Olofson conviction affirmed

Interesting. Had this happpened in Iraq to the average person there would be no problem. But here in the "land of the free" one goes to jail and his life is basically ruined. No matter what this dog and pony show called the court system says this was not right. Sure is a strange type of freedom that we have???

Mr. Hardy I could not be more disappointed with how you are posting in your blog on this case.
First off the witness who Olofson lent the gun to was covering his butt for knowingly making a gun fire more than one shot per trigger pull by doing what he was told not to do. By him knowing the guy could fire more than one shot in the unmarked position he willing took a full auto firearm into his personal possession. He was grilled by ATF and the local cops and this is known.
So he gets on the stand and said Olofson told him the guy would do X if he put the switch in the unmarked position. So it boils down to, He said She said and there is zero evidence to support anything else in the case.
What we do know about this case is: The lawyers willingly and openly lied to the court to keep the defense from receiving discovery. Had the jury got to see this information a not guilt verdict was very likely. The testing was hid and the defendant was unable to face his accusers. So many of the defendants Constitutional rights were willingly damaged by the government lawyers with the judge going along with or over looking with intent. To bring this case back to a "He said She" situation and over look "many" willful actions of keeping the defendant from receiving a fair trial is over the top.
Mr. Hardy, lets hope you never have to explain to any of your clients there's nothing you can do to help them after they have been convicted by being railroaded in such a manner that Olofson has received.

AveJoe:

"By him knowing the guy could fire more than one shot in the unmarked position he willing took a full auto firearm into his personal possession."

Sounds to me like both men violated the NFA.

Look ... I don't like the NFA, either, and I know that the 2A protects the right to keep and bear "arms" which of course include "military" small arms. Also, I feel very bad for Olofson. But efforts would be better spent to overturn NFA, rather than pursue flawed lawsuits against it. It seems GOA pursues cases like these, while SAF pursues smarter cases, such as are happening now in California.

Litigation must be smart to build good precedent.

NFA - Unconstitutional. Now the govt and courts say Congress may tax Arms (the basis for the NFA). Under the base Constitution this MIGHT have been true. BUT in general form, LATTER law supercedes conflicting PRIOR law. The Second Amendment is LATTER law and the Second Amendment provides no exceptions to "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED", except in the tiny minds of certain persons who have crystal BALLS. The Second Amendment as LATTER law circumscribes the tax power and ALL other powers of Congress. It is an "amendment of" NOT an "amendment to" as is written in the preamble of the Bill of Rights. "Articles in addition to and amendments of" is a direct statement that the amendments are much more than additive; the preamble of the BoR provides direct evidence that the delegated (article I, section 8, etc) powers DO NOT include the authority to act at all in these many areas.

If one really stuides the SC cases, one finds those folks pulling things out their arse all to often.

Even in Canada, one may own the parts to convert SA to FA and own the weapons so long as the weapon is kept in the SA mode, i.e. remove the autosear. My father has numerous friends in Canada who have FA weapons that have had the sear removed and they also own the sear.

In the US - 20 yrs for a broken firearm. Land of the free. Home of the brave. Yeah, right!

Tiochfaidh ar la!

Sorry but Olofson can not be hung by a government that willingly and intended to lie to cheat Mr. Olofson out of his Constitutional rights to a fair trial. How do we know the government witness isn't lying? The judges in this case keep coming back to a "he said she" said reasoning to hang Mr. Olofson on these charges. The list of Mr. Olofson's Constitutional rights that have been damaged and the simple fact that the goverment's lawyers lied to cheat Mr. Olofson take a larger part of this case than a "he said she said" reasoning.
This man was cheated out of a fair day in court and anyone that can't see that and keeps coming back to what Mr. Olofson may have said and looks the other way at all the other facts. May such people go through the same kind of trail so they can get their heads screwed on right.

To be clear, I don't think anyone here is defending the law that Olofson was convicted under. I would like to have a Second Amendment that protects the right to own an M16 as readily as a revolver. But strictly as a matter of how the National Firearms Act is interpreted, the legal standard for a conviction is 1) Does the firearm in question fire more than once with a single function of the trigger, 2) was the defendant aware of the characteristics of the firearm in question, and 3) did he transfer said firearm to another party?

That's going to be the basic test in court. So if you have an AR-15 that's legitimately malfunctioning with a hammer follow, your best bet is to fix it immediately. Aside from being a dangerous condition, it's dangerous legally. In most cases, a US Attorney isn't going to go after someone who has a legitimate malfunction with an AR-15. They went after Olofson because they believed he tried to illegally convert it, and at trial presented a multitude of evidence, including the fact that the AR-15 in question had an M16 trigger group in it. No auto sear, but the law only says it has to fire more than one round per function of the trigger. It doesn't get into design issues.

