Via Reddit.
“I bought this thing off the street,” he says last night, not 20 feet from where the unthinkable happened. “This is a gun that was probably never tracked. No one knows where it came from. No one knows where it would’ve gone. [I bought it] off the street, you know—friend of a friend. Thing is, I put out the word that I wanted a gun, and seven or eight hours later, I was buying it out of the trunk of a car.”
Source: How to Cut a Handgun in Half with a Chop Saw – Slog – The Stranger
If the story is true (you never know with these Gun Control types) the owner of Cafe Racer, Kurt Geissel broke Washington State’s law about private transaction of firearms without the proper background check done by a licensed dealer. The law categorizes this crime as a gross misdemeanor.
If arrested, tried and convicted, Mr. Geissel could be punished by “imprisonment in the county jail for a maximum term fixed by the court of up to three hundred sixty-four days, or by a fine in an amount fixed by the court of not more than five thousand dollars, or by both such imprisonment and fine.”
Now let’s see if the authorities do their job and arrest Mr. Geissel… yeah, I am not expecting that either, he more likely will get the Gregory Exception. Those are laws that only apply to them Gun Nuts, not artistic liberal people that have the best intentions at heart…if it only saves one life, do it for the Children! And you are racist because it is Bush’s Fault.
If you read the comments, his defenders are accusing those who have pointed out the crime as “trolls”…typical double standard.
The comments did not pop up when I read the article… gonna check
I wonder if he made it a federal crime too and defaced the serial number?
There is a way that a receiver can be destroyed to deactivate a firearm. There are a certain number of cuts cuts that have to be made in certain locations depending on the type of firearm. He did not follow the ATF guide lines on this and so his “destroyed” gun is not technically deactivated by ATF standards. You are right, all he did is deface the serial number.
From what I read quickly over the web, the ATF demands logging of the firearm (make, model, serial number) among other steps.
http://orchidadvisors.com/blog/2014/11/19/Best-Practices-in-Firearm-Destruction-an
That part applies to FFLs and we are very, very careful about that. For non FFLs, since you don’t have an AD book, there isn’t much to record.
A good example of this in practice. At my last job I did firearms failure analysis. I’d get guns that had kB! into pieces. Receivers that were shredded. They were still firearms and had to be shipped to an FFL and transferred with a 4473.
The look on the face of an dear when he’s transferring a gun that is in Ziplock bags in a cardboard box is priceless.
Point taken.
Exactly my first thought. Back when the ATF sent me the phone-books of State and Federal law, I remember there being a few pages of detailed pictures of many popular rifles and pistols and where to cut with the torch or saw.
So yeah, he is probably facing lots of bad charges for his stupidity.
I don’t see any issues from that point of view, on his part.
The gun is legitimately permanently non-functional – there’s no way to put a slide on that cut receiver and have it function as a firearm, and it’s even less repairable than a re-weldable metal receiver – which is still not a gun if it needs hours of welding and machining to “repair”, which is why you can buy dewat receivers as non-guns in parts kits.
So what he has now is some scrap metal and plastic, not “a firearm” under Federal law.
There is no general requirement from ATF for all guns that they be destroyed only in a particular way.
(They have instructions for various machineguns, to “prevent its function and future use as a firearm”, and say a proper way is cutting into pieces – see here – these instructions are for ones to be “imported for general commercial sale”, which is why the focus is on keeping much of the receiver intact for the end-consumer, as either proof of provenance or for historical interest, and not just shredding it.
This is not mandated by ATF for generic destruction of all firearms, or even of all machineguns; one can do more cuts, use a bigger torch, or completely destroy the receiver, and their guidance does not suggest otherwise.
(You do need approval of alternate methods … for those specific firearms, for importation and sale. And someone importing some other machinegun would doubtless need a method approved to get their import approved.)
e.g. here, for a Sten: “Alternative methods of destruction may also be acceptable. These alternative methods must be equivalent in degree to the approved method of destruction”.
All they care about is “you can’t make it go bang with even a few hours of work in a shop”.)
