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Bear with me on this one – it’s a little convoluted.\u00a0 Doesn’t make the big ‘pro-gun’ groups look too good, either. It all starts with the 2001 murder of an Assistant US attorney Thomas Wales (who was also a leader of the gun ban movement in Seattle).<\/p>\n
Allegedly, ballistics tests revealed the murder weapon was to be a Makarov pistol outfitted with an after-market replacement barrel. The FBI went on a quest looking for every one of owners of the known 3,500 barrels ever made.<\/p>\n
That quest brought the FBI to Belleview, WA gun collector Albert Kwan\u2019s home. The bureau agents wanted to borrow and test fire Kwan\u2019s Makarov pistol they believed was outfitted with an after-market replacement barrel. Kwan refused the request because the gun was new and unfired. Kwan\u2019s reasoning was that this would destroy the value of his property.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Never knew I could have been under suspicion, had an after-market .380 barrel for a 9×18 Makarov once. Now, one would think some middle ground could have been found – Makarov barrels aren’t THAT hard to change, albeit not as easy\u00a0 as a 1911 or HiPower, but it can be done by many home enthusiasts. Remove the barrel, fit it into another gun, and fire IT, get your rifling data. Problem solved. (Noting in fairness that with a different barrel than original, that ‘collector value’ sounds a bit of a straw argument.)<\/p>\n
Now’s when it gets ugly on the part of ATF:<\/p>\n
They obtained a search warrant, kicked his door down and seized every firearm in his home. Kwan legally owned 100 machine guns along with some run of the mill semi-automatic firearms. The Agents took one of Kwan’s rifles, a Springfield, semi-automatic M-14 copy, remanufactured the receiver, and installed new parts turning it to a machine gun! Since that Springfield was not registered as a machine gun the agents charged Kwan for the federal felony under the National Firearms Act of 1934. CrimeWeb<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yes, a semi-auto M-14. This particular gun started life as an auto, was made inoperable (the term is “DEWAT” – DEactivated WAr Trophy”, sorta like the welded-receiver machine guns you can find) and then refurbished as a semi-auto legal rifle. Not that it mattered much, Kwan had several collectors’ licenses and could have legally owned an M-14 anyway. But understand this…the ATF took one of KWAN’s guns, remachined it and replaced parts to make it a functional full auto – and then charged KWAN with having an unlicensed full auto.<\/p>\n
This exposure did serious damage to Albert Kwan’s reputation, destroying his commercial real estate business, costing him his Top-Secret security clearance, and causing him to be suspended from his position in the US Army Reserves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The goal of the ATF investigation was to turn Kwan into a witness against someone else. Reminds me of Ruby Ridge, when the ATF persuaded Randy Weaver to cut off shotgun barrels, then charged him with having sawed-off shotguns below legal length.<\/p>\n
As I understand it, they contacted Kwan and asked to look at his gun collection (housed in his home, along with his home-based FFL business),” Knox recalls. “In accordance with advice from his attorney, Albert told them they would need to talk with his attorney. He subsequently turned over his entire Makarov collection, through his attorney, including the gun with the aftermarket barrel installed, but the investigators were unsatisfied and felt that Albert was being \u2018uncooperative,’… As for the charges Kwan was brought to trial on, the first being illegal possession of an unregistered machine gun, as Knox notes, the jury decided it was a semiauto\u2014but because ATF had converted it to fire full auto to try and convict him, there was no “legal” mechanism for them to convert it back and return his property. The jury did side with the government on the second charge, possession of an unregistered Short-Barreled Rifle (again, as noted, Kwan had an HK VP70Z pistol that “was capable of accepting” a shoulder stock, “but the judge learned that the BATFE had misrepresented several pertinent facts, and he reversed the jury verdict, declaring a mistrial.”<\/p>\n