Bob Stewarts gets a win in the 9th...

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0210318p.pdf ^

[BCR #226]

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0210318p.pdf

The 9th Circuit court has ruled on the Bob Stewart case. I'm not sure how this will effect the 1986 MG ban. Please see the link. It is a PDF file and I was unable to copy the text.

Mike

[BCR #226]

Is this a win for us or is it meaningless?

Mike

[theDentist]

This was a case about whether a person can possess a home-made machine gun.

[MindBender26]

VERY INTERESTING. Court held that a homemade machinegun, where the owner made it or much of it himself, (parts did not cross state lines) with no demonstrated intent to sell across state lines, did not reach level of interstate commerce, therefore federal ban on machineguns did not apply! (2/1 decision.)

Major decision!

Def still convicted as prior felon in possesion.


Element one, as above, will go to USSC Fast!

[BCR #226]

That is what I am thinking. The way I initially see it is that the government won't allow this to happen if they can't tax it (referencing the NFA tax). Since this is a court situation, it will force a change in the law in order to tax these guns which would in effect modify or eliminate the 86 ban... or they may push the USSC to overturn the 9th.

Mike

[BCR #226]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1113gunsentence13-ON.html

Appeals court overturns machine gun conviction advertisement

Associated Press

Nov. 13, 2003 07:20 PM

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court Thursday overturned a Mesa man's federal conviction of possessing five machine guns.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of San Francisco reversed the conviction, ruling that the congressional ban does not apply to homemade machine guns and their parts because they were never in the stream of commerce.

The court ruled that there was neither a transfer nor sale of the weapons or their parts, so Congress did not have the power under the Commerce Clause to regulate homemade guns crafted from scratch.

Robert Stewart was sentenced to five years imprisonment for being a felon in possession of firearms and of possessing illegal machine guns last year.

His attorney, Thomas Haney of Phoenix, said the decision doesn't mean much for his client or for the gun movement. Few people have the skills to build a weapon from scratch, as Stewart did, Haney said.

Haney said most states, including Arizona, also have state bans against rapidly firing machine guns that would withstand judicial scrutiny regardless of whether the weapon was homemade. "It might not be viable for anyone to think they can start making their own," Haney said.

Stewart, meanwhile, faces about a 20-year sentence next week after being convicted this summer of soliciting a fellow prisoner at the Federal Correctional Institution in Phoenix to kill U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver, the judge who last year sentenced him to five years on the weapons violations.

The case decided Thursday is United States v. Stewart, 02-10318.

[MindBender26]

The purpose of the tax was never to be a traditional revenue-raising tax. The paperwork and other investigative expenses cost them way more than the $200.00 tax payment. The tax was just a way to create de-facto registration for automatic weapons, silencers, short weapons, etc., while, at the same time, staying as far away as possible to any 2d Ammendment questions.

Federal courts rarely decide open and shut cases, expecially at the appeals level. They get involved when two rights are in conflict. When this legislation was enacted, the idea was to get the courts to look at it as a "power to tax" matter, rather than a 2d Ammendment matter.

A very slipery slope. Problem is, can an Al-Queda cell use commercially avaialble explosive COMPONENTS, such COMPONENTS being legal when not combined into an explosive, and not combined when they cross state lines, assemble a destructive device without violating Federal law.

Example, terrorists in New York legally buy some radioactive waste and the components to manufacture nitroclycerine, make their nitroclycerine and the device itself all within the borders of NY, set it off in NYC, and until they set it off, violate no federal law, thereby denying FBI any auhtorization to investigate them prior to detination?

Can the FAA/TSA screen me for firearms before I board a flight from Orlando to Tallahassee? The flight ends in Tallahassee, does not go on to another state, it originated in Orlando, and never flew over another state.

Very interesting decision, with far reaching implications.