Guardsman Guilty Of Illegally Transferring 'machine Gun' After

[Walter63a]

A drill instructor in the National Guard has been convicted in a Wisconsin federal court of illegally transferring a machine gun after a rifle he loaned to a student malfunctioned, setting off three shots before jamming.

 

The verdict of guilty on one count in the case against David Olofson was confirmed yesterday by the clerk's office in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

 

That means now that anyone whose weapon malfunctions is subject to charges of having or handling a banned gun, according to an expert witness who reports that the particular problem is a well-known malfunction and was even the subject of a recall from the manufacturer.

 

 

"If your semiautomatic rifle breaks or malfunctions you are now subject to prosecution. That is now a sad FACT. I guess we know now what Sen. Kennedy meant when he said he looked forward to working with [Acting Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Director] Mike Sullivan on Gun control issues, after his committee approved him for full Senate vote," Len Savage, a weaponry expert who runs Historic Arms LLC, said in a blog.

 

"To those in the sporting culture who have derided 'black guns' and so-called 'assault weapons'; Your double barreled shotgun is now next up to be seized and you could possibly be prosecuted if the ATF can get it to 'fire more than once,'" he wrote in a blog run by Red's Trading Post.

 

"Hey, but don't worry," Savage said. "The people testing it have no procedures in writing and the testing will be in secret. Also if you know of information that proves YOUR innocence, maybe the ATF won't claim that it's tax information at your trial and prevent YOUR judge from viewing it." :banghead:

 

He told an interview with Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership that Olofson had been instructing a man in the use of guns, and the student asked to borrow a rifle for some shooting practice.

 

"Mr. Olofson was nice enough to accommodate him," Savage said. So the student, Robert Kiernicki, went to a range and fired about 120 rounds. "He went to put in another magazine and the rifle shot three times, then jammed," Savage said.

 

A couple of police officers who also were at the ranged immediately approached him and started asking questions about the "automatic" fire, and he told them it was a borrowed weapon.

 

"Mr. Olofson, being a responsible person, went down to the police station and said, 'I'm in the National Guard. I know what a machine gun looks like. That's not it,'" Savage said.

 

But instead of having the issues resolve, Savage said, it got worse.

 

He reported that because of the malfunction, the rifle was seized and sent to the Firearm Technology Branch, the testing arm of the federal agency.

 

"The examined and test fired the rifle; then declared it to be 'just a rifle,'" Savage said. "You would think it would all be resolved at this point, this was merely the beginning."

 

He said the Special Agent in Charge, Jody Keeku, asked for a re-test and specified that the tests use "soft primered commercial ammunition."

 

"FTB has no standardized testing procedures, in fact it has no written procedures at all for testing firearms," Savage said. "They had no standard to stick to, and gleefully tried again. The results this time...'a machinegun.' ATF with a self-admitted 50 percent error rate pursued an indictment and Mr. Olofson was charged with 'Unlawful transfer of a machinegun.'. Not possession, not even Robert Kiernicki was charged with possession (who actually possessed the rifle), though the ATF paid Mr. Kiernicki 'an undisclosed amount of money' to testify against Mr. Olofson at trial," Savage said.

 

And then during the trial, the prosecution told the judge it would not provide some information defense lawyers felt would clear their client, Savage continued. That included the fact that the rifle's manufacturer, Olympic Arms, had been issued a recall notice for that very model in 1986 over an issue of guns inadvertently slipping into full automatic mode, if certain parts were worn or if certain ammunition was used.

 

Ryan Horsley, who posts the Red's Trading Post blog, said the results were "very concerning."

 

"Basically if your Ruger 10/22, Browning Citori Over and Under or Remington 11-87 malfunction and fire more than one round at a time; the ATF will now consider it a machine gun," he wrote.

 

He told WND he's had personal experience with guns that malfunction and fire more than one bullet. Even double-barreled shotguns, if both shells would be released at once, now could be considered machine guns and illegal, he said.

 

"This precedent is very dangerous," he said.

 

Defense attorneys in the Olofson case couldn't be reached immediately to determine whether an appeal would be pursued, but Savage noted the arguments by assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Hannstad, who handled the prosecution.

 

"Haanstad claimed the law does not exempt a malfunction. He claims that it states 'any weapon that shoots more than once without manual reloading, per function of the trigger is a machinegun.' To clarify when I was on the stand, I asked him, 'Are you saying if I take my Great Granddaddy's double barrel out and I pull one trigger and both barrels go off, it's a machinegun?' He went back to … 'any weapon that shoots…'" Savage said.

 

On the Red's blog, commenters were incensed.

