haven't well it was under a threat of arrest and the procedural history of the case was an a t f agent did come out i am representing myself in a t f agent did after i contacted them whether it would be legal to make a functioning semiautomatic rifle from pieces of a destroyed military m sixteen provided i make modifications so it could not fire fully automatically the a t f agent which contacted me basically told me to surrender it or potentially face arrest so hence the declaration declare declaratory relief action was filed in federal court before the surrender occurred so i guess it is it is a unusual case the family come to the courts this way ordinarily machine gun possession cases result after someone's been arrested this one it was proactively filed for directly with the cleric or a relief after an a t f agent contacted me and requested i surrender as well to come and take it from me is a little bit different than threatening to prosecute him well i mean that's what they said i mean that i took it as a threat of prosecution and that's what i put in the pleadings that they did make an affirmative threat to  a it's not illegal to have a machine gun it's only illegal to have a machine gun made after one thousand nine hundred six do you contend that all the parts that you acquired are all the parts that are an issue here they acquired before nine hundred eighty six the only parts that issue here are the receiver itself which is words that are the machine gun everything else i mean right now it would be acquired but was it with these receiver pieces acquired before nineteen of the six young were fired after understand you say that's in part because for some period in there it wasn't a machine and because you can't register it now yes but the net result is i guess that it comes out as a nine cran why doesn't the statute apply and the statute applies to saying that you do not presently lawfully possess the sheath this is this machine gun and you don't like that result because you say well that's not fair because i sensually what you're possession well if the short if a short question is does it apply to me my answer is it does not because i fall within the exception of one twenty two zero as it was a lawful possession prior to nine hundred eighty six but not now but proponents it's beyond a reasonable doubt so what we have is we have a machine gun that meets these the criteria before two thousand and two of what was considered lawful to possess because at this time a but let's watch that out because that was a long time ago ok well the the issue is congress is simply not regulate interstate commerce for machine guns made before nine hundred eighty six that were lost it's regulating it now yeah but why don't we hear from the government sure thank you i'll give you a minute for morning may please the court assistant united states attorney jeffrey d wilson on behalf of the director of the bureau of alcohol tobacco firearms and explosives thomas e brandon this case originated when mr v repents submitted photographs of what he believed to be a destroyed and sixteen fully automatic machine gun receiver to the a t f to inquire as to whether he could lawfully use those pieces to construct a semi automatic rifle for his own personal use upon reviewing the photographs of the a t f determined that he was in fact in possession of a m sixteen machine gun receiver that was readily restorable to fire in a fully automatic condition and as that machine gun was not registered to him he was  unlawful possession of a machine gun did you threaten to prosecute him that is what he alleged i believe that is true so for the purposes of this week we take it if you take it as true did advise him that he could avoid prosecution by surrendering the pieces of the m sixteen to the a t f and he's acknowledged that in this complaint the a t f through the course of litigation he has been provided with the current and sixteen destruction standards that he just showed to the court and it's he is able to do what he initially set out to accomplish by destroying the receiver in his possession to current destruction standards and then he will no longer be in danger from a prosecution because you will not have a firearm readily restorable to fire in a fully automatic fashion that is not registered to him and he can then inquire with a t f again is there a way i can reassemble this into a semiautomatic rifle for my personal use and he hasn't gotten to that point yet because he's as of yet not destroyed i mean that's part of th could have been transferred legally and could he could lawfully possess and the problem is that he couldn't do that because for a large koreans china wasn't a machine gun and therefore couldn't be transferred when there was no reason to be or it couldn't been i gather register as a machine gun or transfer as a machine gun so therefore he isn't he's as fewer rights than if he had had an actual apple machine gun over all that time at first blush that does sound unfair because he did allege that he acquired these pieces lawfully believe them to be scrap metal and acquired them in the relevant time period but when he acquired them he was not acquiring a machine gun and did not believe he was acquiring a machine gun he believed he was acquiring a collector's item scrap metal something of that nature so the fact that he can't register it now is a machine gun it is not unfair when you consider he purchased scrap metal and he can still possess that same scrap metal that would still have that intrinsic historic value and unless you can cut it up somebody cuts it up and only has to do is  cut it up and he could keep what he has now the problem is that as technology changed over the years what was once considered destroyed is now readily restorable to an operable condition which is the language of the statute and that's what makes it a fully automatic machine gun is that it's readily restorable to that condition absent compliance with the current destruction standards and in terms of the the issues regarding commerce clause and tax powers it appears the court has those issues well in hand and this court as recently machine gun under the law does affect in aggregate the amount of machine guns available and so in addition to that the commerce power by regulating for example wheat and worker v filburn or personal marijuana use in the rice case which are which frankly is a precedent that occurred after the lopez decision it's it fundamentally affects the total number of firearms in the stream of commerce and these machine guns are very valuable and so if it's properly licensed and property registered i  there's there's quite a few steps to go through before you can obtain one but if you're properly licensed you pay the proper tax and you acquire the firearm after the firearms registered to you in the national firearms transfer registry with approval of the the position statute and also for a declaration with regard to the taxing statute i guess on the theory that if he can possession he might be prosecuted for not paying taxes on it because he hasn't paid taxes on it because it couldn't pay the taxes on it but ear i gather the government's position is that statute doesn't apply to him because he just can't have it he simply cannot possess a machine gun or that particular machine gun at this point in time there's no mechanism in the law that would allow you would say you're not threatening to prosecute him for not paying taxes well i can't make any representation as to what he may or may not be prosecuted to for but that's why this is such a weird case i mean one does not ordinarily see cases abound in which you have a minute for rebuttal ok just to reiterate to the court it's the threat of arrest does not mean it makes it more than an advisory opinion well what was the threat to arrest you for for not surrendering it well for what paying your taxes yes but that's what possession is actually for violation five eight six one d is actually for possession for failure to pay taxes that is actually what it it is it's a tax evasion subject for possession that's what it you thank you can also interesting case matter submitted