22 fully-automatic assault rifles were confiscated by the BATF from Moyock, NC-based Blackwater Worldwide last week after a story was published in the Raleigh News & Observer questioning an arrangement between the private military contractor and the Camden County, North Carolina Sheriff's Department.

Blackwater financed the purchase of 17 Romanian AK-47s and 17 Bushmaster Bushmaster XM15 E2S for the Sheriff's SWAT team as it was forming in 2005. The Sheriff's Department had requested both weapons systems for trial. After training, deputies determined that the AK-47s did not meet their needs for SWAT use, and since that time, the 17 AK-47s and 5 of the17 XM15 carbines have been stored in a weapons locker dedicated to the Sheriff's Department at Blackwater's training facility armory. The other 12 XM15s are deployed with deputies. The department does not have an armory of it's own. Both the Sheriff's Department and Blackwater insist that the arrangement made three years ago is legal.

Fully-automatic weapons have always been legal to own in the United States according to federal law, though they are prohibited or further restricted in some states. There are more than 240,000 machine guns registered with the BATF as of 1995. Roughly half of those are owned by civilians, and the rest are owned by government entities such as police and sheriff's departments.

As a matter of policy the BATF will not comment on pending investigations, but the most likely cause for the confiscation was the determination by the BATF that the arrangement may have constituted a "strawman" purchase. On the most basic level, a "strawman" occurs when someone who is legally authorized to purchase a firearm knowingly purchases it for someone who they know or suspect cannot buy a firearm on their own. Additional scrutiny applies to the purchase, transfer and possession of machine guns under the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) and the Firearms Owners' Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA). NFA places a $200 tax on the transfer of firearms, and FOPA banned the possession or sale of machine guns to civilians manufactured after May of 1986.

The BATF may claim that the three-year-old arrangement, where the Sheriff's Department stores their weapons at Blackwater's armory is a violation of the transfer and possession requirements of NFA and/or FOPA. Anne Tyrrell, spokesperson for Blackwater Worldwide, argues that FOPA does not apply "because we never owned the weapons. The Camden County Sheriff's Department own them."

Tyrrell further claims that BATF agents have known of the arrangement with the Camden County Sheriff for an extended period of time, saying via email:

"All aspects of our contract with a local Sheriff's Department are valid and lawful. Some of the same ATF agents involved in the current inquiry have long been aware of this arrangement as a result of visits to our facility and audits of our firearms programs at Blackwater's request. As a company that is fully licensed to sell, provide training on, or even manufacture weapons---including machine guns---we have worked closely with the ATF to ensure we are in compliance with all applicable federal firearms laws. We look forward to cooperating with the government to resolve this allegation."

Pro-Blackwater blog Blackwaterfacts backs Tyrrell, claiming that the AFT did a full inventory of the facility in 2005, including the Camden County Weapons locker, after Blackwater alerted the ATF to two employees that worked in the armory were engaged in illegal activity.

If it is accurate that BATF agents had "long been aware" of the existence of the Camden County Weapons locker at Blackwater, but had not seen fit to confiscate them until now, it suggests that new details may have emerged. That detail may have been provided in articles from the News & Observer and the Elizabeth City, NC-based Daily Advance, which note that in addition to merely storing the Sheriff's Department weapons, they may have been used to train police and military units.

Blackwater, which also manufactures vehicles and airships, is the largest security contractor for the U.S. State Department and operates one of the largest tactical firearms training centers in the world. Critics of the company have attacked it as a mercenary army, and Blackwater security personnel in Iraq have been accused of using excessive force in numerous engagements, including a September 2007 incident in Baghdad's Nisour Square where 17 Iraqi civilians were killed.

correction: Moyock, NC not Mynock, as noted by "EC" in the comments.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:31 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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In a story about the Federal ATF raid to confiscate assault rifles (real ones for a change) that Blackwater International held in a secure vault for the local Camden County Sheriff that owns them, Associated Press report Mike Baker twice claims that it is illegal for private citizens or companies to purchase automatic weapons.