 

"'Innocent until proven guilty' has been transformed by the ATF into 'guilty until framed,' said LibertyPlease. :angry:

 

Horsley also told WND the 2008 edition of Firearms Law Deskbook quotes from a 1999 case in which the court concluded the law on automatic weapons "is not intended to trap the unwary innocent, and well intentioned citizen who possess an otherwise semi-automatic weapon that, by repeated use of the weapon, by the inevitable wear and tear of sporting activities, or by means of mere inattention, happenstance, or illfortune, fires more than semi-automatically."

 

Link: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=59650

Edited January 15, 2008 by Walter63a

[Lancer]

 

For those of you interested........there is more info and discussion here.

 

http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart...2943&Disp=8

[scotty]

This is the single scariest thing I've seen for a long time. The guy is a member on ar15.com so there are 33 pages of threads and lots of insight by him.

 

It sounds like the government was able to keep some documents sealed from the judge and jury that would have strongly helped his case (such as a recall from the gun mfg due to possible rapid fires such as these). It really sounds from it like he got screwed in the case, aside from already having to deal with the gov on this in the first place.

 

Very sad.

[sprat]

How I read this on Strum and Subguns

 

this guy was adding three burst parts to these ar-15's and doing illegal conversions and that the safety/fire lever went to a third position and fired three shot burst, not a firing out of battery as claimed

 

if I am wrong or I read it wrong " I STAND CORRECTED" then yes what happened was a injustice

 

sprat

[scotty]

If this was indeed true, then the kid who received the rifle should be the one in the courtoom, not the person who loaned him the rifle.

 

But I do believe from what the loaner stated, that it was a normal ar-15 and the ATF tested it with soft primers to make it rapid fire.

 

If a kit was indeed installed, they would have charged the owner with manufacturing as well as transfer.

[mp43sniper]

Sometimes I doubt we get the whole story. I am hoping and praying a 3 rd burst kit was illegally installed in this weapon.

 

This type of malfunction actually happened to my brother in law about 10 years ago. We were shooting at a public range on state land, and his semi-AK clone doubled. We looked at each other in amazement and, naturally, tried to do it again. Several hundred rounds later we were stumped as to why it did it or how we could get it to work again. I never went shooting with him after that because he eventually sold most of his guns (my sister doesn't like them) and he's now in Afghanistan protecting our "freedom and way of life" (read story above ??).

 

I've never done anything gun-wise which would put me in a bad spot, so it would certainly suck to go down the river because some LEO decides he's got a big story on his hands. "Yeahhhhhup, I caught me some city slicker with a mah-sheen guwn. Yee haw!"

 

Craig

Edited January 16, 2008 by mp43sniper

[Nick Iannamico]

Please don't shoot anyone, or even joke about pointing a weapon at someone. It could be taken the wrong way and make a few people upset which leads a bunch of shit that no one wants to read, hear, see, vote on etc.... Thanks!!!!

[mp43sniper]

mp43,

 

I'm sure you were speaking tongue in cheek, however even if this happened exactly how these reports read the statistical chance of someone getting into serious trouble would be far less than what would happen if a firearm were to be ever pointed at a LEO.

 

Be careful because in the future your subconscious may take over or someone reading may follow the advice not thinking.

I'd be surprised if they weren't aiming their pistols at the guy, wouldn't you? I'd seriously bet the guy had no chance to aim the rifle at them, and if he had he would've been toast.

 

Craig

[Hawkeye_Joe]

In the late 1960's I was at a local dump where we used to all go shoot. I had my fully legal semi auto AR15 and was doing some "finger-wiggling" fire. I was quickly approached by two BATF agents with weapons drawn who had been on the other side of the hill to my left and asked to surrender the "machinegun" and show them paperwork that I legally owned it. Well at that time there was no way of my legally owning one in SC so that was a trip up question. I handed them the AR and told them it was not fully automatic, to which they replied that they had heard me firing it in F/A mode. I let them field strip the weapon and then handed them a fresh mag and told them to "have at it, it's not F/A and you can't make it fire F/A". They tried.. they really tried....no worn parts, "extra" parts, no slipping to the unmarked 3rd position. After they handed it back to me and walked away I sent off another burst of "finger-wiggle" fire, and when they came flying back over the hill I finally showed them how I had done it.. ..they were good sports about it and laughed...and left me alone.

[FireMerc]

If this event occurred without any modifications to the firearm it could be attributed to a slamfire, caused by the military vs. the more sensitive commercial ammunition primer problem. This is a known problem with some firearms including the AR-15.

