Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know how I feel about the Second Amendment.  You know that I hold our rights sacred, and that I’m a staunch defender of said rights.  You also know that I try to be objective in my reporting of the facts.  As a former journalist, I believe I have that responsibility, unlike the mainstream mediots, who nearly always have an agenda.

I have written about David Olofson’s case in the past.  I stand by my assessment that the laws under which he was convicted are unjust.  To think that an otherwise law-abiding, non-violent citizen could be tossed in jail by the authorities for mere possession of a tool that is constitutionally protected is abhorrent to me.  I stand by my principles on that.

However, after wading through more than 100 pages of his trial transcripts, I have to say I’m not only disappointed in Olofson, but I don’t believe for a minute that there was any kind of corruption involved in the case.  Was he convicted based on an unjust law?  Yes, I believe so.  But was there any impropriety there?  No.  At least not on the part of the government.

For the record, I do believe that disobeying an unjust law is a sincere and honorable form of protest.  However, I also know that should I decide to do that, I will be charged and prosecuted under that law until said law is deemed unconstitutional.  No, I do not believe each individual gets to decide what laws are constitutional and what laws are not.  That is the job of our judicial system.  That is the way the Constitution was written.  I honor that document, and I truly believe in it.  I’m willing to face the consequences of said disobedience, and I know what they are.

Mr. Olofson apparently talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk.

From the court transcripts:

Q. Okay. So at the bottom it’s somebody e-mailing to David R.Olofson asking him about the untaxed registering of a machine gun, right?
A. That’s correct.
Q. And how does Mr. Olofson respond in the e-mail above?
A. He responds that — do you want me to paraphrase it?
Q. No, if you could just read right from the –
THE COURT: No, the jury can read.
MR. HAANSTAD: I’m sorry?
THE COURT: The jury can read.
BY MR. HAANSTAD:
Q. Okay. If you could summarize what it is that he, how Mr. Olofson’s responds.
A. The response essentially is that individuals that are sovereigns, as it is called, as they are called in the e-mail, are not bound by the United States regulations regarding firearms, and that possession of machine guns by sovereigns, unlike those by average citizens, is not restricted, and there’s no requirement for registration or adherence to the federal law.

OK, so Mr. Olofson believed that the federal government had no authority to restrict individuals’ right to own firearms. If he truly believed this, he should stand on his principles.  He should proudly stand up and say so.  But he didn’t.  He didn’t testify at his own trial at all, and furthermore, he wouldn’t even admit that he modified the rifle in question, even though it was quite obvious, from expert testimony, that the rifle was modified.

A. When I examined this firearm I found that there were four of the fire control components, it had been assembled with machine gun components for four of the firearm components.
Q. And what four components were those?
A. The trigger, the hammer, the disconnector, and the selector switch.
Q. Okay. And based on your training and experience, what is the effect of having those four components, those four specific components be M-16 parts rather than AR-15 parts?
A. When installed to an AR?
Q. That’s correct.
A. It would make the weapon fire automatically, or allow it to fire automatically.
Q. And when you say allow it to fire automatically, you mean allow it to fire more than one round with a single pull of the trigger?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And, therefore, constitute a machine gun?
A. Yes, sir.

Now, according to an AR-15 to M-16 conversion manual, several things need to happen in order to make the AR fire automatically.  From the transcript:

Q. And if you turn to page 10 of that manual. Now, at the top of page 10, it’s captioned, AR-15 Parts?
A. Yes.
Q. And it shows five different fire control components, right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you had mentioned that four fire control components were M-16 rather than AR-15 in this particular firearm, right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And which four are those?
A. The hammer, the selector, the trigger and the disconnector.
Q. Okay. And again, based on your training and your experience, is it necessary to replace all five of these AR-15 parts that are listed here in Exhibit 9 in order to make an AR-15 fire automatically?
A. No, sir, it’s not necessary to replace all five.
Q. Okay. And you testified that during your October 2006 examination of this particular firearm of Exhibit 1, that you noted that four of these five were changed, right? Or I’m sorry, four of these five were M-16 rather than AR-15 components, right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay. And based on the fact that those four components were M-16 rather than AR-15, did you have an expectation as to whether or not that firearm would qualify as a machine gun?
A. I expected that it would fire automatically, yes.

