Three Illinois police officers have been charged with illegally possessing machine guns:

Three Illinois State Police officers, who could legally handle submachine guns for their jobs, have been charged with violating federal firearms regulations for allegedly having them at home, officials announced Tuesday.

The troopers – two assigned to District 11 at Collinsville and one to District 18 at Litchfield – were placed on paid leave while their cases are handled in federal court in East St. Louis.

Also charged is a doctor, formerly of Glen Carbon, who allegedly lent one of the weapons to a trooper who said he test-fired it and gave it back.

There is no allegation that the men trafficked in illicit weapons or committed any crime beyond illegally possessing them. Authorities would not say what launched the investigation or how federal agents found out about the weapons.

Notice how the charges are minimized a bit in the reporting, no doubt due to the fact they’re police officers. Another article on the situation notes:

Trent said the three accused troopers could have lawfully possessed the machine guns if they were assigned to them as part of their work duties, but they could not have them as private citizens.

[snip]

On Dec. 22, when Illinois State Police agents searched the residence where Griffiths now lives in Spaulding, they found the machine gun, which had been converted illegally to a fully automatic firearm.

The complaint charges that Griffith admitted to having fired the weapon on at least two occasions, He also admitted to having loaned the weapon to Yard in October. Agents seized some other firearms from the Spaulding residence.

A record check revealed that Griffiths had not registered the guns, the complaint said.

Mugge and Griffiths both are accused of owning Colt AR-15 SP1 models, with Mugge’s able to fire as an automatic weapon when a piece of metal was inserted and Griffiths’ illegally converted to fire automatically.

No one is above the law but I can’t help wondering if the facts of this case could be used to challenge The Hughes Amendment, which bans the transfer of new machine guns to civilians. After all, the cops in this case seem to be fine, upstanding people except for their illegal possession of machine guns.

Posted in uncategorized on January 20th, 2006 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |