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As we know, there is no body of knowledge or intelligence data that would
lead a reasonable person to believe that some collector of military
vehicles, armored or not, is a danger to the security of this country. Aside
from the fellow who stole a tank from an armory in LA and led police on a
merry pursuit until an officer shot and killed him, there are no other
documented cases that I know of.
I am aware that law enforcement in general takes things far too seriously
when it comes to things like armored cars and other "weapons of war", as
(B)ATF calls them. We had a recent situation here in the Seattle area where
a fellow was manufacturing illegal explosives - "super firecrackers" and
such, and as a result of his stupidity, blew off part of his hand. When the
police investigated the incident they discovered all kinds of explosives he
illegally possessed and were being used to manufacture these and other
devices. They also discovered (not hard, due to their exceptional powers of
observation) an armored car on his property. The police promptly seized the
armored car. It had not been used for any illegal purpose whatsoever. It had
the only "been there" and as such, "might" be of use to the now arrested,
finger-less criminal.
The armored car sat for some time at the police precinct parking lot, and
has vanished to some other location. The "rocket scientist" was convicted of
his alleged crime(s) and recently sentenced to time in jail. I've not been
able to find out the status of the vehicle; whether it will be returned to
him or not. I don't believe that there is a case of any kind to be made to
separate the owner from the vehicle, regardless of his conviction. A
convicted felon does not have the right to own and/or possess firearms, but
I know of no statute disallowing the ownership of a benign ex-military
collector's vehicle. The worst one could probably do with one would be to
"hole up" inside, or drive around running into things. I believe that would
be a very bad mistake, given the ability of law enforcement to access and
use military hardware (not the services of the military) to cause such
activity to come to a very abrupt end, much to the detriment of the health
of the perpetrator.
We've heard that (B)ATF was supposed to come to some sort of decision on the
importation of ex - "weapons of war" on December 27th of last year. Let's
hope that some sort of thoughtful, reasoned decision took place, and common
sense has taken the place of suspicion and "what ifs".
I've heard of mil-veh collectors refusing to title or register their
otherwise legal armored vehicles for "street use" for fear that the
registration will identify their vehicle to the "authorities", whoever they
may be. And that these same "authorities" will use the registration
information to seize their vehicles "when the time comes". This same
attitude applies to many handgun owners. As one who has been in law
enforcement for some 34 years, I believe that I would rather have my vehicle
and/or handgun "registered" than not; the protections offered by such
registration, in my opinion, outweigh my "fear of confiscation" and other
governmental "misdeeds". This is purely my opinion, and offered as such.
Flame if you will - I've been there before....
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Military Vehicles List [mailto:mil-veh@uller.skylee.com]On Behalf
> Of CVRFOX@aol.com
> Sent: Friday, January 07, 2000 9:45 PM
> To: Military Vehicles List
> Subject: Re: [MV] Knob Creek Event 2000
>
>
> *This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(tm) Pro*
> That Minigun was already at Knob Creek two years ago...
>
> And how about some substantiation in regards to the BATF and
> armor vehicles?
> Haven't we all had enough irresponsible statements that do nothing
> to help the
> situation?
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 21 2000 - 18:15:03 PST