A 70-year-old vet bought an M14 at a gun show in the early ’80s. Now . . .

Alfred Pick was sentenced by federal judge District Judge Marcia A. Crone to seven years in prison for a mistake he made nearly 40 years ago — buying a fully automatic gun that’s illegal for citizens to own. The rifle was similar to the one Pick had in the Army where he served as a lieutenant.

The ATF raided Pick’s Fort Worth home after receiving “a tip.”

The raid and arrest on Pick’s Plano home came two weeks after his wife of 40 years died of cancer. They were using marijuana, which authorities found and added another criminal charge.

Friends of the vet showed up to support him after he pleaded guilty in a Plano federal courtroom and was sentenced to 87 months in prison by a judge.

“He’s had it all these years never robbed a bank or done anything with it,” said Shackelford. “Somebody that made one mistake and now 50 years later, he’s paying a really big price for it.”

The rifle’s serial number had reportedly been removed.

Read the rest of the story from cbslocal.com here.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

279 COMMENTS

    • Pick has already done a year in jail with more to follow. He was STUPID for possessing an registered NFA weapon and telling people about as well as purchasing, possessing and using a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance. In short he screwed the pooch, lots of lessons here.

      • got away with it for so long he got careless….others have done less time for similar offenses, though…considering his age…judge could have cut him a break…

        • Did he know it was full auto? He had to shoot it to know, right? Right. Im not knocking him, i guess yu gotta go find the dealer, if he even knew. Or sell it on the street. He prolly paid cash to a private collecter. No paper needed. Ok let know whats up, plz. I used to b dealer, if that means anything.

        • Eric, the weapon has a selective fire switch on the side. Semi autos just have “fire” and “safe”. Most selective fire weapons have “auto” or some such position name. It’s not at all difficult to see.

      • Pick has already done a year in jail with more to follow. He was STUPID for possessing an registered NFA weapon and telling people about as well as purchasing, possessing and using a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance. In short he screwed the pooch, lots of lessons here.

        No… We are STUPID for allowing people who hurt no one for 50 years to be imprisoned for possessing a “registered NFA, whateverthef*** insert law here” as well as possessing and using a “schedule 1 controlled whateverthef*** insert legal mumbo jumbo here.” In short – we f***ed up. And there are lots of lessons we can learn from our own mistakes here.

        What a piece of sh*t people we are. We took an old man on the eve of his life, and we put him in a prison to rot his days away. And for what? What did we gain from it? He never hurt a soul. The only victim here is this old man. He is the victim of our horrible mistakes manifested real, through each vote we dropped in a box. We are the perpetrators and he is the victim. But it is he that pays the price for our failures. What a horrible place that we have created for ourselves.

        • Listen to yourselves boys. We are deporting undocumented men and women who came to America 40 years ago, started businesses, raised families, paid taxes, even served in the US military.

          One thing 40 years ago is still one thing. Sounds like that Texan had at least three things. And two of them are pretty glaring things.

          Does America have laws or not?

        • “We are deporting undocumented men and women who came to America 40 years ago,”

          Only if they have committed serious crimes. These stories get printed in the paper and then you look them up on a background check service and it turns out they were distributing drugs, committing multiple fraud against another person thought identity theft or involved in crime — or all three.

          Stealing someone else retirement social security is not a victimless crime

        • “for possessing a “registered NFA…”

          And just how can it be ‘registered’ with the serial number ground off?

        • Well, I was ready to jump in and assist with his legal fees, but he pled guilty. Would have been a SUPER case to overturn NFA 1934. Oh well.

        • Bearpaw claims we’re deporting people who served in the military?!?! Military service a path to citizenship. No one came here illegally, joined the service and then were deported unless they were dishonorably discharged before they had completed the citizenship process. Bearpaws is a liar and his word holds literally zero value.

        • I’m going to go on a limb and say that they had the MJ cause his wife had cancer. So not only did this guy’s wife just die a likely slow painful death from cancer. But because some busy body troglodyte gave a “tip” to some ATF idiot needing to justify his paycheck, and that ATF idiot put this old guy in front of a judge with a chip on his shoulder or needing scalps for election time, an old man who served as a commissioned officer in America’s most undignified war (which was followed by America’s shameful treatment of veterans of it) is in prison. If I were this guy I would have made a plea bargain that I would give a guilty plea only for the death penalty.

