Posted on 08/30/2009 6:20:45 AM PDT by marktwain
Mike Vanderboegh at Sipsey Street Irregulars has put out a call for help. It's important, so I'm doing what I can to help amplify his voice.
Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America needs to find an expert witness for "a pending legal case." Here's what Larry sent Mike:
Do you know of a reference to the Camp Perry matches where they have gunsmiths to handle malfunctions? Or any other such venue where they are used to shooters having guns that malfunction by firing a burst and then jamming? Time is of the essence on this.
Mike asks us to think hard about who we might know, and to spread the word. That means sending emails to your gun owner friends, posing the question on gun forums you frequent--whatever you can think of.
As he reminds us:
Somebody's freedom is hanging on it.
I don't recommend posting likely candidates' names and contact information in "Comments" out of respect for their privacy. Instead, please get this information to Mike at GeorgeMason1776ATaolDOTcom, to Larry via the GOA contact form, or to me at dcodreaAThotmailDOTcom and I'll follow up/pass it on to them.
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Andy Caldwell Show update
We talked about my appearance yesterday. It went well, and I'll monitor his site to let you know when they have the show posted for listening.
One question came up that I had an idea how to answer, but could not say for sure because it's a detail in California law I'm not up on. Andy had been told the reason some sheriffs won't issue concealed carry permits is because they fear liability should a permittee commit a crime.
My initial reaction was that does not sound right, that laws typically exempt agencies from such liability, that it hasn't been an issue anywhere else and that it seems like a pretty outrageous excuse to use for denying a right to protect self and loved ones. I'm no lawyer, but I can't believe this is anything but a false argument. You don't see motor vehicle bureaus getting sued after smash-ups because they issue driver licenses.
After the show, I did a quick search and came up with this:
Government Code 818.4 immunizes a public agency for any injury caused by the issuance, denial, suspension or revocation of, or the failure or refusal to issue, deny, suspend, or revoke any permit, license certificate, approval or order or similar authorization where the public entity or an employee of the public entity is authorized by enactment to determine whether or not such authorization should be issued, denied, suspended, or revoked.
Plus there are a couple other clauses mentioned. Reading legalese makes Mongo's head hurt.
If anyone has knowledge of this area of the law, please educate the rest of us.
And no, for any who might think this means I'm going soft on the idea of turning rights into privileges by licensing them, I'm saying nothing of the kind.
The underlined makes zero sense!!!
I have forwarded to both Larry and Mike some contact info for a person I who is expert in this field (military firearms malfunctions).
Why not? How uncommon is is it for a semi-auto to have a worn sear, go full auto for a few shots, and jam?
OK, has anyone been denied a permit arbitrarily and later been killed or injured because they were unable to defend themselves? Sounds to me like a liability issue! If you've been denied a permit, keep the rejection paperwork with instructions to your estate to sue the denying authority. Or, even charge them as accessories!
The factory triggers on most semi-auto firearms have very positive sear and disconnector engagement, and unless they suffer severe wear (unlikely in my lifetime), breakage, sticking, extreme dirt, incorrect assembly, improperly fitted or missing parts, the likelihood of a semi-auto firearm doubling or multiple firing is very small.
Even top-level competitive shooters, who may use highly-tuned triggers with delicate sear engagement surfaces and lighter springs, are not likely to have such problems because it is the disconnector that has to hold the hammer back after the bolt cycles and while the trigger is still depressed. There is no need to reduce the factory engagement surfaces or spring on the disconnector as it does not affect the trigger pull for the next shot. After the trigger is released, the main sear engagement surfaces are holding the hammer back and the disconnector is no longer touching the hammer or trigger so there is no need to modify it.
Consider the worst-case scenario of a broken or missing disconnector. There would be nothing to hold the hammer back after the bolt cycles, but even so, the hammer will likely just ride the bolt carrier cocking surface back down as the bolt closes, and would not strike the firing pin with enough energy to fire the round.
To keep firing, the hammer must be held back until the bolt closes, then released. Now if someone foolishly filed away the disconnector so that it just barely holds the hammer back, it is conceivable that the jolt of the bolt slamming home could then release the hammer, firing the next round.
