Ravenwood - 10/21/05 06:45 AM
A huge Southern California gun possession case was dismissed by the trial judge, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Apparently, much of a gun dealer's inventory was said to be illegal under California law. Check out the gun bigot's description of what was seized.
Sun, 49, was indicted last year on 55 felony counts of possession and sale of illegal assault weapons.Sure they weren't high-capacity assault magazines? Now, an assault rifle is defined as an automatic rifle, aka a machine gun. But only two machine guns were seized. So the 26 "assault rifles" were probably semi-automatic rifles that look like assault rifles. I'm not even sure what an "assault shotgun" is. If I had to guess, I'd say it's either a semi-auto or pump shotgun that's "scary looking". It's probably black, might be a bullpup, and has a folding stock and a few rails for mounting lights, scopes, and other scary looking devices. But overall, it's just another shotgun.Authorities seized two machines guns, two grenade launchers, 26 assault rifles, one assault pistol, 482 assault shotguns, 388 rifles, 10 shotguns, 527 pistols, and 23,572 high-capacity magazines, according to the attorney general's office.
Then there's the "assault pistol", which is defined as a fully automatic pistol. Glock and other manufacturers make them to sell to police. They look just like a regular pistol, but are full auto and blow through a 20 round mag in a second or two. They are technically a machinegun, and I don't think that's what they're talking about. Most likely Californiastan is referring to a scary looking semi-auto variant of a subgun, like a semi-auto mac or uzi. Scary looking indeed, but no more functional than a regular pistol. You'd think they'd be less "dangerous" considering they're larger than a regular pistol and thus harder to conceal. But their scary lookedness probably classifies them as an "assault" gun under California's convoluted law.
I'd be willing to bet that all the guns are legal under Virginia law, and with the exception of the two machineguns, are all Title 1 guns (meaning they're just regular old guns).
The two grenade launchers are irrelevant. A grenade launcher without grenades is just a tube. Yugo SKS rifles sell for less than $150 and have a grenade launcher permanently mounted on the barrel. Basically you insert a blank grenade cartridge in the chamber, pop a grenade on the end and fire. But without the cartridge and the grenade, its just another 6 inches of barrel that keeps the gun from fitting into your gun safe. It's harmless, which means of course that it's illegal in California.
Sun looks like he's going to get away with it because he declared the guns on his ATF audit paperwork, which was then used to obtain a search warrant. That smacks of Fifth Amendment violations as he was basically forced to incriminate himself. If he escape this incident with his FFL license intact, he should relocate out of gun-unfriendly California.
Category: Cold Dead Hands
Comments (7) top link me
Obviously, the weapons were all legally held under Federal law, or else the ATF would have dragged him off in handcuffs (if he was lucky). This makes me wonder if the "two machine guns" really were machine guns, or just more scary-looking semi-autos. Just what does a dealer have to do to trade legally in NFA weapons?
And "388 rifles, 10 shotguns, 527 pistols" were apparently all legal even under CA law, but they still seized them.
Posted by: markm at October 21, 2005 8:09 AMHeh, I bet they laid them all out, fixed every bayonet they could and invited the press. If they had any of those inert training grenades, they likely laid them out.
Reminds me of something that happened in Monkey County when I was a kid. They got some guy on some petty charge and got a search warrant. during the warrant search they found a lot of guns and stuff. They laid them all out on the guy's kitchen table and called the press. It certainly was a scary assortment, guns, camo and grenades.
It was a decade later, after plinking and the RKBA came into my life that I remember the scene. Looking back, it was a pretty nice collection of bolt action rifles, inert grenades, bayonets, and stuff. The poor guy was likely a living history guy or a collector. He lived in an apartment, so I doubt he had the cash to sue to get his stuff back, assuming the county didn't turn it in to a manhole cover or something.
The press are like dogs, if you got something for them, they all come a running.
Posted by: Standard Mischief at October 21, 2005 9:13 AMCould they have used the word assault any more?
Un-educated district attorneys should be held accountable for trumped up charges that are later dismissed.
I'm sure they sit around and say "Well we don't have anything on him, but we might as well try. They are evil guns you know"
There's always a reason to ban any type of gun. If the gun is small, it's too concealable. If the gun is large, it has too much power and range. If the gun is fully automatic, then people can just spray bullets without aiming. If the gun is semi-automatic, then people can take time to aim and place every shot on target.
Et cetera.
Posted by: Alcibiades at October 21, 2005 12:42 PMAlcibiades -
Don't forget that anything with a scope is a "high powered sniper rifle" capable of shooting down airplanes.
I heard they took away the wife and kids too:
Wife had an assault blender in the kitchen
Son had an assault slingshot
Daughter had a ninja gerbil in a cage
Repeal all gun control llaws in this country as unconstitutional its time to repeal the control act of 1968 and repeal the brady gun law
Posted by: screaming eagle at October 21, 2005 6:28 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