 

Slamfire Article

Note mp43 they specifically point out that the SKS is a prime candidate for this to happen to.

 

Scroll to 'Concerns'

 

"An additional point of concern in the design is the inertial firing pin. A lightweight firing pin rides in a channel inside the bolt unrestrained. When the bolt locks forward during loading, the firing pin typically rides forward and impacts the chambered round's primer. In military specification ammunition and quality civilian ammunition, this is not normally enough to fire the round and only leaves a small "ding" on the primer. With more sensitive primers or improperly seated primers, this can cause a slamfire during loading.[5]"

Edited January 16, 2008 by FireMerc

[Mongo]

(I disagree with the laws but there are some unmentioned facts not in these articles)

 

Well there seems to be another side of the story here also.

 

Apparently the gun had all M16 components in it except for the auto sear. ATF in the past has said this is illegal and considered a MG so the conviction would be in line with what they have determined in the past.

 

Now the owner claims the guy he loaned the gun to switched the parts out but they have conversations that possibly have him mentioning the FA nature of the gun.

 

I think the first lesson here is never loan your guns out. The second, don't have M16 parts in a AR15 especially the selector and disconnector.

 

Soft primers have been mentioned many times but they are just talking about standard commercial 223 ammo type of primers not pistol primers in rifle rounds. I think the soft primer issue has been blown out of proportion.

 

There is a thread on ARF where the guy convicted in the story relates every thing along the way but his story seems to change a bit along the way.

 

Maybe Tman can give some insight?

 

 

 

[RoscoeTurner]

Link to a list of prohibited parts in an AR15 - http://www.ar15.com/content/legal/AR15-M16Parts/ Very easy to get in trouble quickly when mixing and matching parts.

 

I do not believe ATF would have brought this to trial if they did not have the evidence to obtain a conviction. I found the court papers on another site yesterday and the charges of manufacturing and selling without benefit of an FFL are a bit interesting too. It will be interesting to see how far down the appeals process this goes. As we say down here, this guy has his ass in crack. I do not believe he has much hope of overturning this conviction.

[Tman]

I'm working my way thru the posts on AR15.com so I will hold off on making any comments until I read the whole thing. I am also going to check the court papers to see what the gov't has been filing.

[scotty]

I'd appreciate if someone can confirm the bit about the illegally installed fa system on the rifle. It would make a big difference in my opinion (and I believe how the case appears).

[762x51]

The AR15 in question was manufactured prior to 1986 before the ATF issued the notice to quit using M16 parts in the fire control group.

 

The selector was not a 3 shot selector but it was free to rotate into a 3rd position. No change in function because of this, much like the semi-auto FAL lower.

There was no so called "3 shot burst kit" installed in the rifle nor was there any evidence that the rifle had been modified.

 

ATF tech branch inspected rifle and found that it was in fact a rifle and not a machine gun. ATF agent then requested that it be tested using sensitive primered ammo and rifle would slam fire using this ammo. The defense was not allowed to have some of the ATF documents presented in court because prosecution maintained that the documents contained "tax" information. For example, they couldn't present the letter from the ATF to the rifle's manufacturer dated in 1986 saying they were to stop using M16 fire control group parts.

 

It is obvious that the rifle was malfunctioning but the prosecution maintained that there was no provision in the US Code regarding malfunctioning equipment and therefor the rifle was now a "machinegun" because it would in fact fire more than once with only one function of the trigger. Never mind that it would only do this with commercial, sensitive primer ammo and not with military ammo which the firearm was designed to fire.

Edited January 16, 2008 by 762x51

[Tman]

I had a case that involved this same issue when I was in San Antonio. I took the gun, tested it myself, and found that it was assembled with M16 fire control parts. I counseled the gentleman to the legalities of his assembly and took a punch and removed the M16 parts and gave him back his gun. End of story.

 

This guy in Wis. has been on the radar since 1994 and the agents were probably waiting for any little thing to get this guy. It is a sad story and I hope he appeals this case and wins. This type of prosecution is a waste of time and resourses that could be better used to put a real criminal in jail.

[PhilOhio]

Congratulations, Tman.

 

Please don't ever resign.

 

But also, please be cautious about sharing your philosophy with too many folks in senior managment before you make it into the director's chair; that is a guaranteed way of not doing it. I learned about that.

 

Having your point of view characterize the way ATF (and any other federal or local agency, for that matter) does business is the way to get rid of this damn gap between "government" and all the folks next door and down the street...what I keep harping about.

 

I feel uplifted.