If you want to argue the law is wrong, and I would, argue that. It's something Congress has to fix. The courts can fix it with the proper legal argument, but there's no essential way to argue that with Olofson. It might be possible to argue it with someone who has a legitimately malfunctioning semi-auto, and gets busted, but Olofson has too much baggage around his case to make a good case to challenge § 5845(b). I know people in this issue don't often like listening to reality, but that's it, in a nutshell.

Sebastian, you have had this case wrong with your understanding of what this case is about from the get go. With all due respect I will walk you through a few of your misunderstandings.
When you say: "1) Does the firearm in question fire more than once with a single function of the trigger, 2) was the defendant aware of the characteristics of the firearm in question, and 3) did he transfer said firearm to another party?"
Lets start with number 1. The firearm did malfunction because it was built with that characteristic rigth from Olympic Arms. The government had a standard of what a malfunction and a full auto were and it had been supported by a USSC ruling. The government had case law and contested that case law from coming out at Mr. Olofson's trial. The judge sided with the government lawyers by mistake, hopefully.
2, It is said Mr. Olofson did know that if you placed the safty/fire lever in the no man's land the gun would jam by misfiring. 3, Again it was said Mr. Olofson made sure that person shooting it knew that and not to do that.
Sebastain, is knowing you have a gun that will misfire a federal crime if you don't act on it? What amount of time should a person act on it and please point out any case law on this matter. Please not above my bring up case law on this matter, so you are beat to the punch.
Sebastain said, "They went after Olofson because they believed he tried to illegally convert it, and at trial presented a multitude of evidence, including the fact that the AR-15 in question had an M16 trigger group in it."
This is the way the gun came from Olympic Arms. The only thing Olofson did was change out the worn out barrel.
Sebastain said (this is where it starts getting good) "If you want to argue the law is wrong, and I would, argue that. It's something Congress has to fix."
I and many of us do want to argue the law is rigth in this case but over looked. First off the government lawyers lied to keep from having to give Mr. Olofson's lawyers information that should have been giving under discovery. The government lawyers lied to keep the jury from knowing that the AR in question was built the way it was by Olympic Arms and had a recall notice on it to be sent back to be fixed. Olympic Arms had a fire and their records were destoryed. A dealer in the south provided this information to Mr. Olofson's lawyers. The trial judge over looked the fact the government's lawyers lied to cheat Mr. Olofson out of a fair trial.
Lets move on to cheating Mr. Olofson out of his Constitutional rights to face his accusers. The government put on an expert witness and would not allow Mr. Olofson's expert witness to hear what the government witness had to say. The government would not let Mr. Olofson's expert witness look over the firearm in question to show that Mr. Olofson did not change it and it was as it came from the builder, Olympic Arms.
Sebastian, I have watched you twist this case around with so much misinformation I could spend half a day on and still leave out half of what I wanted to say. I will not get into your reasoning for doing this but some have. I'll let them pipe in should they like to.
Nevertheless, from what you say and what I say and I have stated facts that can be checked out. You have stated your personal views and you have read the talking points the government used. Which makes me want to ask you, who's side are you on?

You have obviously not read the appeal decision, AvgJoe, because if you had, you would understand that the Appeals Court said none of those things mattered. What mattered was that Olofson had a firearm that was capable of firing more than one round with a single function of the trigger, knew he had a rifle that was doing this, and knowing the characteristics of his rifle transferred it to another person. That's what the law is now for the 7th Circuit. That's not my personal opinion, that's the law now.

I'll grant you that the law sucks, and I think it ought to be altered or preferably abolished. But it's there, and the courts are bound to interpret it, and to take a reading of § 5845(b) that Olofson's attorneys proffered would have made burst fire M16s subject to no regulation under NFA. While I would be fine with that result, it would be hard for me to argue how that wouldn't be judicial activism given what the law says.

None of this makes the National Firearms Act right, but you need to fight the right battle. You are not advocating fighting the right battle, you're asking the courts to say the law means something other than what it clearly means.

The path forward is to build a consensus for changing or abolishing the National Firearms Act, or to challenge it for constitutionality, which was not done in this case (for good reasons).

