YouTuber CRS Firearms Indicted for Violating the National Firearms Act

[Crazytrain]

I can't believe a Florida jury did this ! IMO ... Overturned on appeal !

Hope so. But I think appeal has to wait until after sentencing which doesn't even happen until the end of July. Then the government will just drag it out another couple years, probably with the two guys rotting in jail. Another hundred thousand dollars in legal fees. His family screwed. And he still may lose. They really did him wrong making him commute monthly from Wisconsin to Florida because they convinced the judge it was too much of a burden on the government to ship the "evidence", being the key cards, to Wisconsin. The process is the punishment. And now the punishment is the punishment.

This is tyranny.

 

[Biggfoot44]

The point of a prosecutors case is convincing a jury the defendant is guilty. And the point of the defense is to convince them the defendant is innocent.

Not really . Only rarely does defense try to prove defendant is innocent .

Their goal is to disprove the prosecutor's case / point out that prosecutor's case is flawed .

 

[Scottysan]

same logic as the kid who got expelled from school for having a BB gun hanging on the wall behind him during a zoom class.
Brought a gun to school?
BS

 

[lazarus]

I'd disagree about being unlikely to win, but obviously he didn't win. But it isn't a part. Five hours of deliberations and not one juror couldn't see the ********?

And it's all ********. Frankly, we should be able to have machine guns. But in no sense of the word are these machine gun parts. Hell, when the ATF cut them out they wouldn't work as designed. They had to jam them in to get it to work as a "hammer follow" which is not to plan. It could have been almost anything jammed in there.

Poking the bear is necessary. Gotta put it in its' place. But, as the old saying goes, "sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you."

This whole thing really pisses me off. I've been pissed off a lot lately by all the shenanigans going on. It isn't good for my health.

And yet the ATF managed to convince 12 vaguely ordinary people that they were right.

Sure, in the long history of our country, civil disobedience has a storied tradition. However, was he truly doing this to generate change? Or was he doing it to make a lot of money, even if he wasn't trying to actually make "machinegun parts" for people to then go make machineguns?

Seems he was doing it to make a lot of money, and less as an actual protest.

But, either way, protest or business plan, he took a serious legal risk that did not turn out well. One just means his civil disobedience ended badly for him, but maybe it will someday generate real change. The other...well he wouldn't be the first one to get run over by the machinery of government when they were doing something they knew or should have known was of questionable legality*.

*On the structured financial transactions, the government showed he was doing a lot more than simply withdrawing under the limit because the bank wouldn't allow over $10k withdrawals without a waiting period on the withdrawal. They did show, and the jury bought it, that he was attempting to hide his financial activities. I didn't pay attention on the conspiracy charge supposedly related to the go-fund me. But IIRC it was not related to his legal defense fund.

 

[lazarus]

Hope so. But I think appeal has to wait until after sentencing which doesn't even happen until the end of July. Then the government will just drag it out another couple years, probably with the two guys rotting in jail. Another hundred thousand dollars in legal fees. His family screwed. And he still may lose. They really did him wrong making him commute monthly from Wisconsin to Florida because they convinced the judge it was too much of a burden on the government to ship the "evidence", being the key cards, to Wisconsin. The process is the punishment. And now the punishment is the punishment.

This is tyranny.

Huh? The case was originally just against Matthew Ervin, but him and Hoover were tried jointly in the end. Courts generally don't transfer jurisdiction without very good reasons. The nexus of the supposed crime was in Florida originally, where Matthew Ervin was arrested. Thus the Jacksonville, Florida trial. Hoover wasn't charged until later.

I don't think Hoover's attorneys ever argued in court that they should be tried separately, which would have been a stronger argument to transfer jurisdiction to a Wisconsin federal district court.

As for "the punishment" of needing to fly down there, I mean, he was out on bail the entire time. Ervin was not. If jurisdiction was transferred, then they'd need to also transfer Ervin to a Wisconsin area federal prison. And then any friend or relation of Matthew Erving would then need to fly up to Wisconsin to visit him. Plus Matthew Ervin would either need to find new lawyers, or they'd need to fly up to Wisconsin for every hearing and trial itself.

So either you allow the defendant on bail to stay bailed, but has to travel at his cost for trial and possible some hearings. Or you make the other defendant's defense much harder and make him nearly inaccessible to anyone while pending trial.

 

[Kharn]

This would be a prime candidate for a directed verdict, no reasonable jury should have found him guilty based on 1A grounds, but the judge sounds like a ringmaster at a circus rather than a fair arbiter of the law.

 

[lazarus]

same logic as the kid who got expelled from school for having a BB gun hanging on the wall behind him during a zoom class.
Brought a gun to school?
BS

A) He was not expelled, that was the original disciplinary action proposed. He was suspended for 6 days in the end*
B) No, the school rules were that guns and WEAPONS are not allowed on school property or at school FUNCTIONS, which virtual school was at the time**
C) It was not hanging on the wall. A sibling tripped on it laying on the floor. The 4th grade student in question then went off camera, picked it up, was handling it on camera, and then laid it on the chair next to him, which the teacher observed the on camera portions of that
D) The student disconnected from the zoom from an internet issue right afterwards (at any rate, supposedly from an internet issue and not the student disconnecting)
E) The teacher and school spent hours trying to get ahold of the parents because it appeared a 9-year old was handling a gun at home and learned later it was just a BB gun (which is also still banned under school rules). So it certainly disrupted education for the class, which was one of the school's arguments for the suspension.

Yeah, I think it's kind of stupid, but it didn't go down at all like you suggested.

