Democracy In Albany

Michael J. Garcia, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Anthony Rypka, Jr., a police officer in Tarrytown, New York, was arraigned today in White Plains federal court by Chief United States Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith on charges that he ....possessed an illegal, unregistered fully automatic sub-machine gun.

In the current Indictment, Rypka is charged with: ... one count of possessing a machine gun, which carries, upon conviction, a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison; and ... one count of possessing a firearm not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, which carries, upon conviction, a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Each count also carries a maximum fine of $250,000.

I wonder what Glenn Suddaby's problem is? You know Glenn - he's the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District which includes Albany. Is Glenn in the bag for the Jerry/Jimmy wrecking crew? Is that why he won't prosecute? Why won't Glenn charge any APD cops or others with this crime? I wonder if this failure to prosecute is gonna cause any problems for Glenn's recent efforts to become a U.S. district court judge? Maybe some concerned citizens may want to give Glenn a call so he can get on this right away: PHONE: (315) 448-0672.  Happy dialing.

Meanwhile, as of mid-year 2007, the City of Albany's gun problems were on a wild rampage:

NATO-quality, fully and semi-automatic assault rifles. M14 Military rifle The M14 is a lightweight shoulder rifle designed primarily for semi-automatic fire, but fully-automatic capable. The M14 was a standard U.S. Army infantry rifle until it was superseded by the M16 in the late 1960s. Other characteristics: 44.14 inches long 22-inch barrel 11.0 lbs. fully loaded 7.62mm ammo in 20-round clip Max effective range: 1,500 feet 20-30 rounds per minute semi-automatic 40-60 rounds per minute automatic 7.62mm NATO rounds The 7.62x51mm rifle cartridge became a standard among North American Treaty Organization nations in the 1950s. The ammo is widely available in a number of forms, including: Standard Ball cartridge Armor Piercing black cartridge tip Tracer orange cartridge tip Grenade grenade launching blank Long Range/Sniping hollow point Duplex two-bullet round Match designed for competition L1A1 military rifle The L1A1 is a British-licensed version of a design from the Belgian arms maker Fabrique National. The original Belgian Fusil Automatique Legere (FAL) was created to work with a standard 7.62mm NATO cartridge. The rifle is semi-automatic only and was later replaced with the 5.56mm SA80 for British military use. Other characteristics: 41.47 inches long 30-inch barrel 11.2 lbs. fully loaded 7.62mm ammo in 20-round clip Max effective range: 1,970 feet 20 rounds per minute semi-automatic

Let's start here: 18USC Sect44.101

"On September 13, 1994, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Public Law 103-322.
Title IX, Subtitle A, Section 110105 of this Act generally made it unlawful to manufacture, transfer and possess semiautomatic assault weapons (SAWs) and to transfer and possess large capacity ammunition feeding devices (LCAFDs). The law also required importers and manufacturers to place certain markings on SAWs and LCAFDs, designating they were for export or law enforcement/government use. Significantly, the law provided that it would expire 10 years from the date of enactment.
Accordingly, effective 12:01 a.m. on September 13, 2004, the provisions of the law ceased to apply. These provisions are marked "repealed" in this publication."

This ban although repealed federally still stands in New York State.

Tom, while I agree with you that this is commonly referred to as a "select-fire rifle", and that military personnel and some other enthusiasts are accustomed to calling only belt-fed .30 or .50 cal. full-auto firing weapons machine guns the, federal government considers it and any other full-auto fire capable rifle with a large capacity magazine to be a "machine gun". (Actually, "sub-machine gun" would be the proper term to use for the M-14 assault rifle.)

So technically, Tuffey and others would be wrong to call them anything less than machine guns" because that's their legal definition. To do otherwise would be foolish and I'm surprised you think that this would help Tuffey as it only helps to further obfuscate the truth.

Integrity, you are mistaken too, by saying: "If they were simply semi-auto then none of them would need be registered with the feds in the first place and they could've bought them direct without going through the PD. If they weren't machine guns the feds wouldn't have had cause to take em from that gun store ... " though if you had said "if purchased prior to September 13, 1994" your statement would have been true. After that date these large capacity semi-automatic weapons became illegal to own by federal statute and remain illegal to own under New York law, unless purchased and registered prior to then. Being illegal, the feds had every right to remove the weapons from the store. However it is irrelevant. The weapons were fully-automatic.