          He’s at the end of his life, will never see another day outside prison, his wife is gone and any kids are moved on. They’d never go for it, but it would make a great gesture.

        • You nailed it perfectly. Look at the mob violence happening today By the Socialist Demorats, where are the Antifa goons doing any time for violence committed in disturbing the peace, advocating sedition and inciting anarchy?

        • Timothy, when you don’t know what you’re talking about, keep your mouth shut. There is an entire community of veterans in Juarez that are nothing but combat vets who have been deported. Some of them don’t even speak Spanish, as this is their first time in Mexico as an adult. Some have dishonorable discharges, but most do not. There have been several major news stories about this exact thing happening.
          Enlistment is a “path to citizenship”, but recruiters hold that over soldiers’ heads forever. I know soldiers with multiple combat tours who have not yet completed that “path”, through no fault of their own. I have personally watched an army retention and recruitment NCO threaten to call INS on a combat vet if he did not re-up so that NCO could meet his numbers.

        • Here you go JWTaylor. Since I don’t know what I’m talking about, I looked it up.

          https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/02/08/troops-veterans-are-now-protected-from-deportation/

          Also, illegal immigrants have always been barred from joining the military, contrary to Bearpaws claim. Legal immigrants who do not yet have citizenship can. And non immigrants looking for a way in can. What happened here is Bearpaws took an issue that’s changed and then misrepresented it.

        • But what do I know? It’s not like I’ve served for the last 14 years and also have access to all of the world’s information at my fingertips.

        • At least you got close. it’s not “illegal immigrants” or BS “undocumented” It’s ILLEGAL ALIEN. Who, if we have allowed to squat here in the US for 1 hour, have received a GIFT of incalculable.value. Now take what you have learned about the Western world and GO HOME and fix YOUR cesspool

        • Timothy, when you don’t know what you’re talking about, keep your mouth shut. There is an entire community of veterans in Juarez that are nothing but combat vets who have been deported. Some of them don’t even speak Spanish, as this is their first time in Mexico as an adult.

          JWTaylor, we had two of those cases here.In one the illegal alien “veteran” who got deported ROBBED a gas station pistol whipping the owner. The other one had been using someone else (a dead guy’s) social security benefits, stealing thousands from that dead guy’s widow and orphans.

          In nine out of ten press articles on those deportation processes the media did not mention the crimes committed and made it seem like US law was ‘tearing apart families” or arbitrarily deporting veterans like you and I.

          So stop. Veterans who are illegals are not being deported unless they commit a crime, and fully 80% of Americans DO support deporting any alien who commit crimes here.

        • Timothy, I guess you didn’t actually read the article you posted. It cites a policy of deporting veterans, and states that will stop this year. Just this year. If you’ve been serving for 14 years, maybe you noticed that a war has been going on for the last 17.
          Thanks for proving my point.
          Frank, please note the link Timothy provided, further proving the point that we have had, for at least 16 years of the last 17, a policy of deporting veterans.

        • I imagine he was giving it to wife for pain. Know several has been doing it. Now they use the Canablis oil! Which I believe is legal in most states now. Friend just died of Cancer the oil was her best relief! I could never stand Pot because of the Stink! Damn poor 60’s Hippie!

      • What an immoral bastard you must be. Sending a 70 year old man to prison for 7 years because he disobeyed a politican, and you can the poor guy stupid ? That’s your reaction ?
        Look in the mirror you pathetic bootlicker. You’re exactly the kind of order obeying brainless piece of shit that every tyrant has always used to carry out their plan.

        • And you are the average, predictable, harmless internet big mouth and muscles. There are thousands like you, and the politicians don’t seem to give a s*** either, because they know all you need is to vent on social medias and the likes, giving you a feeling you achieved something, and then you sit and stay like a doggy, just like the guy/gal you trashed, same end result just a different method.

      • I have NEVER HEARD OF A FULL AUTO M-14 RIFLE! I don’t know every gun there is, or every modification, but the clip on mine only held like eight rounds (if memory serves)… so something stinks in this story, but shame on him for using pot as a medicine for his sick wife. Such criminality deserves NO compassion unless there is a hefty fine and plenty of court costs paid.

