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Testimony on NFA database
Here's the testimony of on the reliability of the NFA database; the critical part being testimony of Fritz Scheuren in part 6 of the transcript, starting at 1016. Dr. Scheuren's credentials were hard to beat -- among other things, he's Vice President for Statistics at the National Opinion Research Center. I haven't had time to read the transcript, but am told he testified that the NFA database might be reliable enough to start an investigation, but was nowhere near accurate enough to justify a conviction. The result was a hung jury, and there will be a retrial.
Friesen got a good pro-gun lawyer, Mack Martin of Oklahoma City, who set out to nail the prosecution's case.
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I was told by a title II manufacture a year or two ago that it was his understanding that the ATF would not prosecute a case that depended on the registry alone. With a post-86 MG you are cooked, but a pre-86 it's not so certain. They would try to get a confession, and failing that they would request the weapon/silencer. If that failed they often would just go away after threatening arrest. His belief was that they were afraid a judge would declare that registry not valid due to it's massive accuracy issues. Obviously he wasn't completely right, but he wasn't completely wrong either.
It's data that spans decades and includes unavoidable transcription errors that are the result of the methods (historically) used to gather data. The data should be discarded and rebuilt every five years.
I read 6, 7, and 8. (Page 7 has some great one-liners from Len Savage). It does look like this guy had some issues with record keeping and did get carless about handing out his class III stuff. However, I do not think this guy made the Sten mkII and is a victim of poor investigative work by the ATF. It is clear that the ATF and prosecuting attorney HATE Len Savage.
Len Savage needs to take some of the 15,000.00 dollars he received as an expert witness and add some credentials to his resume. He clearly knows his stuff and is fearless in the face of the prosecuting attorney. But he has an exploitable weakness in his schooling (lack of). With a proper background Len could make a fortune as an expert witness and probably save some innocent people from conviction. Len’s testimony made complete sense to me, but the prosecutor did a good job of making him look like a grease monkey and not an expert. Still Len gave as good as he got.
Just read part 6. I'm not an attorney, but this just seems like such a waste of the courts time. Sounds like the guy did a sloppy job of record keeping (but so does ATF). maybe they sould revoke his FFL (but I guess he already surenderd it. Maybe they should ask him to concnet to forfurture of the sten (I bet he would give it to them just to sleep at night. I don't know were all my guns are. I could not testify that I even know how many I have. I could produce presine records on my C&Rs and I could produce my Form 1s. other than that I don't have to remember when I bought them or from whom.