About 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, federal agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives served a sealed federal search warrant on a home in the 900 block of Carver Circle in Lewisville. Agents were still on-site this afternoon removing computers, crate after crate of ammunition, and according to neighbors, an arsenal of guns. Agents, backed up by Lewisville Police loaded evidence from the home into a large rented U-Haul truck.
ATF Special Agent Tom Crowley said that no arrests had been made at this point, and that we would learn more when the search warrant was unsealed by the court - possibly in the next day or so. Crowley would not say how many agents participated in the raid, but did say that they were working in conjunction with Lewisville Police Department.
Agents could be seen inventorying and examining ammunition and what appear to be machine gun barrels in the home's garage. Neighbors say there were a large number of guns taken out of the house, but our search of federal firearms license data shows no federal license for any dealers at the address.
Coincidentally, the homeowner (whose name we're not releasing at this time) shows to be the website hosting provider for a Grapevine-based dealer of Class III firearms - the type that must be individually licensed under the National Firearms Act.
That company's website was down Tuesday afternoon - presumably because the servers were seized by ATF, and sitting in the driveway of the residence at the time we shot the video, a cached copy of the site had this description:
[Company name redacted]* is a Texas-based Class 3 business located just north of the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. Not only have we been dealing in machine guns for 24 years, but our association with the weapons business in general stretches back to 1971. As specialists in Class 3 weapons and military weapons of all types, [Company name redacted] boasts one of the largest inventories of collector-grade arms in the state of Texas.
*See update
Update 8/7/2012 - 10:30 p.m.: Captain Jay Powell, with LPD said that although Lewisville PD was assisting, it was an ATF operation through-and-through, and that ATF had contacted them in advance to give them the heads up, and request assistance.
Powell said LPD had three employees there: one officer assisting with search warrant, one uniformed officer for presence, and one civilian employee, who brought the mobile operations center to serve as an additional air-conditioned space for ATF to process their paperwork. Powell said that they had seized quite a few guns, and that they expected to fill the U-Haul truck with guns and ammo seized from the residence. The quantity of items seized was such that LPD had even offered portable lighting to the ATF in case the operation ran into the night.
Update 8/8/2012 - 12:30 p.m.: Neither the U.S. Court, nor the U.S. Attorney are talking right now, but we have been told there is a chance that the search warrant could be unsealed as early as Thursday, once the ATF returns an inventory of the search. When the warrant is unsealed, we'll get a copy and should have more information about what the ATF is investigating.
Update 8/8/2012 - 4:15 p.m.: In a phone interview Wednesday afternoon, the owner of the machine gun company whose website was on servers seized by ATF said that the homeowner was neither an employee nor a customer of the company, and that neither the homeowner nor the company was the target of the investigation. The company has been in contact with ATF about getting their website back online. The homeowner was hosting several websites from various companies, so when we found the link to this machine gun dealer, we wanted to point it out, thinking it might be relevant to the story. The company's owner says that it is a coincidence, and that he has nothing to do with this investigation. We regret any confusion it may have caused if readers jumped to conclusions about the link, and we've updated the story to hopefully clarify that.
Update 8/17/2012 - 4:50 p.m.: We just reached out to Crowley, who said that the latest update is that the warrant will be returned to the court on Monday 8/20. The ATF has been spending the time inventorying and documenting the evidence, because as Crowley says, "a lot of ammo and weapons were taken". Once the warrant is returned, the court can then unseal it, and release the information to the media or public - although there is no guarantee that would happen immediately.
If anyone believes the company has no connection to the homeowner, other than hosting a website, where did the reported machine guns confiscated come from? If that's not enough there's a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you.
My conclusion wasn't "jumped to", it is the logical path to follow. Some coincidence!
It could very well be that there is no other connection, but as I told the owner of the machine gun dealership, I wouldn't have mentioned it if he owned a beauty shop instead. I figured it was somehow related, though it wasn't clear how. For all I knew, the dealer could have been the victim of a theft, or an unwitting supplier. But I suspected they were either partners, or that the homeowner was an employee. In any case, it made sense to mention the link. I just regret that people drew erroneous conclusions about who the subject of the search was.
At any rate, the owner seems to know a bit about the case, and indicates that it's neither he, nor the homeowner who was the target, but rather some other person who was at that residence. He wouldn't go into further detail.
Also, please note that I did not personally see any machine guns. I saw machine gun barrels - which you can see in the video. They may or may not have seized any machine guns- they're not saying.
We did not hear back from the U.S. Attorney today.
What does a machine gun barrel look like? You have the knowledge to know how fast a gun shoots by looking at the barrel? LOL - Sounds like this reporter is the first one that jumped to a conclusion and reported without checking facts. Sad but that appears to happen quite often since journalism has become a lost art... Im thinking you should pique your curiosity in something that you have at least a little knowledge and quite making stuff up.
Some machine gun barrels are meant to be interchangeable. They get hot, and you have to take them off and put a new one on before it melts. I served in the military, and I know what they look like.
