moderators=shrouds=silencers=trouble?
Please don’t kill me for posting this, but it seems pretty important.
🙁
This came from Dr Dan Beeman’s site. He’s the ex-owner of Beeman air rifles. See this url for the whole rant.
http://www.beemans.net/silencers_on_airguns.htm
The basic issue seems to be that possession of a firearms silencer is illegal, that BATF have defined a silencer capable of reducing the sound of a firearm by 1 dB for 1 shot as a FIREARM, so any device that can reduce a firearm’s report is itself a firearm. Note that this is a legal definition in law, not a common usage or Webster’s definition. And, it doesn’t matter if the gun it was on would have to be destroyed in order to turn it into an actual firearms silencer.
The device — silencer, moderator, shroud, etc— whatever you call it doesn’t matter. If it reduces a firearm report by 1 dB once, it’s a silencer. The device in this case had fabric “guts” that were destroyed by the 22 rifle it was tested on.
Here is the case reported by Dr Beeman.
“SUNDAY, JULY 16, 2006
He’s going to jail!
by Tom Gaylord
Michael A. Crooker was found guilty on Wednesday, July 15, 2006 of illegally manufacturing a silencer. He faces a mandatory sentence of 15 years. (Latest flash, July 2007, review of the case, instead of throwing it out, may increase penalties up to 22 years!!).
Crooker made a silencer for a Korean Big Bore 909, a .45 caliber air rifle. In 2004 he sold the rifle and silencer to another party and he shipped it through the U.S. Postal Service, where it was intercepted.
When ATF tested the silencer on a firearm, it silenced the report. That is the legal definition of a silencer. Slam dunk.
Making a silencer is a violation of several counts of the same law. Because a silencer is considered to be a firearm by federal law, the maker has just made a firearm without a license to manufacture – count one. Firearms that are sold are required to have serial numbers, and this one didn’t – count two. And possession of an unregistered silencer is also a crime – count three.
The jury did ask for additional clarification on what constitutes a silencer, but the judge was unable to give them anything beyond the law. …
For 12 years I have maintained that silencers and airguns do not mix. People who play with the law open themselves to prosecution. Even if you win your case, the experience will not be pleasant. Now that BATF has a win under their belts, I expect them to prosecute other silencer violations more vigorously.
This was a jury trial. ”
It is no defense that “everybody” does it, just like speeding in a car. That guns, including the Talon SS are made with silencers and sold openly is also no defense according to Dr Beeman.
A felony conviction with 12 years minimum and a lifetime inability to vote or own a firearm and having to put the conviction on job applications sounds extreme and no fun. In view of all this, would it make sense to get rid of this forum section and dispose of all our silencers/shrouds/moderators?
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You can find the court docket online.
He’s also suing Microsoft because their security features didn’t stop the FBI finding child porn on his computer.
This case is along the lines of Al Capone being sent to jail on tax charges… thats what they had on him, so they used it.
Is that genuine info, or some more of that Fox-News neo-con propaganda BS?
Michael A. Crooker was already a convicted felon (arms trafficking) and was suspected of making and shipping bomb’s and/or bomb making supplies, That’s why his mail was being checked.
He’s also suing Microsoft because their security features didn’t stop the FBI finding child porn on his computer.
This case is along the lines of Al Capone being sent to jail on tax charges… thats what they had on him, so they used it.
It’s pretty sick and despicable when a man in a supposedly free country can be so heinously persecuted for doing fuck-all. 15 years?! For making a silencer for an air-rifle? What kind of sick degenerate scum decided to make a case out of that? Some closet paedophile by the sound of it.
Don’t feel too down about it though, we recently had a mother fined for littering, for dropping crumbs on the pavement while feeding her small child with a sausage-roll.
I think it’s called The New World Order or something.
This issue was banged against the wall for so long and so hard, there is no point of talking about it anymore. Just get an ATFE stamp and own any suppressor you wish. Or get an airgun with a built-in one. Two separate but legal ways.
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Can’t find it at the moment, but there has been a change in the batf reg in the last couple years adding the word INTENT to the definition of FIREARM SILENCER. I’ll see if I can find and post.