Fair-use, non-lede quote:

Federal laws prohibit private parties from buying automatic weapons, but allows law enforcement agencies to have them.

This claim is absolutely and unquestioningly false.

The National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) imposed a tax on machine guns, but did not make them illegal to own by private citizens or companies. While extremely expensive, one can legally purchase machine guns from a wide variety of vendors.

Due to a Clinton-era restriction, machine guns manufactured after 1986 are not available for private sale, but this has had the side effect of making these machine guns an investment, and they are being marketed that way.

The media's ignorance of the subjects they write about never fails to amaze me.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:35 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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The sad story out of Columbia, SC, is an example of why I find some methods of carrying concealed completely unacceptable:

A 4-year-old girl grabbed her grandmother's gun and shot herself at a Sam's Club store in Columbia, S.C., authorities said.

Police Department spokesman Brick Lewis said the child took the gun from her grandmother's purse Monday and shot herself in the chest.

He said the child's grandmother has a valid permit to carry a concealed weapon. She has not been charged with a crime.

While I'm sure to have folks disagree on this point, I simply don't find off-body carry to be responsible. If you have your carry weapon in a purse or a bag, you put yourself in a situation where you will, during the course of your day, willingly relinquish control of your weapon numerous times. No person on this planet keeps a purse, bag, or briefcase in hand at all times, often placing it in a seat, shopping cart, on a desk, etc.

For unarmed people this is not an issue; shoplifters, purse-snatchers, and other thieves aren't rampant at our homes or places of work, and the very worst that can occur as a result of someone else accessing a bag or case is identity theft. For those who chose to carry a firearm, you should be held to a higher standard of responsibility, and when you carry off-body in a bag, you create a situation where unauthorized access arms curious children or thieves with a lethal weapon.

Frankly, the grandmother in this case should be charged for criminal negligence (or something similar) and have her carry permit revoked. She knew she was going to be around small children, and apparently left a lethal weapon unsecured in a purse in a shopping cart with a small child.

I'm glad that the child looks like she will recover, but Grandma should not be allowed to make such an irresponsible mistake again, and I'd urge my fellow CCH holders to carry on your person, or not carry at all.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:28 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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It appears that our education system is failing us once more, as a collegiate newspaper published an anti-gun editorial penned upon completely false information.

It is sad enough when one editorialist makes up the basic facts his story hinges upon; it's worse when editorial board signs off on this kind of ignorance:

In 2004, a federal ban on assault weapons expired.

Now, four years later, Mayor Michael Nutter and Governor Ed Rendell want to reduce violent crime nationally by convincing Congress to re-enact the ban.

The ten-year federal ban forbids the possession, manufacture, use and import of assault weapons. And according to a 1999 National Institute of Justice study, it reduced the percent of crime committed with assault weapons, including police murders, by a significant amount.

The only thing that the editorial board of the Daily Pennsylvanian got right in this editorial is that the ban expired in 2004.

As we well know, the so-called "assault weapons" ban in the 1994 Crime Bill:

• Did not ban the manufacture of semiautomatic firearms. In fact, companies that manufacture semi-automatic firearms, such as Bushmaster and Olympic Arms thrived throughout the length of the ban, and Kahr Arms was founded as a direct result of a market created by the ban;
• Did not ban the transfer of semiautomatic firearms. Sales of semiautomatic firearms actually increased during the 1994-2004 ban.
• Did not ban the possession of semi-automatic firearms. This includes weapons defined as "assault weapons" under the ban, as long as they had been manufactured prior to the law going into effect, and tens of thousands of semi-automatic firearms made and sold during the ban;

The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban was irrelevant; if anything it had the unintended effect of making such firearms more desirable, increasing their popularity.

Sadly, this mythical view of the accomplishments of the 1994 AW Ban is common "conventional wisdom" in left-leaning journalism and politics. Unlike so many views held in the community-based reality, however, the perception has nothing to do with the truth.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:32 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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