Justin Ervin and YouTube Star Matt Hoover, better known as CRS Firearms, are on trial for selling a metal card with a picture inspired by a lighting link etched on it. Mr. Ervin owned the company that produced the product, known as the Autokey Card, and Mr. Hoover was contracted to promote the novelty item through his YouTube channel.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) claimed that the Autokey Card was a machine gun. Under federal law, any item that can convert a semi-automatic rifle to a machine gun is itself a machine gun. The federal government saw the Autokey Card as a stencil and claimed that it is a machine gun, but documents uncovered by a Gun Owners of America Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show that the ATF doesn’t consider stencils to be regulated items.
The first piece of evidence is an ATF criminal examination of a Napa fuel filter, a muzzle device, freezer plugs, and a plastic drill guide that inserts into the freezer plugs. The owner was going to use these items to create a suppressor. The ATF examined these items and determined them not to be a suppressor. Suppressors are regulated under the National Firearms Act (NFA), just like machine guns.
In the Autokey Card case, the government argues that the item is a machine gun because it has what they allege is a stencil. The ATF’s own criminal examination letter seems to disagree with the government’s case.
The second letter that GOA gave to AmmoLand News shows that ATF’s Firearms and Ammunitions Technology Division (FATD) doesn’t consider a lightning link to be a machine gun unless both parts are present. A lighting link consists of two parts. The letter shows the more significant portion of the item was examined. If both parts must be present and formed to the correct size, as the ATF stated in previous documents, how can the federal government charge the two men with selling machine guns?
Click the link to read the whole article: Documents Prove ATF’s Flip-Flops
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