Feds retreat on proposed M855 Ammo ban

For once, the public servants listened when the public spoke in objection to something that they wanted to do.

ATF shelves controversial bullet ban proposal

They reportedly heard from 52 senators and 238 House members and over 80,000 citizens on this issue, and even law enforcement groups said that they didn't call for, approve of or see a need for this attempt to ban a fairly large percentage of the available cheap surplus ammunition for AR-15 rifles.

Of course the Justice Department will have the final say, but I doubt that Obama wants to see that decision made so close to his own desk. We all know that he hates gun owners and wants to get even with a group of people that he believes don't support him, but he likes to swipe at the citizens who he views as his enemies from behind the facade of the bureaucracy, and in this instance, the bureaucracy isn't willing to play ball and take the blame in the face of this populace outrage.

Take a look at the list of House and Senate members who weighed in on our behalf, and if yours are among the signatories, send them a nice thank you letter. And if yours are not...remember next November

A win for everyone, except Obama and the greedy speculators who sucked every round of this stuff off the market and have been trying to flip it at a dollar a round or more.

Note to WV voters: Senator Shelley Moore Capito signed the letter, as did Representative Alex Mooney.
Senator Joe Manchin, the guy who ran as "pro-gun", did not.

Thanks, ATF!

So the letter arrived over the week-end. The Form 1 that I sent in back in April of 2013 so that I could manufacture a short-barreled rifle was sent back to me due to a small error that could have been pen-and-ink changed by the person who flagged it quicker than it would have been to type up the letter of error, put it all in an envelope and address the envelope. Seriously--a phone call would have been much easier for everyone, but alas, that's not how our government rolls.

So I called up ATF's NFA Branch today and got confirmation that the fix needed was as trivial as I thought that it was, and the person that I spoke to also mentioned to me that a Form 4 that I'd sent in at the same time for a suppressor had likewise been returned to my dealer because the dealer did not include a certificate of citizenship that vouched for my US citizenship. Now it's bad enough when I mess a form up--and fair one, I did mess up the Form 1--but when I pay money to a dealer, I'm paying for their expertise and it frosts me when they mess my paperwork up; they do this for a living and should be better at it.

But the ATF guy was a decent sort. He told me what form to download to fix the Form 4 problem and let me send a copy in with the Form 1 since he was working on both applications. Him doing that instead of making me wait for my dealer to get the letter and call me up actually saved me quite a bit of time and hassle and spared me driving 30 miles to my dealers' shop. So credit where it's due, the ATF guy helped me out with the Form 4 problem and walked me through the fix on the Form 1 to make sure that it was what they wanted. That was nice.

But it's still going to be at least three months for the processing AFTER he gets done with it. The examiners are backed up that far. Sigh.

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

When I get to be President, there will be a branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in every community. And they'll be open 24 hours a day, six days a week, just like any other good convenience store.

And they'll also sell coffee, so I guess we'll have to change the name to ATFC.

Great job, ATF!

Associated Press - August 20, 2009 7:45 PM ET

McALLEN, Texas (AP) - A Starr County woman who bought 25 guns, at least 1 of which was recovered at the scene of a shootout in Cancun, Mexico, has been sentenced to more than three years in prison.

Mireya Rivera Juarez, 44, of Roma, bought military-style assault rifles and pistols at various stores in South Texas in 2007 and 2008 that she would later exchange for money with a man she only knew as "El Mano." Federal investigators have been going after so-called "straw buyers" to rein in the traffic of guns to Mexico's drug cartels.

U.S. District Judge Randy Crane said Thursday he could not believe that Rivera was unaware that the shady gun buys were illegal and likely fueling Mexico's drug war.

Great job, ATF! Contrary to what the internet paranoids think, BATFE does not just sit around trying to fabricate cases against law-abiding citizens just to bolster their arrest stats. No, they really spend much of their time investigating violent crimes linked to gun trafficking and cutting off the supply of guns to the real bad guys.

In this case, just one of many like it that they're routinely making, a criminal had put at least twenty five guns into the hands of other criminals, and while one of those guns wound up in Mexico, we really have no idea where the others went or will end up. Maybe they'll end up in the hands of other drug cartel assassins or maybe they'll be used to shoot at American law enforcement officers of even average American citizens in our border towns. We really have no way of knowing.

That aside, with the shortage of fine firearms in America today thanks to the Obamaniacs who are trying to keep you and me from buying them, the last thing that I want to see is shipments of our nice guns going out of the country.

