cynicist
Regular Member
imported post
In State of Washington vs. Marcus Carter, May 2007, a published opinion (and therefore precendential) it was determined that the wording of the machine gun definition in the RCWs requires that there be an ammunition supply nearby, or else it's just considered a single shot rifle.
Carter was a firearms instructor, and there were magazines everywhere, but there was no evidence submitted of this, so he won on appeal.
As for federal prosecution, machine gun parts, BATFE rules, and all that, that's another story.
I haven't found this yet online, but there is the previous ruling on it here.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=wa&vol=2004_sc/729921maj&invol=3
And here is the more recent one.
http://srch.mrsc.org:8080/wacourts/template.htm?view=mainresults
EDIT: Editted for linguistic purity
EDIT: Editted again to put the right link in.
I was bored at the library, and was browsing through the case law databases, and have just about exhausted anything with chapter 9.41, but found something really interesting on machine guns.(7) "Machine gun" means any firearm known as a machine gun, mechanical rifle, submachine gun, or any other mechanism or instrument not requiring that the trigger be pressed for each shot and having a reservoir clip, disc, drum, belt, or other separable mechanical device for storing, carrying, or supplying ammunition which can be loaded into the firearm, mechanism, or instrument, and fired therefrom at the rate of five or more shots per second.
In State of Washington vs. Marcus Carter, May 2007, a published opinion (and therefore precendential) it was determined that the wording of the machine gun definition in the RCWs requires that there be an ammunition supply nearby, or else it's just considered a single shot rifle.
Carter was a firearms instructor, and there were magazines everywhere, but there was no evidence submitted of this, so he won on appeal.
As for federal prosecution, machine gun parts, BATFE rules, and all that, that's another story.
I haven't found this yet online, but there is the previous ruling on it here.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=wa&vol=2004_sc/729921maj&invol=3
And here is the more recent one.
http://srch.mrsc.org:8080/wacourts/template.htm?view=mainresults
EDIT: Editted for linguistic purity
EDIT: Editted again to put the right link in.