
Okay - on the face of it this is a fit-up on this bloke. If there isn't more to it than what appears in the linked article then this stinks.
Neither Olofson nor his friend was charged with possession of an unregistered machinegun or with illegally manufacturing, modifying, or otherwise making a machinegun. Obviously ATF did not believe they could convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Olofson or his friend had intentionally altered the rifle to fire full-auto so they prosecuted on the easier charge of transferring. Everyone agreed that the gun belonged to Olofson and that he had loaned it to his friend. That meant that the only issue in question in the case was whether the gun was a machinegun. Since ATF is the final arbiter in determining whether a gun is a machinegun, and the law defining machineguns tends to be selectively interpreted by them, the government had a distinct advantage.
As a matter of fact, when the ATF Firearms Technical Branch (FTB) examined the rifle they concluded that it was not a machinegun. They did find that if the Safety switch was moved beyond its normal range of motion, the gun would fire once and jam, leaving a loaded round in the chamber. They determined that moving the Safety in such a way interfered with the trigger disconnector causing the hammer to follow the bolt as it returned to battery rather than being stopped by the sear; a fairly common malfunction known as hammer-follow.
At the request of the local ATF agent, the FTB tested the gun a second time using a brand of .223 ammunition known for having sensitive primers. Those tests resulted in intermittent, unregulated, automatic fire and jamming due to hammer-follow, but this time the FTB concluded that, under strict interpretation of the law, the gun’s malfunction did make it a machinegun.
The cornerstone of this charge is the government’s contention that it doesn’t matter whether a gun fires multiple shots as a result of malfunction or modification because the law defines a machinegun as; “… any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” While on the witness stand, firearms expert Len Savage asked the Assistant US Attorney prosecuting the case if that would make his grandfather’s old double-gun a machinegun if it malfunctioned and fired both barrels with one pull of the trigger. The AUSA responded by paraphrasing the legal definition of a machinegun with emphasis placed on “any weapon which shoots… more than one shot… by a single function of the trigger.”
In the Olofson case, the government entered into evidence a tightly edited video clip of one of their testers firing Olofson’s gun for a relatively long full-auto string. The cyclic rate was estimated to be near 1700 rounds per minute, more than twice that of a properly regulated M16. The shooter clearly understood the danger involved as he was holding the firearm well away from his face and body in obvious fear that the rifle would break apart at any moment.
At the government’s insistence, the court refused to allow Olofson’s firearms expert to physically examine the gun; he was only allowed to observe as an ATF employee took the gun through a function check and opened the action to his view. What he saw were standard, unaltered components of the same type and configuration that were included in this particular brand of rifle from the factory over two decades ago; parts that are known by ATF to produce exactly the type of malfunction noted and in response to which ATF had once ordered a safety recall.
Enter Len Savage (See Failing the Test, July 2005), President of Historic Arms, LLC, brought in by Olofsons defense to testify the automatic fire was not by design or intent, but rather by mechanical failure, and that the firearm in question was simply a semiautomatic rifle that needed to be repaired.
The opposition would have none of that. Savage was not permitted to personally examine the rifle not even to touch it. He was required to observe as the ATF officer opened it for inspection. His professional credentials were challenged by the prosecution, who wanted his testimony excluded, even though Savage is a firearm designer by profession, and the governments expert witness received all of his training in the 2-1/2 years hed been with the bureau. Then the prosecution reneged on its pledge not to sequester witnesses, and had Savage removed from the courtroom so he could not hear the governments testimony.
So in the end, it didnt matter this was merely a case of a hammer follow.
It didnt matter the rifle in question had not been intentionally modified for select fire, or that it did not have an M16 bolt carrier or sear, that it did not show any signs of machining or drilling, or that that model had even been recalled a few years back.
It didnt matter that, when asked if hed test fired the gun, Savage testified From my examination and from what I saw on the [ATF test] video I wouldnt want to attempt it the video shows the guy who was shooting it was so afraid to fire it from the shoulder he had to hold it out in front of him. So he knew it was dangerous.
It didnt matter the government had repeatedly failed to replicate automatic fire until they replaced the ammunition with a softer primer type. It didnt even matter that the prosecution admitted it was not important to prove the gun would do it again if the test were conducted today.
What mattered was the governments position that none of the above was relevant because [T]heres 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 its a machine gun.
No matter what the cause.
