Mission statement:

Armed and Safe is a gun rights advocacy blog, with the mission of debunking the "logic" of the enemies of the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms.

I can be reached at 45superman@gmail.com.You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/45superman.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

The United States vs. some hunks of metal

I've mentioned Richard Celata, of KT Ordnance, before. According to Hairy Hobbit, there has been some more action on his case.

For those who are unaware, and are in too much of a hurry to check out the links, I'll provide a brief background. KT Ordnance offered incomplete (about 80%) firearm frames. The government, of course, regards the frame of a gun as being legally equal to a whole gun (other parts of the gun are just that--parts). Therefore, commerce in firearm frames is subject to the same regulatory morass (GCA, etc.) as commerce in complete firearms. By offering incomplete frames, KT Ordnance provided customers with the opportunity to do the finishing work themselves, and (as long as they never transferred the end product to another owner) build a firearm without the legal hoops our once proud republic has stooped to forcing its citizens to jump through--and this process would be completely legal.

Or so we thought. As it turns out, the ATF must have wanted to take a break from screwing over Jay Dobyns (Dobyns isn't really relevant to this post--I just mentioned him to give my federal secret admirer something else to look at--he seems to come here at least once almost every day to look at the same post about Dobyns and the ATF, and I'm afraid he's going to get bored--say "Hi" to the fed, everybody). So, they decided to decree that the 80% frames were too much like complete frames, despite the fact that machine tools, skill, knowledge, and time would be required to transform them into anything more than paperweights--more importantly, there are no published definitions of where the legal line is drawn between "complete," and "incomplete" firearm frames. That, I suspect, is how the BATFE likes it--the more ambiguity there is in the law, the more free they are to interpret (and reinterpret, when convenient) the law as it suits them.

To this point, Mr. Celata (owner of KT Ordnance) has not been charged with anything, despite the raid on his business having occurred back in June, with his entire inventory, plus computers and files, confiscated. Instead of charging him, they have taken the rather . . . interesting step of charging part of his inventory--apparently for the crime of manufacturing itself without a license.

Mr. Celata's legal team is attempting to get the "charges" dropped, on the grounds that the BATFE's legal definition of firearm is so vague as to be useless. Supposedly, the defense made the motion to dismiss last Friday (Feb. 2), but to this point, I haven't been able to find any information as to how that went.

Anyone who does know something, please post a comment.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just can't work up any sympathy for Dobyns. Where was all his concern for proper behavior in the 19 years he "served faithfully" the agency that has done to all America, with his help through that faithful service, what the agency finally got around to doing to him?

Sorry, this comes under the heading of "Chickens home to roost". Or "what goes around comes around".

Anonymous said...

As far as KT Ordnance goes, this sounds like a shakedown.

There are people in prison for less egregious offenses against their fellow man than ATF considers routine behavior. I would like to see everyone of them in prison. Of course that would lower the character of the neighborhood.

Kurt '45superman' Hofmann said...

I don't disagree with you about Dobyns, but I think his story provides yet more proof (if any were needed) of the institutional arrogance and evil of the BATFE--not only do they exist to violate the Constitutional rights of American citizens, but they throw their own people to the wolves when it suits them.

me said...

this is the last thing I have seen attributed to RC:

"The judge would only hear the Gov's motion to stay, not our motion to dismiss. The Gov. could not articulate a good argument, so the judge did not grant the stay.
So that means now the judge will entertain the motion for dismissal, or move on with the case.

That's all I can say at this point."

Kurt '45superman' Hofmann said...

Gotcha--thanks, HH.

me said...

no official verification, but wolfsblog has this.

Kurt '45superman' Hofmann said...

Wow--if that's true, that's spectacular news. Thanks!