For those who haven’t heard, Hollis Wayne Fincher was found guilty of “illegal” possession of a fully automatic firearm and a “sawed-off” shotgun. You can be read about the case here, here, here and here,
As you can tell by my above inclusion of “scare quotes”, I do not believe that any of these actions should be illegal, and that the popularizing of media/anti-rights scare words is complete, down to the prosecutors office. Just as a sub-machine gun has it’s place in society, so does a short-barrelled shotgun, and had I been on the jury, Fincher would have gone home that day.
A citizen’s possession of these items is no more frightening to me than someone owning a turbine powered motorcycle or a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book.
It is all about what you do with then, not that you have them in the first place.
Unfortunately for Fincher, there are not enough people such as myself out there and even if the judge had allowed him to make certain Constitutional arguments in his defense, the general public available for the jury pool is, in my opinion, too fucking stoopid to understand the words that would be said.
Some folks say that he was itching for this fight and maybe he was. Either way, he lost.
You and I also lost. With this decision, and the subsequent losses he will face in his appeals process, will most likely set back the drive to de-regulate the ownership of fully automatic and short-barrelled firearms a number of years unforseeable to us at this time.
I have fired fully automatic firearms: Pistols, sub-guns, real “assault rifles” and crew served weapons.
I have fired fully automatic firearms in competition (and those of you living in full-auto states who do not take up the opportunity to do this are wasting an opportunity to not only make friends, but also to get some excellent training and have more fun than your wallet can stand).
While I will always love my short-barrelled shotguns/rifles (not that I own any today), my love affair with fully automatic weapons has subsided and I have little fascination to ever own one, even if I “legally” could. Maybe just one real, open-bolt MAC-10 in .45ACP (with the wood buttstock and carbine length barrel option) for old time’s sake, or a one of the Browning M1919’s that the Navy converted to 7.62×51 for river use in Vietnam to cover the “Belt-Fed Gap” I have in my collection.
Basically what I’m trying to say is that, in my opinion, full-auto isn’t “All That and a Bag of Chips”. And it is definitely not worth losing your right to ever possess a firearm for the rest of your life.
The next three days will see QotD that tell you why my opinion of FA firearms has declined, and after reading them, I’m sure you’ll understand.
Since we finished last week off with the guy, we’ll start this series with Boston T. Party
Firepower is hits per minute, not rounds per minute.
Boston T. Party – Boston’s Gun Bible – pp 8/4
No maybe about the fact that Fincher was gunning for the BATFE, figuratively speaking. Engraved on his M1919’s were the words “Protected by the 2A”, and he was a high-ranking officer in a militia which had had previous run-ins with the feds.
This guy is a bullrusher. There is no finesse or planning in his defense of the Second, however heart-felt that defense might have been. As a light colonel in a large militia, he should have known about fighting smart, picking your ground, and knowing when to give ground. He displayed none of those skills.
Definitely not MY poster child for 2A abuse, no sir.
I hope he is at least doing some pushups to bulk up for his prison experience, and sleeping, face up, on a poor mattress so as to get used to the idea.
If an appeal comes around to bleg for him, don’t send it my way. His type of action should not be rewarded, and, like you said, we will need the money for other defense now that he has stirred the hornet’s nest.