*This was later reduced to 3 days of suspension and 3 days unexcused absence on his record
**State law was later changed to have schools make separate rules for virtual instruction separate from general school property/school function rules

 

[lazarus]

This would be a prime candidate for a directed verdict, no reasonable jury should have found him guilty based on 1A grounds, but the judge sounds like a ringmaster at a circus rather than a fair arbiter of the law.

It wasn't speech was the argument. Otherwise ANYTHING is speech. If the ATF can prove he made a thing that had a function whose core purpose was not speech and it was not the speech itself at issue, then it is not protected under 1A grounds.

Under current law and reg, a machinegun part is prohibited, thus making a machinegun part is not protected speech. Otherwise making full up machineguns would be protected speech. Or pipe bombs are protected speech. Or heroin is protected speech. Or Racin. Etc.

Making the lightning link cards not of the correct dimensions by far, protected speech. Not etched. Probably protected speech. Lightning link cards, etched at the cut lines to make one, in the proper dimensions to make functional lightning links, even if they don't work well, so long as they work, machinegun parts and not protected speech.

Just like making a non-functional pipe bomb isn't a crime. But a functional one, even if it doesn't blow up well, well that's illegal.

 

[Crazytrain]

Making the lightning link cards not of the correct dimensions by far, protected speech. Not etched. Probably protected speech. Lightning link cards, etched at the cut lines to make one, in the proper dimensions to make functional lightning links, even if they don't work well, so long as they work, machinegun parts and not protected speech.

Just like making a non-functional pipe bomb isn't a crime. But a functional one, even if it doesn't blow up well, well that's illegal.

The machine shop wanted to cut and tab.Ervin refused. Ervin never answered and questions, nor provided any instructions on how to make the lightning link. Not one was found by the ATF to have been made by a customer that worked. The ATF couldn't make it work as designed and had to jam it into the receiver to cause a hammer follow malfunction.

Regards structuring, Ervin tried to withdraw $50k at the back but was refused more than $10k. One of the bank tellers is who started this whole thing by making a complaint.

There's no video or audio. I wasn't there. This is based on what others have reported. Maybe it's all BS.

 

[AssMan]

Wow. And these guys were held without bail for two years? What kind of clowns works at these federal LEO agencies? Does no one stop to think, "Does this make sense? Is this the right thing to do?" I guess they're just following orders and doing their jobs.

"The really astounding testimony came from a BATFE expert, though. He initially claimed that he was able to cut functional Lightning Links from the cards and had a video to prove it. But on cross-examination by Hoover’s attorney Matt Larosiere, the “expert” admitted that when he followed the lines on the cards, he couldn’t make the resulting parts fit into any of the AR’s he had for testing – and you can be sure the BATFE has a variety of AR’s available. He admitted that he modified the design, ignoring the lines and cutting the parts to different dimensions to get them to fit into a gun, then admitted that he was still unable to get the Lightning Link to actually function – ever – at all. What the BATFE claimed was a “success” included “40 minutes of work with a Dremel tool,” This was not a functional Lightning Link at all, but rather a couple of pieces of metal ground on and fiddled with for an indeterminate amount of time, and finally crammed into the trigger mechanism of a rifle causing it to malfunction."

Auto Key-Card Case Ruling is a Travesty of Justice

That criminal charges were brought in the 1st place is a travesty. The fact that he has been held in custody without bail for 2 years is an outrage...

www.ammoland.com

 

[Crazytrain]

The CRS attorney has the youtube channel Fuddbusters and discussed the case a bit...

 

[adit]

Sentenced to 5 years in the pokey.

 

[Ponder_MD]

Sentenced to 5 years in the pokey.

Damn. What a load of crap.

 

[Doctor_M]

Independent minded freedom lovers must be punished dontchaknow.

 

[owldo]

Hopefully appeals are already in the works !

 

[doggyjacket]

Hadn't heard about this. But from 30 seconds of reading the blog post on TFB from when he got arrested, I am going to guess the main issue is the "business cards" were made out of metal. I am assuming if they were made out of paper, no jury convicts.

Not a great precedent but the guy was a little too clever by half and did not consult legal advice. Is that about the gist of it?

 

[smokey]

This is bullsh!t. An innocent American is sitting in jail by the whims of tyrants. I hope they appeal, win, nuke the nfa and get paid.

 

[doggyjacket]

The CRS attorney has the youtube channel Fuddbusters and discussed the case a bit...

I am not sure the defense attorneys were effective in their representation. They are going over a lot of technicalities and minutia and analogies that aren't really on point, e.g. "just cause you say a plastic up is a machine gun doesn't mean it is!"

But it sounds like they had a very very tough job based on these photos:

Prosecutor probably said look at photo 1. Its makes a machine gun.
Look at photo 2. That's what the defendant was selling.

I can see how 9.5 out of 10 people say, "Ok, well they're the same thing." And I honestly don't know how you convince non-2A people that it isn't true.

Photo 1.

Photo 2:

 

[Abagnale]

Would it be legal to sell metal credit cards with no imprint on them? But provide downloadable 3d milling plans for free for a lightning link and also selling a basic CNC machine with bits? I found a cheap CNC setup that you have to assemble yourself for ~$140.
I'm thinking about registering the domain www.definitelynotamachinegun.com
Anyone want to join me in this business venture providing we get the legal go ahead from several attorneys?

 

[doggyjacket]

Would it be legal to sell metal credit cards with no imprint on them? But provide downloadable 3d milling plans for free for a lightning link and also selling a basic CNC machine with bits? I found a cheap CNC setup that you have to assemble yourself for ~$140.
I'm thinking about registering the domain www.definitelynotamachinegun.com
Anyone want to join me in this business venture providing we get the legal go ahead from several attorneys?

Based on the outcome of this case, if you sold all three together as a package, I think you'd get effed.