        • The M1 Garand was semi-auto aka selfloading but the M14 was adopted 20 years later in the 1950s. The M1 used an 8 round en block clip that was contained inside the action of the rifle and automatically ejected after it was empty.
          The M14 used a 20 round steel box magazine and came with a selector switch that was located on the right rear of the action. The M14 was very difficult to control in full auto fire so most rifle had the selector switch removed.
          Before LBJ and the ATF /DOJ going full bore crazy, a citizen who was not breaking any other law would be fined a few hundred dollars, the gun would be confiscated and the person would be sent home.
          Today bank robbers and drug pushers plea bargain away a raft of charges and the gun charges are usually dropped.
          ATF has to punish somebody or they will be seen as useless.
          The removal of a serial number was probably done by the person who stole the gun from the military in hopes that it couldn’t be traced back to him.

      • So much for respecting and honoring veterans I guess. 🙁 Your comment/opinion is not logical.

      • If that’s the case it must have been illegal for whom ever sold it to him. What a hell of a way to treat our veterans.

      • Yeah the lesson here is Arms should be taken up against our fascist government and bootlickers like you.

        • Sorry, dude….I was a cop for many years. And you apparently (judging from your handle) don’t understand just how much ENFORCEMENT of the law doesn’t match lawmakers’ interpretation of the law. I never worried much, on traffic stops, about the guys ‘n gals who told me, up front, “Sir, I have a gun.” But when I saw a pistol butt sticking out underneath their seat….well…then things got real…

      • I still find it interesting, and incomprehensible, that the federal government classifies marijuana as a Sched I drug while my state, according to the Tennessee State Code, Annotated, classifies it as Sched VI. I’m a total 2A believer, and it looks to me like he did blunder….but using MJ possession to put a vet in jail just seems wrong to me. Our criminal justice system is supposed to work on a case-by-case basis, I think. And applying draconian punishments is antithetical to the way we’re supposed to be reacting to alleged ‘offenses.’ Of course, I only have this article as a reference, so I don’t know the ‘whole story.’ But it smells to me so far

        • Well, I went and read the whole article, mostly. I guess, as with many things, there’s ‘more to the story than meets the eye.’ If he had a history of violent behavior, as the article alleged, maybe he shouldn’t have been in possession of ‘a’ firearm, much less an automatic firearm. I don’t know. I’m not one to judge, and admit a certain bias toward fellow veterans. Especially vets who actually experienced combat, which I did not. (tempted to say ‘Unfortunately’, but really, I was lucky).

          If it means anything, I doubt that any of us know ‘the whole story.’ But if there was anything I could do, ethically, to help the guy, I would

      • This guy deserves to be in prison. The story TTAG printed is not the true story of what happened or who this guy is. First the gun with the filed off numbers he stole when he left the military. At the hospital where the tip came from he threatened to shoot people in their kneecaps and elbows. When the ATF searched his house the found a dozen guns cocaine and weed. So this guy got exactly what he deserves.

    • Well, it’s not like this guy –or you for that matter– would lift a finger if it were me in this fix.

      Maybe if we actually enforce our laws equitably, we might decide we don’t want some of them, after all.

      • Another innocent person falls victim to our victim-less crime laws. One at a time, we destroy ourselves with our own laws, crafted out of ignorance and cowardice.

      • So from the Plano paper…so take it with a grain of salt.

        Pick was originally charged with 3 counts, including making a terrorist threat to the staff at a local hospital saying “What happened in Las Vegas is nothing compared to what I’m going to do to you people”. This resulted in them raiding his home to search for weapons and finding cocaine, pot and an automatic rifle with the serial number filed off. He has been banned from other hospitals as well. His only daughter was sexually abused by both Al and his wife from the age of 4 years old including digital and oral penetration, pornographic photographs, vibrators and forced bubble baths with body rubbing. Al denied this vehemently at the hearing, His daughter had photograph proof which she retrieved from Al’s house following his arrest. The judge reviewed the photographs with both attorneys in closed chambers and found Alfred’s denials and statements regarding his character to be false. When his house was raided, child pornography was also confiscated. Al confided to another neighbor that he had stolen the automatic weapon during a target practice session, hiding it under some leaves and returning that night to the range to retrieve it. A few years ago Al was arrested for banishing a weapon over a parking space. Al refused to allow his wife’s body to be released for cremation for two weeks, holding it hostage as a tool to force his release.

