avatar

[ad_1]

Next Post Coming Soon…▶

We haven’t talked much about the CRS Firearms channel and the AutoKey Card situation, and it’s high time we did. A fellow named Matthew Hoover started out on YouTube as a Type 7 FFL holder under the handle CRS Firearms. Another fellow named Kristopher Ervin started making “key cards” with outlines for an AR-15 lightning link on them. He then sponsored the CRS Firearms channel advertising the cards as pen holders and bottle openers.

While Hoover reportedly got ATF permission for the cards, the firearm regulator eventually changed its tune, seized the autokeycard.com website, arrested the two men in 2021, and prosecuted them for transferring unregistered machineguns and money laundering.

Hoover and Ervin fought the law, and very unsurprisingly…the law won.

For the uninitiated, my business also has an FFL and we are licensed as a manufacturer. I have respect for the folks who regulate me and I know they have a job to do, but this is the story of one FFL that went way off the reservation.

There’s plenty of case history on the 3D-printed “wall hooks” all sorts of other ways to show off how much you want to be ungovernable, but in this case what was discreetly sold via USPS money orders and priority mail were clearly templates to make a lightning link. As they convert standard semi-auto AR-15 rifles into fully automatic machine guns, that’s a violation of the National Firearms Act.

But, you say, as long as you don’t cut the link out of the card, it should be legal…right?

How many of us have an old Ithaca Model 37 and a pipe cutter/hacksaw/sawzall lying around in the garage? Having the ability to break the law isn’t the same as breaking the law.

Or is it?

Hoover and Ervin clearly set out to poke the bear. When you do that, you run a greater risk of being bitten.

The feds obviously wanted to make an example out of what was happening here. I find it interesting that Hoover on his YouTube channel was still discussing the trial and expressed a high level of confidence that he’d be acquitted just days before the verdict came in. That didn’t happen.

From the press release from the US Attorney for the Middle District of Florida . . .

Kristopher Justinboyer Ervin (43, Orange Park) and Matthew Raymond Hoover (39, Wisconsin) [were found] guilty of conspiring to transfer unregistered machinegun conversion devices that they referred to as “Auto Key Cards.” Additionally, Ervin was convicted of seven counts of transferring unregistered machinegun conversion devices, three counts of possessing unregistered machinegun conversion devices, and one count of structuring cash transactions to avoid currency transaction reporting requirements. Hoover was also convicted of four counts of transferring unregistered machinegun conversion devices. Ervin faces a maximum penalty of 110 years in federal prison and Hoover faces a maximum penalty of 45 years in federal prison. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 31, 2023. Ervin was first charged on March 2, 2021, and Hoover on January 26, 2022. Both Ervin and Hoover have been remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Read the full statement here. Sentencing is scheduled for July 31.

The direction of gun laws and gun politics in this country seems to be changing, but not quickly. Perhaps this case will accelerate the shift. Some attorneys who have publicly discussed this case seem to think that there is a chance of overturning this case in a post-Bruen world. Maybe, but don’t bet on it.

I like to pick and choose my battles carefully in this lifetime. This isn’t a hill I would choose to die on, but the beauty of living in a free country is there’s a good chance someone else might decide to run up that hill. Hoover and Ervin did that and it shouldn’t be a surprise that they now find themselves behind bars.

Appeals are expected to be filed by the defense sending this case to be reviewed by the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta. Stay tuned.

Next Post Coming Soon…▶

[ad_2]

Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

seventeen − 13 =