But nobody with any sense would deliberately create such an unstable, unsafe weapon, and there is no other scenario that I can think of (other than a stuck, protruding firing pin) that would likely cause doubling.
With any self-loading firearm, malfunctions can occur. Improper maintenance can cause strange things to happen. A guy once told me that if he flooded the action of his old .22 semi-auto sporter (which he had never disassembled and properly cleaned) with copious amounts of spray oil, sometimes it would fire the whole magazine. Now that to me would be a huge red flag and I would not shoot it again until I had stripped it and fixed the problem, but he thought it was "cool". I suspect that it had a stuck or rusted firing pin, and the flood of oil let the bolt slam just hard enough on the next rimfire round to fire it. Anyway, as I told him, the Feds would not think it was "cool" at all.
Government Code 818.4 immunizes a public agency for any injury caused by the issuance, denial, suspension or revocation of, or the failure or refusal to issue, deny, suspend, or revoke any permit, license certificate, approval or order or similar authorization where the public entity or an employee of the public entity is authorized by enactment to determine whether or not such authorization should be issued, denied, suspended, or revoked.
Can you still sue the individual of the public agency? Or are they under the cover of their employment?
One is a poorly-designed firing mechanism. Once I fired a boxy steel semi-auto copy of a sub gun that could double if the trigger was pulled too delicately and held just right. There was no wear or other causative factor other than a crappy design to make a semi-auto mechanism in a gun that was designed to be an open-bolt sub gun. Nuff said.
The other is "bump firing", where a semi-auto is fired while held in a certain way and pressed against a rigidly-held trigger finger. It's an unnatural and ineffective way to hold a gun, but the result is what appears to be full-auto fire if done just right. In actuality, what is happening is that the trigger finger is pressing the trigger repeatedly, very fast, due to the rocking recoil movement of the gun. This is not full-auto fire, but it looks and sounds like it. Cops hearing it would not quibble.
Per the ‘bump fire’ note:
THere are a bunch of people that have developed different rapid fire mechanisms that attach to the trigger area of different guns that exploit this ‘bump-fire’ way of firing. Some have you rest your finger on their mechanism and some actually have a little crank armyou turn that in one turn shoots several rounds.
They have been ruled legal because they do not change HOW the weapon fires, each round still requires a full trigger pull, these mechanisms just do that very fast.
Not necessarily the most accurate however.
Your 4th paragraph is not true to a great extent.
a broken, worn or missing disconnecter that allows the hammer to follow the bolt home can and often does indeed cause automatic fire. Not true "automatic" in the sense of a properly operating mechanism, but a malfunctioning situation.
The likelihood that an auto fire situation will occurs is dependent on several varibale, primer senistivity (ARs or M1A/M1s etc using soft benchrest or even standard primers, improper seating of primers (too high) and even worn firing pin retraction springs if equipped, max cartridge/min headspace etc.
The fact that a malfunctioning firearm may fire more than one shot per trigger pull is not a “machine gun”, rather it is the defintion of a malfunctioning semi-auto.
The great risk of such an occurrence is an out-of battery condition where the bolt is not fully closed when the round is fired-resulting in catastrophic release of pressure-often varying in severity from little damage to severe injury and destruction of the firearm.
The BATFE “expert” was describing to a strict interpretation, a “machine gun is a weapon that fires more than one shot with each pull of the trigger”-the malfunctioning aspect is disregarded for a purpose-conviction of an otherwise innocent American gun owner.
The truth of the matter is that intent is required.... A reasonable person would not infer a malfunctioning firearm is an “illegal machine gun” just as a $40,000 dollar late model car that won't start because a fuse is blown is not a “junker”.
It is about control, not truth.
Best;
I agree that intent should be required, even more than intent, a person should have to be proven to have deliberately built a machine gun, on purpose, if that is what they are to be charged with.
If you had even a passing familiarity with ATF and their history this wouldn’t be a mystery to you.
You've got all the sharp corners of a bowling ball.
Malfunctioning Rifle Called Machine Gun: Man Gets 30 Month Sentence
Read and learn newbie.
I don’t pay much attention to the resident cracker-head.
That's ok. I enjoy spanking statists. Pretty soon we'll advance to the next round where the prizes get even larger.
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