        • How “Decorated Vietnam Vet” -ly of him. I wonder how these little details were missed in the TTAG coverage?

          “Somebody that made one mistake…”

        • @barnbwt, if you want a better story always click on the provided link on the TTAG “article”, and for even better results check other sources as well. It is not the first time they do that, they “forget” to point some “details”….

        • Zimmerman doesn’t forget, he does it on purpose. Intentionally misleading the rabble makes him money.

        • Interesting allegations. If true, he would certainly be charged with kiddie porn posession at the least. They would have him, upon conviction, in jail for longer that 7 years.

          I will look for the charges that will inevitably be filed.

          Mere purchase of a fully auto weapon in 1984 was not illegal (to my limited understanding of the laws at that time). Failing to register according to NFA after it passed, and altering a serial number … not so legal. Threatening hospital staff. Well there ya go. Another no no.

          I don’t know enough to pass opinion on his guilt or character. Hearsay and news reports are more often wrong than not.

    • I am going to go on the White House website and ask President Trump to pardon him. Anyone else want to do the same?

      • No, No come on now! Give us more credit then that. When the time comes I’m sure most of the 70 something year olds here will gather up their CPAPS, insulin meters, blood pressure meds, have their daughter tie their boot laces for them, kiss their grandchildren, social security checks and Medicare good buy and hit the streets and or woods to stand up and be counted. LoL. Of course everyone here is all talk anyone over 10 or not clinically insane or retarded knows that. This is all just an exercise in self-therapy essentially.

    • Proof that the Constitution is nothing more than an ideal to legislators. “Shall not be infringed” my Cherokee ass..

      • I clicked the link at the bottom of the story above and saw that this guy has a VERY dark past. A pedophile that made terroristic threats on multiple occasions. Nope he gets no sympathy from me. I do offer my sympathy and prayers to his poor daughter.

    • He was tried 40yrs ago??? That’s the way I read this article. What time frame from original arrest to the sentencing??

      I’ve seen lower receivers that had auto on them just because we can! But these were only semi autos.

  2. Thanks LaPierre! Thanks Cox! You proud of yourselves for supporting this law?

    Of course they are. The million dollar piles of cash they scam out of gun owners every year are more important to them than this vet’s freedom.

    • You are correct! The NRA and Republicrats have brainwashed the USA into believing that the 2nd Amendment is for protection against robbers and rapists when the true meaning is to defend against tyranny and genocide committed by governments which murdered over 100,000,000 unarmed citizens in the 20th Century alone (everyone on this site should stare at that number for a bit). This poor vet did NOTHING wrong. As long as our government/masters can put gun owners in prison for victimless crimes of possessing “illegal” parts and “illegal” guns then we have no 2nd Amendment as far as they are concerned. Trump, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and LaPierre all agree with throwing this vet in prison to rot to death for doing nothing. If you don’t believe that you are a fool and have fallen for their fake “pro-gun” BS.

      • THIS IS THE POST I WANTED UP, I HAD AN ISSUE WITH THE EDIT FEATURE:
        You are correct! The NRA and Republicrats have brainwashed the USA into believing that the 2nd Amendment is for protection against robbers and rapists when the true meaning is to defend against tyranny and genocide committed by governments which murdered over 100,000,000 unarmed citizens in the 20th Century alone (everyone on this site should stare at that number for a bit). This poor vet did NOTHING wrong. As long as our government/masters can put gun owners in prison for victimless crimes of possessing “illegal” parts and “illegal” guns then we have no 2nd Amendment as far as they are concerned. Trump, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and LaPierre all agree with throwing this vet in prison to rot to death for violating the communist inspired NFA of 1934. People who believe them are fools and have fallen for their fake “pro-gun” BS. We have the right to own all military weapons as it makes no sense to say that we own guns to defend against tyranny but we don’t have the right to own machine-guns. But this is what the fakes in the “pro-gun” movement push. This vet did nothing immoral or wrong and is now a political prisoner of the communist left which includes a lot of Republicans who gun owners support.

