YouTuber CRS Firearms Found GUILTY

[spencer60]

Sorry, but I have limited cares about these two.

Not that the NFA is anything but garbage, but DIAS are specifically called out as machine guns in FOPA.

If they had printed them on cardboard it might be a 1A thing, but on metal they basically made DIAS.

I have no problem with people poking the bear, but they shouldn't be surprised when the bear pokes back.

If you want to try and fight NFA through a court case, then have deep pockets and some brains. From what I can see these guys had neither.

 

[BIKER13]

where da boobs? waitin on da boobs

 

[GAgunLAWbooklet]

Here's the law itself, passed by Congress:

The National Firearms Act (NFA), 26 U.S.C. Chapter 53, defines the term “firearm” to include a machinegun. Section 5845(b) of the NFA defines “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. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon,

any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.” The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), 18 U.S.C. Chapter 44, defines machinegun identically to the NFA. 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(23).


*****************

So, clearly a Lightning Link or Drop-in Auto Sear "is" a Machine gun conversion part, but does that part exist if it is still in the form of a flat piece of metal merely outlined with some engraving or drawing on the surface of the metal?

I say "no" -- not unless the piece of metal has been further prepared and finished to the point that you can call it a "gun part."

I'm not sure where to draw the line on that but a flat piece of metal that has yet to be cut out, polished and filed, bent at the correct angles etc. doesn't make the cut in my opinion.

 

[GAgunLAWbooklet]

ATF, And apparently the jury, think that because the evidence is overwhelming that these guys intended for their customers to bend these key cards into lightning links, that proves that those parts would be classified as machine guns.

I say that regardless of intent they didn't have any machine gun parts because they weren't machined enough to even be called a gun part.

If I make a YouTube video showing a nonworking Maglite flashlight that I picked up at a yard sale for two dollars, and I announce on camera that while I have no intention of trying to make this mag light work again, I'm saving it in case one day I would like to use the body to build a silencer tube ....

and while I say that I have no idea if I will ever actually do this & I have no present plans to do this, but I want to have the mag light aluminum body available in case I wish to do this in the future....

... is that broken flashlight now a silencer in and of itself???

 

[palmettomoon]

ATF, And apparently the jury, think that because the evidence is overwhelming that these guys intended for their customers to bend these key cards into lightning links, that proves that those parts would be classified as machine guns.

I say that regardless of intent they didn't have any machine gun parts because they weren't machined enough to even be called a gun part.

If I make a YouTube video showing a nonworking Maglite flashlight that I picked up at a yard sale for two dollars, and I announce on camera that while I have no intention of trying to make this mag light work again, I'm saving it in case one day I would like to use the body to build a silencer tube ....

and while I say that I have no idea if I will ever actually do this & I have no present plans to do this, but I want to have the mag light aluminum body available in case I wish to do this in the future....

... is that broken flashlight now a silencer in and of itself???

 

[spencer60]

Here's the law itself, passed by Congress:

(EDIT)
I'm not sure where to draw the line on that but a flat piece of metal that has yet to be cut out, polished and filed, bent at the correct angles etc. doesn't make the cut in my opinion.

That's the problem with this whole idea that the ATF is the ultimate arbiter of the law when it comes to grey areas. Unfortunately Congress gave them that power in GCA '68 when they delegated it to the Atty. General rather than keeping it themselves.

Still, these guys did themselves in. If they had printed it on a T shirt they would never have been charged (1st Amendment).

If they hadn't said things on a YouTube channel like "drop it in your receiver, scratch your full auto itch and throw it away when you're done" they probably wouldn't have been convicted.