Akins attorney petitions scotus in accelerator rifle stock case.

A single crank can fire 10 shots, perfectly legally
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Correct, but what, pray tell, operates the crank? (this is key)

Do you believe that attaching, say, a cordless drill to operate the crank would be legal ? I don't think so, as it would only take a single action to fire multiple shots due to the fact that the drill mechanism would be operating the trigger.

same/same
 
Hope he can convince them otherwise but, looks like a machinegun to me, as much as it hurts I must agree with WA
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Congrats Outcast, you are finally correct:p (and a good analysis by the way)

WildastotherestthereisnoneedtofurtherarguethegunwoobiehastakenoverAlaska TM
 
Bill I think I have a solution at least mechanically to your design.

Basically removing the springs and using a paddle trigger that your supporting hand would manipulate (keep just the right tension and it bump fires).

If you remove the spring from the design then its not a machine gun. Add a new way to provide the force to return the rifle to battery and your good to go.
 
A single function of the trigger is involved here.
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Nope. The trigger clearly functions once per shot.

There is a single function of the trigger finger. but the law says nothing about the finger.
 
Nope. The trigger clearly functions once per shot.

There is a single function of the trigger finger. but the law says nothing about the finger.
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OK Lets break this down into simple terms, the Intent, and Spirit of the law is a simple concept, for each round fired, there must be some kind of manual dexterity exerted by the person firing. No, it does not say that in plain English, but, there is no law that is not constructed around such legalese.

There is a single function of the trigger finger
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You may choose to try and refute it in any manner you see fit but, this ^^^ is the problem.
The single initial function of the trigger sets the mechanism in motion to complete the firing of multiple rounds without any further human interface. The fact that the finger, or whatever else, remains stationary, and the trigger presses its self against that object is the reason this is a machine gun.

Note: You can try and use the "bump firing" analogy but, the two are in no way the same. a weapon that is bump-fired is not designed to be used in that manner, human intervention is the only way that is accomplished. (in other words, try bump firing with only one hand on the gun) This gun in question was specifically designed to circumvent this human intervention.

There is much more to law than just the literal translation from a document. If it were that simple there would be no need for lawyers or judges.
 
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A bit off topic but I would like everyone to think about this a second...
Why can't we expect "Letter of the law" rulings on things such as BATFE laws vut our 7 year old boys can be sent home EXPELLED from school for having a G.I. Joe complete with 3 inch long Garand?
Brent
 
Without the finger stop I think this is legal. Otherwise, the action of the spring is pulling the trigger. If you replaced your finger with a piece of tape the gun would fire until empty.
Without a finger stop I think it would be legal. It would take more training to be effective with it, but it would still be easier than bump firing from the hips.
As designed I also think the gun might be quite prone to multiple NDs.
 
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I don't believe most of the posts here have correctly identified the issue.

Whether or not you believe this arrangement is "clearly" a machinegun, that isn't BATF's position if they originally ruled otherwise.


The issue here should be whether a citizen is entitled to rely on a government opinion letter, just as he would with internal revenue. A revenue ruling on a specific case is a very strong defense to the service's later change of heart.

Why should BATF be different?


Akins, if that describes what has happened here, best of luck to you.
 
There is much more to law than just the literal translation from a document.
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so now you are advocating that the law should not mean what it actually says and instead should mean what a judge later decides the congress wanted it to mean? or what they should have written instead of what they did write down as the codified law?

i agree that for practical purposes it is a machine gun. but the bottom line is the trigger functions exactly once for each round fired. it is very hard to get around that fact for me.
 
I don't believe most of the posts here have correctly identified the issue.

Whether or not you believe this arrangement is "clearly" a machinegun, that isn't BATF's position if they originally ruled otherwise.


The issue here should be whether a citizen is entitled to rely on a government opinion letter, just as he would with internal revenue. A revenue ruling on a specific case is a very strong defense to the service's later change of heart.

Why should BATF be different?
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So, if I submit a mechanical drawing, specifications, etc. on a proposed design, and they say , " Produce a prototype "
Then it is produced, tested, and found to be non-compliant
that somehow changes things ?

IF he produced a working prototype, and allowed the BATFE to examine it, then yes, I could see that as a factor. The article, nor the brief support that, unless I missed something.