Yes, I know some of you will automatically discount this expert’s testimony, because he happens to be a GOVERNMENT expert, but you know what?  Just because he’s a government expert, doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  He doesn’t know Olofson, and I have absolutely no reason to suspect that he had any kind of vendetta against him.  Would he put his rather impressive credentials in jeopardy to lie about some guy he doesn’t know?  I doubt it.  Nearly three years as a firearms expert with the ATF, a State Police Sniper, trained in a variety of weapons, in West Virginia prior to that, former Marine, and an expert who has written numerous papers on firearms, including the AR-15.

Fact of the matter is that the AR was altered.  It was altered intentionally and specifically to fire in an automatic setting.  And for those of you who claim that the ATF had to use special “soft-primered” ammunition to MAKE this weapon fire automatically, even a technical tard like me can understand the following.  I’m giving you the entire sequence of events so you can read for yourself exactly how things went down.  As much as I’m not a fan of ATF, and I really do think it should be a convenience store, and NOT a federal agency, there was no manipulation or illegal maneuvering there.  And by the way, there was also a DVD supporting this testimony.

Q. And can you describe the test that you performed at the range?
A. Yes. I fired a total of 10 rounds on this test, two magazines of five rounds each. I inserted a magazine of five rounds, charged the weapon, loaded a cartridge into the chamber, placed the selector lever on the safe position, and squeezed the trigger. The weapon did not fire, as I would have expected.
Q. Okay. So that was not consistent with — I’m sorry, that was consistent with what you expected.
A. Yes.
Q. The fact that when the selector switch was on safe the firearm did not fire.
A. Correct. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay. What did you do next?
A. Next I moved the selector to the fire position, which is the semi-automati
c position, and squeezed the trigger, and the weapon fired.
Q. Okay. Just one shot?
A. I repeated this test with five shots.
Q. And each time you pulled the trigger how many rounds were fired?
A. I pulled the trigger five times and it fired one round with each pull of the trigger.
Q. And was that consistent with what you expected?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And what did you do next?
A. Next I inserted a magazine, a second magazine of five rounds, and moved the selector lever to the automatic position.  It’s an unmarked position on this firearm. It would be the position at 3:00 o’clock if you were looking at the selector as a clock face.  Then I squeezed the trigger and the weapon fired one round, ejected that round, loaded another, and then the hammer followed that round forward but failed to fire.
Q. So when it was in the unmarked third position and you pulled the trigger it fired one round, right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And even though it fired that round, a second round was cycled into the battery, right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. That is, it was put in the same position that the first round had just been in.
A. Right. But the hammer is caught in the semiauto position.  It is not allowed to continue forward.
Q. Whereas in the automatic position what happens?
A. The hammer would be allowed to fly forward and strike the primer.
Q. Okay. And in this case could you see whether the — when the second round was chambered, whether the hammer hit that second round?
A. Yes, there was a dimple in the primer where the — actually the hammer strikes the firing pin and the firing pin strikes the primer. There was a dimple made in the primer by the firing pin.
Q. Okay. Was that result, that is, the result of your pulling the trigger while the selector switch was in the unmarked third position, was that consistent with what you expected to happen?
A. No, sir, it was not.
Q. Because you expected it to fire automatically in that position?
A. Yes, sir.

In other words, the rifle chambered another round automatically, but when the hammer hit the second round to automatically fire it, the round was simply too hard.  Why?  Because the ammunition Mr Kingery was using was extra hard ammo specifically manufactured for Soldiers to use in combat, instead of regular ole rounds you and I would purchase.