[Walter63a]

I had a case that involved this same issue when I was in San Antonio. I took the gun, tested it myself, and found that it was assembled with M16 fire control parts. I counseled the gentleman to the legalities of his assembly and took a punch and removed the M16 parts and gave him back his gun. End of story.

 

This guy in Wis. has been on the radar since 1994 and the agents were probably waiting for any little thing to get this guy. It is a sad story and I hope he appeals this case and wins. This type of prosecution is a waste of time and resourses that could be better used to put a real criminal in jail.

 

Thanks Tman!!!

 

You are a credit to your chosen profession (law enforcement) and humanity. I only wish there were many more like you! :hail:

Edited January 17, 2008 by Walter63a

[Walter63a]

Congratulations, Tman.

 

Please don't ever resign.

 

But also, please be cautious about sharing your philosophy with too many folks in senior managment before you make it into the director's chair; that is a guaranteed way of not doing it. I learned about that.

 

Having your point of view characterize the way ATF (and any other federal or local agency, for that matter) does business is the way to get rid of this damn gap between "government" and all the folks next door and down the street...what I keep harping about.

 

I feel uplifted.

 

I'll second that!!!

[Hawkeye_Joe]

It would be nice to see you in the Director's chair Greg. You've got my vote... :agree:

[sprat]

I will again it say if I am wrong about the exchange of parts and the 3 burst components

 

then "I STAND CORRECTED"

 

sprat

[mp43sniper]

This guy in Wis. has been on the radar since 1994 and the agents were probably waiting for any little thing to get this guy.

Thank you VERY MUCH for clarifying this. I originally felt sick to my stomach when I read it. However before I forwarded the link to everyone I know (not that most of them would have cared), I decided to wait and hear the rest of the story. Not surprising to find out what really happened. Although I agree with you it may have been a waste of resources, the guy should've kept himself clean and then he wouldn't have had anything to worry about.

 

Isn't there an old saying - if you play with fire........ :nono:

 

Craig

Edited January 18, 2008 by mp43sniper

[Tman]

Guys,

Thanks for the props. I have no ambition on getting anywhere close to management. I like it where I'm at. On the street, trying to do the right thing. Believe it or not, but there are plenty of folks on the job with the same attitude. You just hear about the bad apples and the stupid stunts they pull. The rest of us just keep our nose to the grindstone and do the job. Usually, and PhilOhio can back me up on this, when management gets involved, things go to shit.

[Mongo]

It is always to hear a voice of reason from inside the Government specially with how the internet tends to blow many things out of proportion.

 

Tman, I think I have met you up at Derek's before.

[PhilOhio]

...Usually, and PhilOhio can back me up on this, when management gets involved, things go to shit...

 

Yes, and that's where my optimism runs into the brick wall. It's becoming harder and harder to attract good people for government service. When you do get that golden few, they are people who are highly motivated, and optimistic, and are inclined to believe the popular wisdom that one person can make a difference, and we shouldn't complain about the state of things unless we personally try to improve them.

 

So they go to work for Uncle Sam. After a short time, or a longer time, they come to accept "the way things are" with the management and manipulation of most government agencies. Many quit after a couple years or so, go private, and will have nothing to do with federal employment again.

 

Others make excuses about having to spend more time with the family, or take over its business, etc. They, too, disappear.

 

The vast majority give up early and just hang in there, tolerating what they have to, just for the paycheck. And that's O.K., I guess. We all have to eat, and kids have to stay in school.

 

A very few are really stubborn about this thing of making things better, no matter what the obstacles. Eventually they come to the impasse, where you realize that it is totally impossible unless there is a miracle and some white knight president appoints you to take over the organization, rip it to pieces, and start over in a clean direction. That was me. I haven't seen the miracle scenario work out yet, in any agency. And we are yet to elect a white knight. Although it appears we may be given the opportunity to elect a red queen, if voters are as stupid as she hopes.

 

Some are made of tougher, more tolerant stuff than I am. They hang around until retirement, strike a few good blows on behalf of all of us, and are philosophical about the whole deal, yet recognizing it for what it is. There are people like that in the military services, thank heaven. I salute them, too.

 

So T-man, we hope you and the guys who think the same way hang in there. I have run into them and talked with a few over the years. It's refreshing, and I understand the life and the frustrations better than most people would imagine. And it does have some big time satisfactions and compensations when you pull off something which really needs to be done, and you stop something bad from happening, even if people on the outside never know it. Life isn't just about pay checks. I'm gonna get all teary if I don't knock this off and go finish the carved grips on my new TOZ 35 free pistol. Ah, those dirty reds did a few things really right. Wish I could also buy a good used MIG-25, along with the money and crew to keep it running for awhile.