Sebastian, you didn't read the appeal filed by some of the best Constitutional lawyers this country has. They made it clear that there was already "case law" that was ruled on by the USSC that clearly defined the difference between a "full auto" and a "misfiring" firearm. ATF agreed to this case law in the past but ATF and the government lawyers somehow got the judge to now allow the jury to hear that there was already "case law" that dealt with matters such as this one.
You keep coming back to saying Olofson knew the gun could misfire and told the government witness such. We do not know that Olofson knew that the gun would misfire because the only person who said he said that was the government witness. This same witness was under a lot of heat by the government because they told him, that he knew he had a full auto when "he" told them that he didn't own the gun and was told not to put the switch in X position. Look Sebastian, you and I both know how these guys in government work. They put the squeeze on him to have him roll over on Olofson. How many years did they tell him he was going to get if he didn't play ball? I bet that kid was changing his pants and taking a shower a few times a day.
So what we have is this:
A government witness who SAID Olofson SAID such and such. This witness was scared and was doing what it took to save his own skin. End of story on this "HE SAID SHE SAID" angle.
The other points are this:
*The government refused and lied about information to keep Olofson's lawyers from getting the discovery they needed to show the jury that the gun was not tampered with and was built that way with ATF's OK.
*There was already "case law" handed down from the USSC that Olofson's lawyers were not allowed to enter into the trial.
*Olofson was not allowed to have his expert witness hear what the government's expert witness had to say in front of the jury.
*Olofson's expert witness was not allowed to see the firearm to find out if the government changed any parts or to be able to tell the jury that this firearm was not tampered with and was built this way by Olympic Arms with ATF's agreement.
Sebastian, what it comes down to is this. You want to hang a man for what a government witness said to save his own skin. Never mind that the government lied about information that very well put in front of the jury would have changed the out come of the case with a Not Guilt verdict. Never mind the established 'Case Law" dealing with this matter was refused to be allowed to be entered in this trial. Case law from the Untied States Supreme Court that was spot on the very same as what this case was about. NEW LAW was made up out of thin air to hang Olofson when there is no such law on the books. Yet again, the law that was on the books was not allowed to be entered into this trial.
This whole case stinks and you Sebastian want to hang a man by refusing to take in government lying and cheating this man out of his Constitutional right. To keep coming full circle to parroting what a government witness said. A government witness who without question but to you and a few like you was threaten with federal prison time if he didn't tell the court what the government wanted to hear.

Olofson knew exactly what the deal was and is guility end of story.

Well Jim K, you sure make it clear you are on top of this case and the depths of your understanding show very clear. We all stand corrected with your vast and in depth understanding of this case. Forget everything I said now that you have set us all straight in our misunderstanding. I feel so lame now that you have totally explained all the fine points.
Sebastian, you should have just came out and said what Jim K did and not have us going back and forth as we have been.

Sebastian, you didn't read the appeal filed by some of the best Constitutional lawyers this country has. They made it clear that there was already "case law" that was ruled on by the USSC that clearly defined the difference between a "full auto" and a "misfiring" firearm.

I did read it, and thought they were making the best arguments they could for the sake of their client. Given what they had to work with, I think they did a good job. But they tried to get the Appeals Court to bite at a definition of "automatically" in Staples that was dicta, and had nothing to do with the decision handed down, which was that Congress did not eliminate mens rea when they drafted the National Firearms Act, meaning the government had to meet the burden of proving the defendant was aware of the characteristics of his firearm.

If the Court had adopted that definition, then burst fire M16s would have been lawful in the 7th circuit, as they would not be "automatic" under the definition proffered.

The fact that they only heard from Kiernicki, and his credibility, isn't a matter of law, for an appeals court to decide, but a matter of fact, for a jury to decide. The fact is that 12 of Olofsons peers believed Kiernicki. Was he lying? Maybe he was. But in our legal system that's something juries have to decide.

Again you refuse to deal with the government lawyers lying and cheating Olofson out of his due process of discovery.
The fact that he was not allowed to have his expert in court to hear the goverment's expert is an attack on his rights as well and was poorly addressed.
What this case is about is bad news for the who system and its going to come back and bite a lot of people.
Sebastain, you remind me of something that goes like this, when the came for the Jews, I did nothing because I wasn't a Jew.
Fact of the matter it all starts with cases like this were laws are made up out of thin air and real law is refused by the trial judge. I don't think we have seen the last of this case and lets hope that this man gets some justice and not more lying government employees trying to cheat him out of his Constitutional rights to set new case law to use as a tool to do the same for many others.

What laws are being made up out of thin air? § 5845(b) is there for anyone to see. So is 922(o). I will agree with you that those laws ought not be laws, but they are, and the courts are bound to interpret them. I think it does violate the Second Amendment, but the judges in this case were never asked to decide that issue.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=97491

Here you go Sebastian this is a reward for you and the NRA for going along to such a degree you would argue for the government to put people like Olofson in prison for a gun that was built by the manufacture with a misfiring problem. And get off the dime that Olofson said such and such because the only person to say he said that was forced to say it by the threat of prison.
My big question to you Sebastian, when they come to take you away how many of us do you think will still be around to help you?
By the way, you notice worldnetdaily didn't ask the NRA to comment on this new bill but asked Larry Pratt from the GOA. There's a big reason for that.