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I first saw this story on Bearingarms.com. They presented it as a clear cut case of a man selling illegal class 3 modifications. I was curious about what kind of modification he was selling, so I did a little googling. It sounds like it might not be such a clear cut case.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/01/...-machine-guns/
A Utah man claimed he was not guilty of manufacturing a part that turns a regular AR-15 rifle into a fully automatic weapon. Whatever the buyer does with the small piece of aluminum is on them, he argued.
“Once the kit is sold, whose responsibility is it to make sure it stays within the confines of the law?†Scott Ray Bishop asked the federal court jury during his closing arguments Friday.
But the jury, about an hour later, found Bishop guilty as charged of one count each of unlawfully engaging in the business of manufacturing machine guns and illegal possession of machine guns from 2013 to 2016.
It kind of sounds like this guy would have been OK if he had decent legal representation. Without actually seeing the product he was selling it's hard to say for sure, but it sounds like he was selling an unfinished piece of metal and some instructions on how to use it. There are all kinds of instructions for how to make illegal things on the internet. Home Depot sells all kinds of supplies to make such illegal things. There are all kinds of "solvent trap" kits for sale from different online distributors. My reading of this says he completely bungled his defense by trying to use multiple different, possibly conflicting arguments.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/01/...-machine-guns/
A Utah man claimed he was not guilty of manufacturing a part that turns a regular AR-15 rifle into a fully automatic weapon. Whatever the buyer does with the small piece of aluminum is on them, he argued.
“Once the kit is sold, whose responsibility is it to make sure it stays within the confines of the law?†Scott Ray Bishop asked the federal court jury during his closing arguments Friday.
But the jury, about an hour later, found Bishop guilty as charged of one count each of unlawfully engaging in the business of manufacturing machine guns and illegal possession of machine guns from 2013 to 2016.
Federal prosecutors claimed Bishop sold 1,400 of these kits throughout the country from 2013 to 2016 for $100 each. The kit included a piece of metal that could be placed in the lower receiver of the assault-style rifles to allow the gun to continually fire while the trigger was pressed down.
Bishop then presented a defense that his product was for educational and informational purposes only, and that the instructions mailed out with the kit specifically outline what not to do — complete the fourth bend on the piece of aluminum — in order to keep the firearm legal.
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