Back in the dark days of the (first?) Clinton administration there were a series of cases in which feds (generally ATF) would buy a shotgun from somebody they targeted, have the "suspect" chop it to legal specs (18") and then they'd remove another 1/4" to make a bad bust.
They'd chop 1/4" so they wouldn't have to re-do the front sight, which is typically set back 1/4" so it doesn't snag coming up through a duck blind.
By some accounts Randy Weaver (Ruby Ridge) was a victim of this scam, but other accounts said it was chopped 5". The civil jury found that it was indeed chopped after Weaver turned the gun over to what turned out to be an informant. I recall one other case where somebody scribed their initials into the end of a shotgun barrel and then having that notarized, and then later in court the signature was chopped off!
I'm trying to show that there was a pattern of this sort of fraud by the feds and that Weaver was therefore likely a victim as the jury found.
Does anybody remember details of the other cases besides Weaver and Ruby Ridge, or know where I can find links to them?
They'd chop 1/4" so they wouldn't have to re-do the front sight, which is typically set back 1/4" so it doesn't snag coming up through a duck blind.
By some accounts Randy Weaver (Ruby Ridge) was a victim of this scam, but other accounts said it was chopped 5". The civil jury found that it was indeed chopped after Weaver turned the gun over to what turned out to be an informant. I recall one other case where somebody scribed their initials into the end of a shotgun barrel and then having that notarized, and then later in court the signature was chopped off!
I'm trying to show that there was a pattern of this sort of fraud by the feds and that Weaver was therefore likely a victim as the jury found.
Does anybody remember details of the other cases besides Weaver and Ruby Ridge, or know where I can find links to them?