So since I try to give credit where it's due, I wanted to applaud the hard-working investigators and special agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE). I know that you guys are hated by a lot of the nut fringe out there because you are charged with enforcing the gun laws that Congress passes, but this proud American gun owner and his dog know that many of you are as pro-gun and pro-freedom as anyone and that your focus is really on the hard-core criminal element, not us law-abiding gun owners. Kudos, and keep up the good work.

David Olofson's off to jail, and the sun's shining brightly on GOA's lies.

For months now, we in the shooting community have been bombarded with Gun Owners of America propaganda about a guy in Wisconsin named David Olofson who allegedly wound up in federal court because an AR-15 rifle that he loaned to someone "malfunctioned" and fired three rounds before jamming. The story's been bouncing all over the internet, usually on websites dominated by faux patriots and Walter Mitty warriors--the teens and fat guys who can't hack the military but who nonetheless sit around telling each other how they'll rise up and kill lots of police officers and federal BATFE agents "when the day comes". They can be found in large numbers on websites with names like AR15.com, Uzitalk, Falfiles, and a few others. Frankly, it's because of oxygen-wasters like them that I don't subscribe to any of those sites despite the fact that there is sometimes useful information posted to them by other, better people.

The story also appears to stem from Gun Owners of America, and GOA is renowned as the nation's largest fake gun group. It's a scam that basically tricks well-intentioned gun owners into giving large chunks of their money to GOA by exaggerating or just plain making up stories of government abuse of gun owners, and the money goes for little other than supporting the lifestyle of owner Larry Pratt and his kin, many of whom are also on GOA's payroll. The Pratts do nothing more than spam out e-mails and faxes about how the sky is about to fall on gun owners and then they ask for money, claiming that they can stop it. In reality, most of what they spew is pure baloney and any bad legislation that actually exists tends to be not as bad as the Pratts claim and/or stopped by the NRA and other legitimate state and local gun groups. I know better than to believe anything that GOA puts out, and when the rest of the gun owners wake up and start giving their money to the legitimate pro-gun causes instead of the Pratts, then it'll be a good day for our side.

I've never posted about the Olofson case here, because, in addition to the fact that it was put out by GOA, it never passed the smell test. To believe the story--that an innocent man was charged with and convicted of a felony simply due to a mechanical malfunction occurring with one of his rifles--one would have to ignore the very real fact that intent is a required element of the crime charged, and that an actual malfunction in an otherwise legal and unmodified firearm would totally negate that element. Hell, AR-15 rifles will sometimes trip off multiple shots when the disconnector breaks or wears. Every AR-15 shooter knows this. I just had one that was doing it and I casually mentioned it a few posts ago. Does that make me a felon? No. Because I didn't deliberately cause it and I remedied it by replacing the disconnector.

So why was Olofson charged and convicted at trial when I wasn't? Well much of the reason for that can be found in this affidavit (below) that was used part and parcel of the case against Olofson. Clearly if the facts sworn to in this document are true--and there's no reason to assume otherwise, then Olofson clearly modified that rifle to fire multiple shots with each pull of the trigger, and that fact was known by the person that he loaned the rifle to as well. In fact that person--Robert Kiernicki--stated that he knew that the rifle would fire in bursts if he moved the selector switch to the rear (something that cannot be done on any unmodified AR-15) and that he did so on purpose at his gun club, which was how the rifle came to the attention of the lawful authorities. Kiernicki also stated that Olofson's gun "had the extra pin" that allowed it to fire fully-automatically. This would of course be an auto sear pin, and those aren't legal on any semi-automatic AR-15. A hole has to be drilled for one and that's not done by accident either. It's pretty clear that despite GOA's lies about a malfunction to the contrary, Olofson actually manufactured a machine gun and gave it to Kiernicki. And the rifle was subsequently tested by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms examiners and repeatedly fired in automatic mode--sixty rounds' worth without malfunction.

The text is small, but if you click on it, it will get larger.





For what it's worth, I believe the BATF experts, and the investigating officers, both local and federal. In light of what they've testified to, the jury verdict in this case makes sense, as does the judge's sentence: 30 months in federal prison for Olofson, beginning today.

Now that I believe the story, I'll post about about it. I'm sure however that the truth coming out at last won't stop GOA, aka the Pratt rent and grocery fund, from continuing to spam out lies about this case and attempting to raise still more money from people who don't know the whole story. And I'll caution you all to be careful whose cause you choose to support, because criminals like Olofson and scammers like the Pratts give all of us decent gun owners a bad name and ultimately set back our efforts to vanquish the foes fighting to disarm us all.

Don't buy the hype, folks. Read the affidavit.