David R. Olofson, a member of the US Army Reserve, was convicted by a federal jury in January for illegally transferring a machine gun and sentenced this month to 30 months in prison. 

Prosecutors argued that Olofson violated the federal law that prohibits the transfer of fully automatic, military-type rifles in July, 2006, when he lent an Olympic Arms AR-15 rifle to Robert Kiernicki, who was responding to an ad posted by Olofson to sell an AR-15. 

An AR-15 is a semiautomatic rifle that fires a bullet each time the trigger is pulled.  They are legal, but this case is based on the definition in federal law of any weapon that fires more than one bullet with a single trigger pull as a machine gun.  People can legally own modified and fully automatic military-type weapons, like the M-16 rifle, but they must have a federal license and cannot give or sell it to someone else. 

Prosecutors contend that Olofson purposely modified the AR-15 to fire automatically and transferred the weapon illegally.

According to court records, Kiernicki took the rifle to a shooting range in Berlin, Wisconsin where he turned the rifle's firing selector to the third position, pulled the trigger, and three bullets fired with each pull before it jammed.  The automatic gunfire was reported to local police, who contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.  The ATF then launched an investigation and filed federal charges against Olofson.

Olofson had argued that the company that made his AR-15 used M-16 automatic parts in some of the semiautomatic rifles, and that's why it malfunctioned and shot three bullets instead of one.  

U.S. District Judge Charles Clevert dismissed this argument, stating that Olofson knew or should have known the gun fired automatically.  "This is a man who has considerable knowledge of weapons, considerable knowledge of machine guns," the judge said.  "Mr. Olofson, in this court's view, has shown he was ignoring the law."

Indeed, a search of his home turned up books on converting rifles to fully automatic. Email records discovered showed he bought M-16 parts.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Haanstad also noted that Olofson had two previous gun-related charges in Wisconsin and that he had been reprimanded for corrupting Army computers and perhaps providing militia groups access to sensitive information.

Olofson's attorney, Brian Fahl, promised a swift appeal to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals with help from the National Rifle Association.  Fahl said the case is being watched nationally because some believe it allows for criminal charges whenever a weapon accidentally fires more than once, which opens up prosecution against many legal gun owners.

OhMyGov! is watching this case closely as it goes through the appeals process.  Either way it ends, it will set a precedent as to the federal government's enforcement of gun laws.  Although this case has received some attention on CNN's Lou Dobbs' show and on the Internet, the media typically focuses only on local laws like the handgun ban in the District of Columbia, leading some Americans to believe that the federal government's reach into gun ownership laws is less than it is.

The difference between automatic and semi-automatic:

Automatic

Semi-automatic