NFA Devices for Home Defense (article)

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andrew wiggin said:
It is the physical evidence of your actions that will determine guilt or innocence.
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Hopefully you don't really believe that and are trying to be funny. A jury will determine your guilt or innocence. Eyewitness testimony frequently trumps physical evidence.

https://www.law.umich.edu/clinical/innocenceclinic/Pages/wrongfulconvictions.aspx

Following are common causes¹ of wrongful convictions; these are not the only causes, however:


Eyewitness Misidentification Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide. Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated.

Junk Science Many forensic testing methods have been applied with little or no scientific validation and with inadequate assessments of their significance or reliability. As a result, forensic analysts sometimes testify in cases without a proper scientific basis for their findings. And in some cases, forensic analysts have engaged in misconduct.

False Confessions In many cases, innocent defendants make incriminating statements, deliver outright confessions, or plead guilty. Regardless of the age, capacity, or state of the confessor, what they often have in common is a decision—at some point during the interrogation process—that confessing will be more beneficial to them than continuing to maintain their innocence.

Government Misconduct In some cases, government officials take steps to ensure that a defendant is convicted despite weak evidence or even clear proof of innocence.

Snitches Often, statements from people with incentives to testify—particularly incentives that are not disclosed to the jury—are the central evidence in convicting an innocent person. People have been wrongfully convicted in cases in which snitches are paid to testify or receive favors in return for their testimony.

Bad Lawyering The failure of overworked lawyers to investigate, call witnesses, or prepare for trial has led to the conviction of innocent people.
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Various studies estimate that in the United States, between 2.3 and 5% of all prisoners are innocent. One study estimated that up to 10,000 people may be wrongfully convicted of serious crimes each year.
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Eyewitness "misidentification" (or flat out lying) is the leading cause of wrongful convictions.

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If you don't intend to kill every witness to your self-defense shooting (like the case that Skans cited), then you better expect the survivors to testify how you snuck up and wrongfully executed your "innocent" home invaders after they had already surrendered.

Given all the histrionics over assault weapons, etc, it would be interesting to find out the influence your legally silenced "murder" weapon would have on the jury (the majority of whom will very likely NOT be gun owners).

I can cite you pages of cases where an innocent person was finally set free after an eyewitness changed their testimony, but none where a legal NFA weapon landed a person in jail. Possibly you could be the first!

My personal decision is to leave all the fancy stuff in the safe and not give the opposing side anything that can be easily used against me, but I don't see an NFA weapon as any particular advantage. However, if your decision is that you need one to defend yourself, go for it!
 
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All my NFA goodies stay in my safe and the only things that aren't, are my home defense and truck pistols.

Though I see the usefulness of a can for HD, my cost/benefit analysis is that it's much more likely that I'd get my pistol and can jacked than me having to actually use the pistol. I seriously doubt that a potential burglar is going to want to come up to the 3rd floor of my townhouse with the alarm blaring in the middle of the night, but I still keep my Sig handy.

About the only time I'd use an NFA item for self-defense, is on the ranch where I'd use the SBR or M16 with a can that I roll around the ranch with in the truck.
 
This is the case I was thinking of:

A Minnesota man was convicted of premeditated murder yesterday for shooting and killing two teens who broke into his home in 2012. The prosecution claimed Byron Smith made it look as if he wasn't home, then waited for intruders; his home had been a target of break-ins in the past. (A Montana man was charged with murder this week in a remarkably similar case.) His lawyers argued Smith was defending himself, but the prosecution said he went too far by shooting cousins Haile Kifer and Nick Brady nine times.

Sorry, I couldn't think of the guy's name as I was writing my above response - I thought it was a pretty recent case that has been discussed here and who's fact pattern is familiar to most.
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Regardless of your opinion on the Byron Smith shooting and conviction, it's not reasonable to argue that the pattern was "familiar to most". Smith shot two separate intruders some 10 minutes apart from one another, moved the first body to a different room while he waited for the second intruder, and then waited nearly a full day before notifying police of the shooting. You can think whatever you want in terms of Smith's shooting being justified or not, but you certainly can't hold it up as a typical account of self defense given all the unique facets of the case and reasons that he was ultimately convicted. How would this specific case have anything to do with the potential use of an NFA device in an otherwise legally justifiable shooting?
 
that is what I define as "craziness"......I rest my case. where is the cut and dry, armed man breaks into home, homeowner shoots and homeowner is jailed.

I understand that strange ammo, NFA devices and other unconventional weapons very well could come against someone if in a "gray area" type of situation. but simply protecting your home and family from an armed bad-guy is not one of them, at least not for me. everyone will have their own "comfort-zone" when it comes to these issues, but a silencer, SBR or handloads are something I will never worry about. now, I would never carry one of these items out of the home and use for SD since almost all SD cases seem to be in that "gray area". if I made a horrible mistake and shot an un-armed kid that was in my home by action of desperation or some other motive, I guess then my weapons could come into play, but I will just make sure that I really feel my life is threatened before I pull the trigger.
 
