comn-cents Never heard of illegal holsters??? Sounds pretty darn silly!
Yesterday 01:35 PM
It is indeed silly, but that never stopped the BATF! In fact, they designate some holsters as "AOW's" "any other weapon" making them ILLEGAL to use!( Your tax dollars in action!):
There's a very professional magazine called "Small Arms Review" (SAR) that has a lawyer who answers legal questions like this in his column called "The Legal Side". The URL for SAR is:
http://www.smallarmsreview.com/
The magazine's main focus is restricted weapons (machine guns, silencers, etc., ie, "Class 3" weapons, aka "Title II" weapons), particularly in the context of civilian ownership.
I've learned some very scary legal stuff from SAR. I knew that saying, "Officer XYZ told me it was okay" wouldn't hold much weight in court.
But... what I was horrified to learn was that what the ATF tells you also can't be relied upon for your defense in court. EVEN IF THEY GAVE IT TO YOU IN WRITING!
Yup, it's true. Here's a quote from "The Legal Side" article on p17 of the Nov '99 issue of SAR:
"While the ATF administers the National Firearms Act, attorneys from the Department of Justice, not the ATF, will prosecute you for a violation of that law. Ultimately, what DOJ thinks the law means, not ATF, will determine whether you go to trial. Indeed, sometimes courts and DOJ attorneys will disregard the ATF view on what a law covers. There are a number of published cases in which that happened, and the defendant was convicted even though ATF apparently didn't consider the conduct unlawful, and said so."
And here's a related quote from the editor of SAR, on p14 of the Nov '97 issue of SAR:
"I can name three prominent Class III dealers [ie, dealers who are allowed to sell Title II weapons: machine guns, silencers, and Any Other Weapons like your pocket holster --navaho] who had years of problems with the federal government because they got a determination IN WRITING, from the local ATF office. They then acted on the letter, and Washington later overruled the regional office which left the dealers in violation."
The editor then goes on to point out:
"The gun laws in the US do not make any sense because they are NOT the laws that they writers intended to write."
He then explains that in 1934, the government wanted to ban machine gun ownership by civilians. The attorney general told them that they couldn't (2nd Amendment), but... they could TAX them. Nudge, nudge, wink wink. So in 1934, the federal government imposed a $200 tax on machine gun ownership. This is 1934, when $200 is a huge amount. Even huger considering that 1934 was _the_ worst year of the Great Depression, and we had an unemployment rate of 35%!
In other words, what the feds really want to do is ban ownership of firearms. They can't, so they have created a legal mishmash of laws that makes the US Tax code look logical and trivial in comparison.
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One last note. The June '98 issue of SAR contains an article about the Galco wallet holster. Here are some relevant excerpts:
"The ATF defines an Any Other Weapon (AOW) as, 'any weapon or device capable of being concealed on the person from which a shot can be discharged through the energy of an explosive'. By using this definition alone, this could one day be used to cover almost any concealed firearm, for example a pistol that can be discharged through a coat pocket."
...
Since the wallet doesn't have a serial number, the ATF required the _firearm_ and wallet to be registered as a combination, on an ATF Form 2.
"The Galco line discontinued these items as of Oct 2, 1997... due to 'extreme customer service attention needed to field dealer questions' which has 'made it unprofitable to continue its sale'."
...
"After all the paperwork and red tape required to register the pistol/holster combo, one is left with the question, 'Was it worth it?' Truthfully, probably not. The holster combo does make an excellent backup piece for concealed carry. However, due to the classification of the holster combo as an NFA weapon, the holster will end up in the back of my safe as a curio only. It will probably never be taken out except as a conversation piece."
