Update 12/9/09: This issue received little media coverage (even conservative alternative media coverage) apparently because of the fact that Olofson has become a somewhat controversial figure and there is much focus on his guilt or innocence. Regardless of your position on Olofson's guilt or innocence, there is a larger point in the legal ramifications of the lower court ruling that the US Supreme court has allowed to stand and become legal precedent in the US.
A break from the usual blog post, but the news about this does not seem to be getting out;
On October 13th the Supreme Court of the United States denied the petition of David Olofson. This is the case in which a lower court ruled that a firearm that malfunctions such that it fires more than one round with a single trigger pull qualifies as a machine gun. The court docket reflecting the denial can be found here;
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/09-256.htm
Olofson was originally convicted and sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. The decision of the lower courts now appears to be left standing. Olofson has already served over a year of his sentence.
There is almost no news of this ruling. If anybody runs across any updates, please comment on this post and include a link.
This is really terrible news for second amendment proponents. We need to lobby our representatives to enact legal protections against prosecution for firearm malfunctions. The danger in this case is that by allowing the lower court ruling to stand as it was written, the Supreme Court has set a new precedent for what legally constitutes a machine gun.
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