David Olofson was convicted of the illegal transfer of a machine gun to a friend who borrowed his sometimes malfunctioning twenty year old AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. The judge, jury, and defense were denied information by the Federal Prosecutor and the BATF that would have exonerated Mr. Olofson. The verdict was upheld by a Federal District Court panel that conflicted with prior SCOTUS definitions of an automatic firearm. The case is now being appealed to the entire District Court and may go to the Supreme Court. You can read all about this case at It seems as though some unconscionable people at the BATF want to dissuade citizens from owning semi-automatic firearms by imprisoning them if their firearm malfunctions and fires more than one round per trigger pull. This can happen to any semi-automatic firearm if the sear fails to engage the hammer and allows the hammer to follow the bolt as it pushes the next round into the chamber. Mr. Olofson's AR-15 was a twenty year old Olympic model about which the company had sent out notices regarding such malfunctions. This is a very dangerous malfunction as the gun can fire dangerously fast (compared to a slower true machine gun) and fire out of battery and explode. Instead of requiring that Mr. Olofson repair his firearm, some unconscionable people at BATF had an agenda to make a felon out of him, ruin his life, and send a message. The BATF does not have written or consistent firearm testing procedures and in the first test classified this AR-15 as a semi-automatic rifle. Then in the second test soft primers were used and they classified this AR-15 as a machine gun. Then they insisted that an unintended malfunction immediately and illegally converts any semi-automatic firearm into a machine gun in violation of their own definition of the word "automatic". If that definition holds, our jails will not be big enough. Anytime a government uses intimidation against law abiding citizens, it perverts justice and looses legitimacy and the trust of its citizens. The BATF seems to have gone way down this road again. We need legislation that defines a malfunctioning semi-automatic firearm as not being a machine gun and require that it be repaired so that it again fires safely without dangerous hammer follow. Please contact Steve LaTourette, Sherod Brown, and George Voinovich on this issue. You can include the text above in your e-mail. |