I think people are conflating these requirements for import and sale of dewat machineguns with a general requirement for firearms, which the ATF does not claim they are.
As far as anyone can tell, under the law, “if it can’t function and can’t be made to function [relatively[ easily, it is no longer a gun”.
His cut-in-half pistol is no longer a gun.)
So, he criminally buys a gun off the streets, then rather than turn it in to the police with the name of the person who sold him the gun so that maybe action can be taken in the future to stop said illegal gun sales, he says he destroyed it to prove a point. Point made. He violated stated laws, worked in conspiracy with others to violate those laws, withheld information from law enforcement about a crime, and possibly destroyed evidence of another crime (considering that gun had probably been stolen in the first place if it being sold that way). Yeah, but that’s ok, because he is a lib and tried to make a point, and those laws obviously do not apply to libs, even when they commit crimes…..sheesh…
Well, in his defense, if he did turn it over to the police after buying it illegally, they would possibly arrest him, and ignore the seller, since he would have admitted to committing a crime. I remember an episode of COPS where a lady did that with drugs. (Yes, I know, the drugs are illegal, guns are not. Not a direct comparison, but similar enough situation for comparison purposes) She makes a dime bag purchase, then took it to the police (a block away) and gave them the evidence that she had, pointed out the dude she purchased it from and told them what she did and why. They arrested her, and ignored sumdood. So, in the end, she ends up a criminal because she was trying to clean up her neighborhood.
I do remember that episode. She was so pissed she was spitting venom.
Did he turn in the friend or the friend of the friend that are obviously ok with gun trafficking? If not then not only should he be punished for the purchase but for not turning in gun traffickers.
It will be interesting to watch this here in WA state. Thanks for the heads-up. If he gets away with it and if no charges are filed, it will basically nullify the law.
No one is complying with I-594 and from the general chatter, it seems LE could really care less about enforcing it.
The Washington A-G has said I-594 is such a poorly written law he has no idea how to advise law enforcement on enforcing it, and law enforcement has said they aren’t going to enforce it. And law enforcement stood around watching as hundreds of people the courthouse lawn stood around handing firearms back and forth to each other, and did nothing. The danger in this, however, is that it is a clear departure from “Rule of Law” to “Rule of Man” — not only that officers are not enforcing the law (which is actually okay if they base it on unconstitutionality rather than poor wording) but the risk is that LE agencies cannot punish an individual officer for failure to observe agency policy if that policy conflicts with law. So now if an individual officer wants to throw his weight around and bust someone under this bogus law, his agency can’t punish him (or her) for it.
can’t wait for the guy to show how bad child prostitution is.
OH MY…..that was priceless
While I think the guy is a liberal idiot and troll (but I repeat myself), in my view he has a right to buy a gun and he has a right to destroy his own property. And law enforcement in Oregon apparently agrees, because they have said they are not going to enforce the unconstitutional background checks that violate the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 10th Amendment rights of gun owners.
All I’m sure of is that someone cut up a handgun – the pictures appear in altered. I don’t take their word on any of the rest of the story, especially that he bought it of the street as described.
I’d believe “friend of a friend”, especially if “friend of a friend” knew him or “friend” vouched for his end purpose and lack of felony record.
I’d especially believe “friend of a friend” was happy to sell him an overpriced gun he knew would be destroyed and that he knew would never be a problem for him, legally.
(“Why, sure, I can get you a Whatever for … er… $X”, where X is $50 more than he paid for it.)
The biggest irony here? If the point he’s proving is actually valid, then this firearm that he’s defaced may actually have been used in the execution of a crime, meaning he’s willfully destroying evidence.
Don’t give that rag hits. Use an archive.today link for their articles.
So not only did Mr. Geissel commit a crime, he also is “friends of friends” with criminals. The VERY criminals that are putting these illegal guns into the hands of murderers, thieves, and rapists. The VERY criminals that commit the heinous crimes that so outrage Mr. Geissel and his ilk.
So, Mr. Geissel, in addition to turning yourself in, why don’t you report these friends, and friends of friends as well. All of them, including yourself now, are part of a network of violent crime.