Q. Now, based on your training and your experience and your examination of Exhibit 1, do you have an opinion as to why, even with those M-16 machine gun parts, that AR-15 would not fire automatically when you tried that on October — or in October of 2006?
A. Yes, sir. It was due to the ammunition I was using. Even though it was commercially available ammunition, it was a military grade ammunition which has a much harder primer than standard civilian ammunition.
Q. And why does military ammunition have a harder primer than standard civilian ammunition?
A. Because military designed firearms have what’s called a free floating firing pin. And in the free floating firing pin the firing pin is allowed to move back and forth freely where it can often strike the primer.  And with a soldier handling a weapon of this type, he’s going to be handling it on a battlefield, jumping in and out of vehicles, into ditches and things like this. The firearm’s going to be handled fairly roughly, and that’s going to cause this firing pin to move quite a bit back and forth, often striking the primer. And the intent is with the harder primer, is that it be necessary for a great deal of force to be applied to it to allow it to go off so that it doesn’t go off accidentally.

I will vouch for this.  In the field and downrange, we manhandle our weapons a lot.  We’re not gentle with them.


Q. Well, with that explanation in mind, you performed a second test using standard civilian grade ammunition, right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay. And can you explain that test?
A. Yes, sir. In that test I fired a total of 60 rounds with three magazines, 20 rounds in each magazine, and also three different types of ammunition. I used Winchester, Remington and Federal ammunition.  The test was conducted similarly to the first test in that I also checked the safety first, but I did not go into the semi-automatic position, I went directly to the full auto position and squeezed the trigger.
Q. Why didn’t you test the semiauto position again?
A. Why did I not?
Q. Yes.
A. I knew that the weapon functioned already.
Q. Okay.
A. And that was the purpose for firing it in the semiauto position.
Q. So you just checked the safe position, right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Found again that it worked?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And then you put the selector switch in the unmarked third position?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And what happened when you did that? First of all, you said that you used Federal, Winchester, and Remington brands?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. 20 rounds of each?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay.
A. I don’t recall in what order now, but the first magazine I held the trigger down and it emptied all 20 rounds without any stoppage.
Q. And then you loaded another magazine of 20 rounds?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And what happened with that one?
A. In the next two magazines I fired in five to 10 round bursts by myself functioning the trigger in five to 10 round bursts and the weapon fired automatically each time.

I repeat again – for emphasis.  They didn’t use any kind of special ammunition to make Olofson appear guilty when he wasn’t.  The rifle TRIED to fire automatically when military grade ammo was used, but it didn’t work.  But when regular, civilian grade ammunition was loaded, it apparently performed just as a machine gun should.  Kingery does explain further why he initially used the words, “soft primered” in the report: That’s actually a misspeaking on my part as I wrote the report. What we used was standard commercial civilian ammunition. Those are not soft primers. They’re softer than military primers, so that’s why I used that term, but they’re not soft primers. There are soft primers which are substantially softer.

You can read Len Savage’s expert testimony and other technical stuff that’s giving me a headache in the link that I provided.  And yes, Mr. Savage was allowed to testify.  And no, he was not allowed in the courtroom to witness the government’s testimony prior to his own, as was agreed.  And yes, the government’s witness was in court during Mr. Savage’s testimony, but only after the court was assured that Mr. Kingery was not going to testify again.  And that concern was brought up by the judge, and NOT by the defense.  So it certainly appears that the judge was more than fair toward the defense.

I’m all for civil disobedience.  Sometimes that’s the only way to change things for the better.  I honor those who have the courage to stand up to unfair laws and fight.  I admire those who have the intestinal fortitude to do so knowing they could be prosecuted .  What I don’t admire is cowards who surreptitiously think they can get away with shit, lie about it and dupe innocent, honorable gun owners and Second Amendment supporters into fighting their battle in the media and in the blogosphere.

It certainly appears that this is what’s going on here.  I’m no legal expert by any means, but I’m not an idiot, and  I’ve spent several hours reading the court transcripts.  I see no evidence of a conspiracy against Olofson and a lot of evidence to support the contention that he not only knew the rifle would fire on full
auto, but also that he modified it himself.

I support his right to not only modify the rifle, but have it and any other weapon he deems necessary.  But I will not support someone who is too cowardly to stand up and proudly oppose unjust laws, and then lies about it.

No thanks.