🚀 go-pugleaf

On 24 Oct 1994, Griff Miller wrote:

> In article <MCINTOSH.94Oct21095010@athene.rice.edu> mcintosh@rice.edu (Nathaniel McIntosh) writes:
> >>In article <NEWTNews.4814.782702587.woolfson@woolfson.unicom.net> Eric Woolfson <woolf@unicom.net> writes:
> >>	Well, the prohition-era ban on machine guns reduced their use 
> >>   in crime to zero.
> 
> I thought that the first use of machine guns in crime came after they were
> banned.

The National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA34) was passed in response to the
use of machineguns by the Chicago Mob, among others. Since NFA34, there
has been exactly one case of a legally-owned machinegun being used in a
crime of violence. And that was by an _off-duty_police_officer_. All other
crimes involving machineguns have been "technical", i.e. paperwork,
violations. Details appended: 

 
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Report No. 32 of the Firearms Coalition of Silver Spring, MD. 11/29/89
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                       By Neal Knox
                        
 
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               Legal Machine Gun Said Used in Drug Hit
               
A 13-year veteran of the Dayton, Ohio, Police Department has been charged
in the year-old machine gunning death of a police informant, described
as a professional murder.
 
The officer, Patrolman Roger Walter, who pleaded not guilty, owned a
fully automatic registered MAC-11 .380 which police claim was used in
the murder. The authorization for the transfer had been signed seven
months previously by the Dayton police chief who said he wouldn't normally
have approved.
 
BATF has stated that in the 55-year history of the National Firearms Act
there had not been a single known case of a legally owned machine gun used
by the owner in a crime, and only one case of a licensed gun being stolen
then used in a crime.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
On page 68 of 'Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America' by Professor
Gary Kleck he quotes 1986 congressional testimony of the director of
BATF, where the director says he knew of fewer than ten crimes of any
type committed with legally possessed machine guns. Kleck points out
that even this total may include violations of gun regulations, such
as moving a registered weapon to another state without telling the
BATF, rather than a violent crime. Considering that there are over
100,000 privately owned machine guns in this country, that gives us a
pretty good basis for assessing the risks involved.
 
The full citation from Kleck's endnote is as follows:
 
Higgins, Stephen E. 1986.  Testimony before the Subcommittee on Crime,
House Committee on the Judiciary, Febuary 19, 1986.  Serial No. 131, Part
2.  Washington, DC. : US Government Printing Office. 


whughes@lonestar.utsa.edu (William Hughes) | In memory of 85 un-charged,
UTSA doesn't agree with me. They're wrong. | un-convicted victims of the U.S.
St. Dismas' Infirmary for the Incurably    | government in Waco, Texas -
Informed [_Synners_, Pat Cadigan]          | including over 20 children.
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         United States Constitution     1788 - 1994    R. I. P.
                          Don't Tread On Me!
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