I'm sure most of us are at least slightly aware of the outcome of the ATF's ruling regarding lightning links (particularly so-called "AutoKeyCards" etc). In effect, by creating a template for one of these devices which can be used to modify some variants of AR15 in order to enable full automatic fire.
I'm not a lawyer, so I'm happy to be educated here, but my understanding was that by creating that template, an industrous owner could remove material from the credit-card sized template to create a functioning lightning link. A gentleman named Kristopher Ervin was arrested for selling these sheets of metal. His defense is based in part on the fact that this was intended to be a 'novelty item', but as noted, an owner could potentially turn this into a functioning component for an AR15.
My question is - what if Ervin had reproduced the outline of the lightning link scaled - sufficiently that the resulting part was not physically capable of functioning to modify any AR15 (or any other firearm) as an automatic weapon if cut out. If so, then Ervin's objective of creating a novelty (albeit annoying for the ATF) that had no ability to be 'misused'?
Further question - theoretically, what if the outline had been reproduced on another medium which was not mechanically strong enough to function in a firearm, but was at the right scale?
In short, was it a combination of the material and/or the scale of the outline which left Ervin open to prosecution?
I'm not a lawyer, so I'm happy to be educated here, but my understanding was that by creating that template, an industrous owner could remove material from the credit-card sized template to create a functioning lightning link. A gentleman named Kristopher Ervin was arrested for selling these sheets of metal. His defense is based in part on the fact that this was intended to be a 'novelty item', but as noted, an owner could potentially turn this into a functioning component for an AR15.
My question is - what if Ervin had reproduced the outline of the lightning link scaled - sufficiently that the resulting part was not physically capable of functioning to modify any AR15 (or any other firearm) as an automatic weapon if cut out. If so, then Ervin's objective of creating a novelty (albeit annoying for the ATF) that had no ability to be 'misused'?
Further question - theoretically, what if the outline had been reproduced on another medium which was not mechanically strong enough to function in a firearm, but was at the right scale?
In short, was it a combination of the material and/or the scale of the outline which left Ervin open to prosecution?