William Akins of Hudson, Fla., near Tampa, says the ATF at first approved his Akins Accelerator, then reneged after he went into production.
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So, if I submit a mechanical drawing, specifications, etc. on a proposed design, and they say , " give it a go for now"
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I don't believe the bolded terms are implied when the government issues a ruling or opinion that your behavior or item are within the law.

If the government issues an opinion that your device is not a machine gun, it is reasonable for a fellow to rely on that opinion.

If we cannot rely on BATF opinions, why does it issue them?

If the IRS is bound by its rulings, why wouldn't the BATF be?
 
so now you are advocating that the law should not mean what it actually says and instead should mean what a judge later decides the congress wanted it to mean? or what they should have written instead of what they did write down as the codified law?
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I 'Advocate" no such thing, I certainly feel that law should be in plain enough English that everyone could understand it, and negate a lot of the necessity for legal wrangling.

The less I have to align myself with the legal sharks the better. :D

Sadly, in reality your description is closer to the truth.

I sincerely hope that Akins prevails in this case, I was merely pointing out why the BATFE deemed it a machine gun.
 
So, if I submit a mechanical drawing, specifications, etc. on a proposed design, and they say , " give it a go for now"
I don't believe the bolded terms are implied when the government issues a ruling or opinion that your behavior or item are within the law.
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I fixed it for ya ! ;) ^^

Sorry if my intent was unclear, sometimes my fingers work faster than my brain. :)
 
The opinion was wrong. Maybe the design, as submitted, should be accepted as an exception due to the erroneous opinion(10/22 only). I agree an ATFE opinion should be reliable. This was clearly a mistake or a misunderstanding of how it functions from the diagram. I would have made a prototype and hade them look at that after having the schematics approved.

Wouldn't an exception for this exact design be an awesome outcome. I can't believe anything less restricting is a possibility, but I think and exception for the design is a possibility. I would buy one ASAP if it was legal. How much fun would that be? The things would be more popular than ARs and might even be more reliable:)
 
Hmm thought I had subscribed to this one..

I had a design of something with the same basic idea of the accelerator back in around 03-04. Drawings of the basic idea including springs and all just like what he made. It was far more involved then I could have built at the time so I never bothered with it. Besides I did not have a semi rifle anyway.

So couple years ago or so I see the atkins and as soon as I did I noticed that it was also pretty much a machinegun as it fired itself (I did not think it would work that well). So I figured I'd wait a bit and see what happened before I bought one (plus I did not have the money at the time they came out).

Anyway I saw the ruling one day on here. After reading it I did feel that the ATFs major failure was the initial approval. They approved without getting it to work.

So after reading all the rulings that they gave I came up with something that is far more basic, does not really do anything but give you a good grip. Sent a copy off to BATFE tech branch and they looked at it tested it described its function in detail and stated clearly that it was OK provided no springs rubber bands or any other form of return mechanism are used with it.

I have no plans to sell it. I only really built it to play with. But I do feel that it meets the letter of the law and still somewhat with the spirit of the law (you have to push JUST right or it stops shooting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcnwGpLZnL0&feature=channel_page

Bill if your interested in my offer for a minor redesign send me a PM.
 
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I think it's reprehensible for the BATF to change its mind and leave Akins & his customers in the lurch.

I also think they goofed on their original decision--again reprehensible.

I agree with their second decision as much as it hurts to agree with the BATF. The device is clearly a machinegun.

The reason this gun is different from bump-firing is because in bump-firing the shooter operates the trigger for every shot. By pulling the gun forward (using the weak hand) into the trigger finger the shooter is actuating the trigger one time for each shot. It's just that he's holding the trigger finger still and moving the whole gun forward with his weak hand.

The Hellfire trigger is just a bump-firing facilitator. It still depends on the shooter to push the gun forward into the trigger finger, it just tunes things so that the normal forward rebound off the shooter's shoulder is sufficient to make it work (or at least sort of work :rolleyes: ).

In the Akins device the device takes the place of the shooter's weak hand (or shoulder) which means that the Akins device pushes the trigger forward into the stationary finger and therefore the Akins device is what is actuating the trigger, not the shooter.

Anytime you have something firing the gun more than once without the shooter having to move more than once it's going to be ruled a machinegun. That's clearly the intent of the law and that's how the courts are going to rule.

I think that the BATF should remunerate all of Akins' customers and pay him some sort of damages for what their "change of mind" has cost him.
 
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