… about 6pm tonight ATF and my town PD rang the door bell. They received information from someone that I had manufactured a full auto machine gun. Long story short, they were very cool guys, but I was a little nervous @ first. I’m not PD and like any other civilian, when cops show up; you may get a little nervous because, well, they are cops. My father in-law is a retired State Trooper and I still see him as an officer, I just can’t shake the feeling! Anyway, this happened because of an old friend with bad feelings towards me. He just wanted to ruin my day. The ATF turned my house upside down, but they did ask if I wanted help putting stuff back, which was rather cool of them. I apologized and explained the story, and thanked them. Anyway, the ATF are returning to him for reporting a false claim.
Lessons learned,
Friends and money don’t mix.
ATF are cool guys, cops in general are cool as well (as long as you are a law abiding citizen).
No, they never mentioned or showed me a warrant. I really didnt care if they did, I didnt have anything illegal. I do have lowers and SB uppers, separate of course and they didnt have a problem with that. I keep them in seperate cases and areas, I dont put them together. I have a lot of stuff , I had 6 loaded pistols, a 590A1 w/ 5 in the tube and a Mossberg bull pup with 5 in the tube, 5 ARs loaded with 20 rounds in a 30 rnd mag, an AK 74 loaded, and he said “its not against the law, but you shouldnt have that many loaded.” I was cooperative and pleasant. I realize they have a job to do just like me, and just like me I dont like friction at work, so I was just cool. They told me I had a lot of nice stuff, which was cool to hear. He did measure the bbl lengths of my VZ 58 , a couple of M4/CARs, a Mossberg w/ the breaching muzzle and my FS 2000. I thought they were going to be hard asses, but I was wrong, very cool guys. I thanked and apologized to them for this non sense.
I’m the type of guy where if PD and the feds were at my door and I had nothing to hide, I’d welcome them in (especially if it’s going to help out in an investigation). Now if I had something to hide… “You guys have a search warrant?”
Here’s the thing I’m wondering about. It would take lots of credible information for people to come out, especially the BATF. They just don’t appear based on one fictitious phone call.
I guarantee if that were here in Houston, no one would come out unless there were lots of information that would warrant a knock and talk and/or search warrant.
Just out of curiosity, if you said “You can come in and check my gun safes” would they actually be restricted to just that, or once they are in the door, everything is in play. Whole house search, not fun. They can start tearing stuff up and their is not much you can do about it, is it?
At least they didn’t take all your ARs in and test them.
Big mistake on your part by letting them in the door. Give them your name and offer to set up a meeting at your lawyer’s office. Do not let them into the house. I doubt you have heard the last of this. I am saying this with the full belief that you are completely innocent.
If the moderators get mad for this post, Im sorry for it. My intention was to tell my story and maybe help someone else out in some way ie). avoid the same mistakes. Anyway, Thanks for hearing me out I appreciate it.
I’m confused with this statement in red. You have some registered SBR lowers to go along with the short uppers right? Not sure why they’d be “separate of course.”
If you have given consent then they are limited to what you have consented. You can also revoke that consent at any time.
I’ve done lots of consent searches and found lots of crap pursuant to those searches. It never ceases to amaze me when the guy lets you search his room and he has a sheet of acid and a big bag of cocaine in his desk drawer.
I would not consent to a search - regardless of whether or not I had anything to hide.
They’re doing this in order to charge you with a crime, confiscate all your firearms, throw you in jail, have a big court case costing you thousands of dollars and to make an example of you. Not because they’re “cool guys”.