The only NFA item I own that I would consider using for HD is one of my 590A1 SBS. There is nothing exciting about it aside from it's 14" barrel. In fact I often have to explain to non-NFA types what makes it special.
 
Hopefully you don't really believe that and are trying to be funny. A jury will determine your guilt or innocence. Eyewitness testimony frequently trumps physical evidence.
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Actually, a jury probably will not decide the case, especially if the physical evidence indicates that a homeowner was simply defending himself. The investigating officer will first decide whether or not there is any "case" to proceed. Then the state's prosecutor will decide what to do with the case. And, before it gets to a jury, it's possible that the judge could dismiss the charges.

The facts of the Bryon Smith case might not be the same as someone who kills an intruder with a silenced handgun. But, the imagery of a silencer mounted on the end of a handgun will tend to imply "execution" to non-gun jurors - if the case got that far. I suppose your defense attorney could argue that it was to protect your hearing - if I were a non-gun juror, that would sound like a load of lawyer crap to me. Because (as a non-gun juror) 100% of my experience, based on the 274 movies and tv shows I've witnessed where the BG uses a silenced handgun to conduct mafia-style executions, I'm pretty much an expert on WHY someone would ever use such a device.

I hope those of you reading this realize that I like and have NFA things; support the right to own NFA stuff and even think there shouldn't be any such law like the "NFA". I'm just sharing my own reluctance in using a silenced handgun for home defense.

I don't know if/how a silencer would come into play in castle doctrine states.
 
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@ Willie, there was a case in Florida where gun-store owner Harry Beckwith used a machine gun to effectively repel several armed burglars. I don't think charges were ever brought against him. You may be familiar with this.
 
@ Skans

That would be what people now call the Beckwith incident. He used a Smith & Wesson M76 submachinegun (and an AR-15 and a shotgun) to repel a gang that was trying to rob his gun store.

I don't think he faced any charges but his situation was pretty exceptional. He did kill one person but that was with an AR-15 not his machinegun.

Ayoob said:
Beckwith told me later, "I could have killed all five of them, at the end, when they were running away and exposed to me. But I was no longer in danger from them, so chose not to shoot them."
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Of course there is the Gary Fadden incident. Gary used a AC556 to defend himself and things didn't work out very well for him. Then again it wasn't a home defense shooting either.
 
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The Fadden case hinged largely on the fact that one of his round struck the biker across the back as he spun, prompting the claim that Fadden shot the man in the back.
 
I refuse to use a machine gun for home defense. In the chaos of a self defense situation, you may end up emptying the magazine, and the thought of running out of ammo scares me. There is no way am I going to club that intruder/home invader with my Mp5 and scratch the finish on my all original German gun.
 
I have a SBR PS90 that is one of my go to "nightstand" guns. I feel better with it than most other weapons and it's tough to argue with 50 rounds per mag.

Would that constitute a NFA gun, and does that seem like a bad idea in the nearly inconceivable chance it would be used?
 
the ONLY thing I agree with is that a full-auto could look really bad, unless you have several attackers, like a gang of black-belt ninjas. but either way, where is your motive, intent, deliberation/premeditation, malice for shooting and armed intruder no mater what kind of gun you happen to have "laying around".
 
I refuse to use a machine gun for home defense. In the chaos of a self defense situation, you may end up emptying the magazine, and the thought of running out of ammo scares me. There is no way am I going to club that intruder/home invader with my Mp5 and scratch the finish on my all original German gun.
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The AC556 has a built-in tri-burst setting. With a 30-round magazine, this would still equal the equivalent of at least 10 separate trigger pulls. IF machine guns were as common as 9mm handguns, and IF machine guns were not regulated any differently than ordinary rifles, and IF machine guns were worth what they should be worth, I might make my go-to home defense gun my 13" AC556. It really would make a good choice for home defense.

the ONLY thing I agree with is that a full-auto could look really bad, unless you have several attackers, like a gang of black-belt ninjas.
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From a non-gun person's perspective, I don't think full-auto looks any better or worse than a silenced handgun.
 
Judging from my non-gun friend's reactions when I told them that Ohio has legalized hunting with silencers... I bet a HD shooting with a silenced gun would get a very negative response.

Let's face it, every idiot out there in television land has been taught that silencers make guns sound like bunny farts and are only used by assassins.


However with the great rise in popularity of suppressors, I have a feeling we will have our test case sooner than later. I hope it goes well.
 
What if you take the SBR and beat the intruder over the head with the SBR? Have you technically used an NFA weapon in self defense?

These questions should be keeping you up at night.
 
No offense but I think you step outside your expertise when you discuss how easy it will be for your attorney to deflect possible problems with the jury's perception of the firearm.

We have discussed this intensively and there is very strong evidence from multiple sources in the jury decision literature and real cases that suggests you are overly optimistic.
 
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