Active Shooting in Progress Midlands-Odessa, Tx

I wonder how it was illegally manufactured. That is interesting.
Click to expand...

There are ways to illegally manufacture a firearm. However, at this point, we don't know squat.

The linked report is EverythingLubbock repeating unconfirmed reports from the Wall Street Journal. The only fact in the report is that ATF did raid a residence in North Lubbock and asked Lubbock Police to have uniformed officers present.

Everything else, from the rifle being illegally manufactured and sold, to it being the rifle used in the Odessa shooting is UNCONFIRMED speculation based on unconfirmed information from the Wall Street Journal.

"according to the Wall Street Journal, officials said they suspected..." is NOT any sound basis for discussion of FACTS. When actual facts become available, (and not what WSG says "officials said") then we can have a valid discussion.
 
You can legally make a firearm for your own use under federal law.

You can legally make as many firearms as you want for your own use under federal law.

If you make one for your own use and later decide to sell it, that's still legal under federal law.

If you make a firearm with the intent to sell it, then you are acting as an unlicensed manufacturer and you will be in a heap of trouble if your activity ever comes to the attention of the authorities.

Ok, that's what federal law says. Now here's a dose of reality.

If you follow all the rules but end up legally selling a gun you legally made for yourself but decided you didn't want any longer to someone who turns out to be a mass shooter, you'd better have your ducks in a row. I mean, you'd better be squeaky clean--so clean that when you step in someone's plate while they're eating, they apologize and offer to clean off your shoes before they go back to chowing down. You are going to get run through the wringer. Your life will be scrutinized under a microscope and if anything, I mean ANYTHING looks the least bit suspicious you are going to spend more than you can make in a lifetime in legal fees trying to stay out of prison.

Legality aside, here's what I would do if I were to make a gun for myself.

I would carefully document the process, especially the completion date. No matter how much I hated it and no matter how much someone offered me for it, no matter how much I needed some money for another gun purchase, I would hold onto it for quite awhile. I'm thinking well over a year. I would take the gun to the range for several trips, maybe use it in a competition or go hunting with it. I would keep track of rounds fired, maybe keep some targets, maybe take some pictures of me at the range shooting it. Maybe post something about shooting it on a forum.

THEN, and ONLY then, if I decided I didn't want to keep the gun, would I consider selling it. I would do my best to sell it to someone who seemed stable. Preferably to someone who I knew to already own guns purchased from FFLs. Ideally to someone with a TX handgun permit.

I would NOT make a habit of it. There's no sense playing with fire.
 
I’ve never sold a firearm aside from leaving one in pawn back in the late 80s. I’ve gifted some to immediate family back when I still lived in Texas.

Is it confirmed that an 80%’lower was used or is it only speculation? Or Are they calling calling an assembled rifle from a serialized lower an “illegal build”?

Also, if it was a ghost gun, how’d they know where it came from?
 
thallub said:
The perp was adjudicated mentally defective by a Texas judge and reported to NICS.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/we...ptk?li=BBnbfcL
Click to expand...
I'm troubled by the word "temporarily" in the description of the alleged commitment. Was it actually a commitment, or was it a on order for a three-day mental health evaluation -- which is NOT a disqualifying factor?

The guy was obviously a fruit loop, but my problem is that there are no facts being released, only hints and innuendos. He was allegedly committed by a judge, but nobody has seen the order. That's a public record, not a health record. It shouldn't take much effort to dig it up and let us know what the judge actually ruled.

He was denied a purchase because of a failed NICS check. But nobody is saying why he was denied. If the case is going to be the trigger for a "national dialogue" on expanding background checks, IMHO the LEAST we should expect is that everyone be given ALL the facts surrounding the incident in order to inform the discussion.
 
Aguila Blanca said:
Was it actually a commitment, or was it a on order for a three-day mental health evaluation -- which is NOT a disqualifying factor?
Click to expand...

A 3-day evaluation can be disqualifying depending on where it happened. There is a circuit split on that issue right now. In Texas, it is not disqualifying absent other factors.
 
I’ve never sold a firearm aside from leaving one in pawn back in the late 80s. I’ve gifted some to immediate family back when I still lived in Texas.
Click to expand...
Selling and gifting firearms is perfectly legal as long as one never sells or gifts across state lines without going through an FFL or sells/gifts to someone known to be a prohibited person.
Is it confirmed that an 80%’lower was used or is it only speculation? Or Are they calling calling an assembled rifle from a serialized lower an “illegal build”?
Click to expand...
It doesn't really matter.

An illegal build means one of two things:

1. The gun was built with the intent to sell it although the person building it was not a licensed manufacturer.

2. The gun was built with features (e.g. long gun with a too-short barrel, full auto, pistol with a smooth bore, etc.) that are not legal without the proper paperwork, but no such paperwork was applied for and received.

It doesn't matter how the gun was constructed (or from what) if one or both of those two things is true.
Also, if it was a ghost gun, how’d they know where it came from?
Click to expand...
High profile case. Lots of resources allocated to figuring things out. Lots of surveillance capability these days, lots of capability to backtrack a person's actions to find out where they've been, who they called on the phone, who they communicated with online or via email.

The guy probably wasn't thinking about the long term outcome, so I doubt he tried real hard to cover his tracks. I'll bet he didn't even delete all his old emails or wipe his computer.

My guess is that he wasn't exactly at the center of a bustling social scene. I suspect that looking through his phone records didn't result in a list of hundreds of people he was calling on a regular basis, but even if it had, you can bet that all of them would have gotten to talk with some nice officers.

Similarly, I'll bet that anyone he had email contact with was paid a visit, especially if the content of his emails to them was..."interesting".

He likely had a phone that tracked his every move. They probably didn't have to work very hard to figure out what address he visited in Lubbock after his attempted gun store purchase was rejected.

People believe in electronic anonymity. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
 
Bartholomew Roberts said:
A 3-day evaluation can be disqualifying depending on where it happened. There is a circuit split on that issue right now. In Texas, it is not disqualifying absent other factors.
Click to expand...
How does that square with the federal law? The instructions for question 11.f on the 4473 read:

Question 11.f. Adjudicated as a Mental Defective: A determination by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority that a person, as a result of marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease: (1) is a danger to himself or to others; or (2) lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs. This term shall include: (1) a finding of insanity by a court in a criminal case; and (2) those persons found incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of lack of mental responsibility.

Committed to a Mental Institution: A formal commitment of a person to a mental institution by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority. The term includes a commitment to a mental institution involuntarily. The term includes commitment for mental defectiveness or mental illness. It also includes commitments for other reasons, such as for drug use. The term does not include a person in a mental institution for observation or a voluntary admission to a mental institution.

EXCEPTION: Under the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007, a person who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution in a State proceeding is not prohibited by the adjudication or commitment if the person has been granted relief by the adjudicating/committing State pursuant to a qualifying mental health relief from disabilities program. Also, a person who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution by a department or agency of Federal Government is not prohibited by the adjudication or commitment if either: (a) the person's adjudication or commitment was set-aside or expunged by the adjudicating/committing agency; (b) the person has been fully released or discharged from all mandatory treatment, supervision, or monitoring by the agency; (c) the person was found by the agency to no longer suffer from the mental health condition that served as the basis of the initial adjudication/commitment; or (d) the adjudication or commitment, respectively, is based solely on a medical finding of disability, without an opportunity for a hearing by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority, and the person has not been adjudicated as a mental defective consistent with section 922(g)(4) of title 18, United States Code; (e) the person was granted relief from the adjudicating/committing agency pursuant to a qualified mental health relief from disabilities program. Persons who fall within one of the above exceptions should answer "no" to question 11.f. This exception to an adjudication or commitment by a Federal department or agency does not apply to any person who was adjudicated to be not guilty by reason of insanity, or based on lack of mental responsibility, or found incompetent to stand trial, in any criminal case or under the Uniform Code
of Military Justice.
Click to expand...
Note: The black boldface text is as it appears on the 4473. The blue text is highlighted for emphasis.

If "committed" as it occurs in the law "does not include a person in a mental institution for observation or a voluntary admission to a mental institution," how could a three-day observation possibly be construed as disqualifying?
 