As I pointed out in an earlier post on this subject and Tom has raised again, the weapon is notoriously inaccurate when it's in full auto firing mode.

AM, you're way off-base. Some of your statements are wrong. "Under federal law, you CAN own machine guns manufactured prior to 1986, with some caveats." You unfortunately failed to mention those caveats. I wish you would.

You can only legally possess a machine gun if you legally owned and registered it prior to 1986. The manufacture date has no bearing on ownership.

27CFR part 479.105(b)
"(b) Machine guns lawfully possessed prior to May 19, 1986. A
machine gun possessed in compliance
with the provisions of this part
prior to May 19, 1986, may continue
to be lawfully possessed by the
person to whom the machine gun is
registered and may, upon compliance
with the provisions of this part,
be lawfully transferred to and possessed
by the transferee."

This applies to New York residents, even though the assault weapons ban remains in effect here.

AM, regardless of the reporting by the TU, standard M-14 service rifles were produced from 1959 to 1964. The M-14 weapon wasn't issued until 1959 and the first unit to be completely armed with it, the 101st Airborne, didn't occur until 1961. To say it is still in use is also misleading without qualifying you statement. Sort of like saying the Model T is still in use. Much modified varients of the M-14 are still in use would be more accurate, although some M-14s are still used as sniper rifles.

I'm also am having a difficult time trying to figure out why you're trying to avoid blaming Suddaby for his failure to prosecute and would rather this fault fall on Soares. Seems to me that it's you with the political agenda rather than Champlain. These types of cases are proper to prosecute in a federal court, moreso than in a county court.

Suddaby should have convened a grand jury or called for a special prosecutor to explore this case rater than saying: "That issue was never brought to us by ATF."

From the TU article 8-26-07 Cops source of guns:

"U.S. Attorney Glenn T. Suddaby said the decision by his office not to prosecute Olesen or Frampton had nothing to do with dozens of police and at least one county prosecutor buying assault weapons.

"No, that is not something that was part of any investigation or any referral that was ever brought to our office," Suddaby said. "That issue was never brought to us by ATF."

Suddaby said the decision to decline prosecution had more to do with the job done by the ATF.

"It was quality of evidence issues," he said. "There are a number of issues which led us to make a decision that we were unable to go forward with the prosecution based on the investigation that was presented to us by ATF."

Another source close to the investigation disputes Suddaby's account. That source said federal prosecutors in Albany were fully aware of the Albany police situation and had expressed concern that prosecuting Olesen and Frampton could have triggered "a mess" because of the potential scandal."

I'll have more to say on DIA's post, but you may want to research the pertinent facts, starting with Wiki:
M-14: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-14
M-4 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Carbine

TITLE 27 CFR CHAPTER II
PART 478--COMMERCE IN FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION

TITLE 27 CFR CHAPTER II
PART 479--MACHINE GUNS, DESTRUCTIVE DEVICES, AND CERTAIN OTHER FIREARMS

THE GUN CONTROL ACT OF 1968
TITLE 18, UNITED STATE CODE, CHAPTER 44

The preview would clip out a part of my comment, the strange part being that it was meaty.

Two lines separated by several more. First I couldn't get this to preview:

"No, that is not something that was part of any investigation or any referral that was ever brought to our office," Suddaby said. "That issue was never brought to us by ATF."

Or the last part of this, which I finally posted without it.

Another source close to the investigation disputes Suddaby's account. That source said federal prosecutors in Albany were fully aware of the Albany police situation and had expressed concern that prosecuting Olesen and Frampton could have triggered "a mess" because of the potential scandal."

And it's not so much an argument as it is our citizens expressing their dismay that those empowered to enforce our laws have themselves conspired to break them and have repeatedly lied to us.

The black eye this scandal has given our sense of public safety has been further abused by the chief. With each lie he tells it's like he's poking his finger in it, keeping us blind to the truth.

Does anyone believe he is without fault here? He was on the force when some of the purchases took place and may have bought one of the machine guns himself. And he's in charge of the investigation?

Up for discussion - what would you do if you were running the investigation??

The statute of limitations has probably expired on charging the gun purchasers, and some of the missing guns may never be recovered.  If I were in charge of this investigation I'd recover any remaining guns, disclose the final correct total # of guns accounted and unaccounted for to the public; and demand Tuffey's resignation based solely on his inability to make good on his promise of an open, accountable department.