Here's an example of a Marine changing out a barrel - note the handle on it:
Nobody here is making stuff up. Why don't you watch the video and you'll see what I'm talking about.
You obviously never served in the military, our editor did. Machine gun barrels are very distinctive, and the small arms specialist in any unit carries extra barrels because, due to the rapid rate of fire, the barrel will overheat and warp.
You could have learned this on any number of websites, and should have before making an idiotic remark like your "making things up".
"WhosPlayin" served our country in the U.S. Marine Corps, what have you done?, other than try to discredit a story you obviously didn't read very carefully.
"Machine guns" in the legal sense --- which is the issue here --- do not all look like M249 SAW barrels. As a simple example, the barrel of a perfectly legal AR-15 not only looks the same as that of an M16 that is legally a "machine gun" under federal law, it is exactly thw same barrel.
And there are many perfectly legal semi-automatic rifles that use the same quick-change barrels as belt-fed machine guns. Off the top of my head, there are legal semi-automatic rifles that use M249 SAW barrels, M240/G barrels, Browning 1919 barrels, Soviet RPD barrels, German HK21 barrels, German MG42, MG34 and MG3 barrels, British Bren barrels...
So it looks pretty clear that YOU are the one who needs to educate himself.
The reference to machine gun barrels in the article has no legal connotation whatsoever. It's a statement referencing what the barrels are, and not whether they are legal or illegal. Whether a semi-automatic gun can accept a machine gun barrel is not all that relevant, other than to point out that the owner of said barrels doesn't necessarily own the machine gun that they're designed and built for.
I'm not sure what the point is of references AR-15/M-16 barrels. The M-16 is not a machine gun in the pure sense; it's a shoulder-fired rifle, as is the AR-15 - whether automatic or semi-automatic. After Vietnam, the Marine Corps decided that having them full-auto was a bad idea, as it ended up with wasted ammunition and poor shot discipline. At any rate, whatever you might consider the "legal" definition of "machine gun", I think of them in a tactical sense for how they're used. You'll never convince me that an M-16 firing 30 rounds over a couple of seconds is a machine gun. It's a rifle wasting ammo. An M-60 or an M-249 type weapon is the archetype, laying down sustained fire.
Could one take an M-60 or M-249 barrel and mount it on something else? I suppose. Could one take an M-60 or M-249 and make it semi-auto? Sure, but what's the point?
Denial is not a river in Egypt. Your refusal to follow the pertinent facts presented, photos of air cooled barrels, statements by law enforcement that a lot of guns and ammo have to be inventoried, to the logical, reasonable conclusion indicates you have delusions or a hidden agenda.
A machine gun is defined as an automatic weapon, which will continue to fire for however long you squeeze the trigger. It has nothing to do with "how fast a gun shoots" because it's not defined by the rate of fire. For someone lambasting someone else (who, as mentioned above, served in the military) for not "checking facts", you seem to know even less about firearms than I do, which I honestly thought was impossible before I read your comment. -BC
You are an example of what is wrong with the media in this country.
Fortunately your industry is growing ever more irrelevant, and you'll be out of a job in a few years. Hope the people you've harmed with your irresponsible innuendoes and sloppy "reporting" remember your name when you come cap in hand, looking for a job.
Update 8/17/2012 - 4:50 p.m.: We just reached out to Crowley, who said that the latest update is that the warrant will be returned to the court on Monday 8/20. The ATF has been spending the time inventorying and documenting the evidence, because as Crowley says, "a lot of ammo and weapons were taken". Once the warrant is returned, the court can then unseal it, and release the information to the media or public - although there is no guarantee that would happen immediately.
If this guy were doing something illegal with these guns and ammo I,m glad they got caught its about time us people that use our guns the way they suppost to be used to stop backing these guys that are braking the law with guns, and making it bad for all of us.
I wish I had an update for you. Here's what the U.S. Attorney's office had for me on Friday:
Quote:
"This case is still under investigation and we are unable to offer any comments until an indictment has been returned by a grand jury and there are no court ordered seals."
They've been extremely disciplined about not saying anything, and I've not been able to pry even the slightest detail or hint of what they are up to.
How long does it usually take for them to release something like this? Also have any news stations been talking about this still or did it die off after that one story?
I've heard no followup from any other news outlet. I really don't have the experience to know what is normal in these cases, so it's hard for me to tell. I could speculate - and that's all it would be - that either they found something that leads to more investigation, and they don't want to compromise that. Or perhaps they took it to the grand jury and didn't get an indictment. Either way, I hope they'll say something.
![Open in new window](javascript:CaricaFoto("http://lewisvilletexan.com/xoops/uploads/img50216b6295672.gif");)
![Open in new window](javascript:CaricaFoto("http://lewisvilletexan.com/xoops/uploads/img4b697f3c8aab6.gif");)
Re: Updated: ATF Raids Lewisville Home- Seizes Guns, Ammo...
![Open in new window](javascript:CaricaFoto("http://www.22ndmeu.marines.mil/SharedMedia/22ndmeu/2011/Oct/7/111007-M-0000C-002_medium.jpg");)