If "committed" as it occurs in the law "does not include a person in a mental institution for observation or a voluntary admission to a mental institution," how could a three-day observation possibly be construed as disqualifying?
Click to expand...

The reasoning is explained in United States v. Chamberlain.

“We reject Chamberlain's argument that a person is not “committed” for purposes of the federal firearms ban unless all of the requirements set forth in section 3864-including provision of counsel, a full-blown adversary hearing, a finding by clear and convincing evidence that the person suffers from a mental illness, and a judicial order of commitment-are satisfied.   Persons held under section 3863 are involuntarily detained as surely as are those held for longer periods under the more elaborate procedures of section 3864.   Moreover, to treat section 3864 detention as the only “real” commitment would come close to limiting “commitments” to cases in which a person has actually been “adjudicated a mental defective” after an adversary hearing.  18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4) separately bans persons who have been “adjudicated a mental defective” from owning firearms, in addition to those who have been “committed to a mental institution.”   In denying firearms to those “committed to a mental institution,” Congress appears to have cast a wider net-to “maximize the possibility of keeping firearms out of the hands of [, among others, persons suffering from mental illness].”   See 114 Cong. Rec. 21784 (1968) (remarks of Congressman Celler).   Requiring an adversary hearing and a judicial finding of mental illness would conflate two of the categories Congress singled out for the firearms prohibition.”
 
But I thought the purpose of a three-day observation was for the purpose of determining whether or not a person "is a danger to himself or to others; or (2) lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs." That Chamberlain decision seems to be putting the cart before the horse; it's a classic Catch-22: "We need to find out if you're mentally fit, so I'm ordering you to undergo an evaluation. Oh, by the way, since I've ordered you to undergo an evaluation, the federal government now considers you to be mentally unfit."
 
Yup. The First Circuit even had the temerity to note that Chamberlain could always apply to the Secretary of Treasury to have his rights restored, even though Congress had defunded restoration of rights through that route for years at that point.

But that’s the precedent in the First Circuit, and the 6th Circuit has quoted it approvingly.
 
Bartholomew Roberts said:
Yup. The First Circuit even had the temerity to note that Chamberlain could always apply to the Secretary of Treasury to have his rights restored, even though Congress had defunded restoration of rights through that route for years at that point.

But that’s the precedent in the First Circuit, and the 6th Circuit has quoted it approvingly.
Click to expand...
Scary.

Is this the issue with the circuit split? What case or cases have come down on the other side?
 
Silly me -- as a writer and editor, I have gone on record more than twice as having said that "Words have meaning." Apparently I was wrong.

Chamberlain focuses first on the fact that section 3863 of the Maine statute uses only the phrase “involuntary admission” with respect to the five-day emergency detention in issue, whereas section 3864 speaks expressly of “commitment” in regard to the longer-term detention discussed there.   He argues that we owe this difference in terminology “great deference.”   We find no evidence, however, that the Maine Legislature consciously used the “involuntary admission” language to distinguish between that and a “commitment.”   To the contrary, the legislature has used the terms “admission” and “commitment” interchangeably.  Section 3864(1)refers to the post-emergency application filed by the chief administrative officer of the hospital under § 3863(5)(B) 8 -filed pursuant to a procedure Chamberlain urges us to interpret as a “commitment”-as an application “to admit” a person to a mental hospital.9  This legislative imprecision undermines Chamberlain's attempt to find an important meaning in the difference in terminology here.   Chamberlain's argument likewise finds no support in the opinions of the Maine courts concerning the involuntary hospitalization statutes and their predecessors.   The Maine Supreme Court has at times characterized the initial involuntary hospitalization under § 3863 as a “commitment,” see, e.g.,In re Faucher, 558 A.2d 705, 706 (Me.1989), and at other times has characterized the same procedure as one for “emergency admittance,” Sukeforth v. Thegen, 256 A.2d 162 (Me.1969).
Click to expand...

[Edit to add} I think Giardina makes a lot more sense.
 
I'm not the person who cited that article, but I think that's the point. They call it an "illegal" sale while acknowledging that the seller had no obligation to conduct a background check (and, in fact, probably had no means to do so, since private parties can't call up NICS).
Click to expand...

I am thinking it was a home manufactured gun sold without an 07 FFL.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top