        • got to love Democrats like yourself making these foolish claims. You are not fooling anyone, even with two screen names. We’d be in bolt and break action action only long guns, and a handgun ban if not for the NRA.

        • “got to love Democrats like yourself making these foolish claims. You are not fooling anyone, even with two screen names. We’d be in bolt and break action action only long guns, and a handgun ban if not for the NRA.”

          From NFA ’34 to GCA ’68 to ‘bump’ stock ban, the NRA has publicly (and officially) supported them all

          http://jpfo.org/articles-assd02/nra-supported-nfa34.htm

          Gotta love people who don’t know history beyond the latest self-serving NRA soundbite
          talking out of their ass.

        • nanashi aka big lou aka 16v

          Your citation about a NRA position from 90 years ago??? and relates to laws over 90% of gun owners agree with?

          The 68 original proposed GCA was a much more egregious law when proposed and cut to pieces by the NRA during the legislative process. LBJ said the NRA gutted the final passed GCA of 1968.

          this has been pointed out over and over by many posters in response to your outright lies and citation of laughable sources written by people with NO background or work fighting gun control

          You are as bad as the FUDs. You can thank the NRA for the fact that we don’t have complete bans. large majorities supported total handgun bans and total semi auto bans in the 1960’s. Large majorities supported federal registration of all guns.

          Thank the NRA for your gun rights asswipe or keep promoting your complete lies as we laugh at you

        • “Your citation about a NRA position from 90 years ago??? and relates to laws over 90% of gun owners agree with?”

          Mob rule makes it right? A long history of abuses makes it okay? How democratic of you. SMH
          It doesn’t matter if 99% agree for 999 years; it remains infringement. You happen to support gun control but are too foolish to realize it.

          The NRA has indeed been, and continues to be, detrimental to exercise of the unalienable individual right to keep and bear arms. It has steadfastly supported government privilege in the place of the exercise of rights. Exercise of the right will never survive if that’s the best we have.

          Now, go full retard and claim that I’m also a sock puppet of Nanashi. That seems to be all you have.

    • Nanashi, I’d like to buy you an NRA life membership. I want to make sure you’re on the mailing list for the NRA, and I’d like to give them your phone number, so they can call you.

      I want you to picture Wayne LaPierre’s face. There’s no reason, I’m just enjoying the thought that you are reading this and thinking of Wayne.

      • I think he’s LaPierre’s abandoned love child. There’s no other explanation for his constant, repetitive and excruciatingly boring whining about the NRA.

        Okay, there’s another explanation.

        • Indeed, he keeps droning on about laws from 80 years ago.

          I meet these anti-NRA nuts on occasion. They always fail the basic shit test: ‘Interesting view, who is your state Representative is.”
          They never know. They don’t know their state legislature Rep, their state legislature Senator, and almost also never know their US Rep either. Meaning they don’t actually do anything.

          They don’t know a majority of Americans supported a national handgun ban or any of the other factors the NRA faced and successfully fought against over the years.

        • Try posting a cite to back you assertions up.

          Anybody with a google can find hundreds of articles featuring the NRA supporting everything from NFA to GCA, to bump-fire stock bans.

          “The National Rifle Association has been in support of workable, enforceable
          gun control legislation since its very inception in 1871.”
          — NRA Executive Vice President Franklin L. Orth
          NRA’s American Rifleman Magazine, March 1968, P. 22

          Bumpfire info, at least until the NRA figured out that it might cost them the 3 non-Fudds they have on the membership rolls…

          https://www.newsweek.com/everyone-even-nra-wants-ban-bump-stocks-so-why-wont-it-happen-692075

          The NRA is an (at best) fair weather frienemy. Uninformed people are the reason it will remain a duplicitous snake.

        • Then there’s Nanashi’s soul sister, 16V. More caustic than Nanashi, the fella literally cut and pastes the same anti-NRA talking points in every thread he posts in, then accuses anyone who disagrees with him or doesn’t have a seething hatred of the NRA of being a Fudd.

        • 16V- you need to read what the NRA said, not what liberal publications spin it as. The original statement was that bump stocks were approved, things that make semi auto into full auto are illegal, and BATFE should examine again (expecting them to rule the same as they had the previous 3 times). When BATFE put out its stupid proposal, NRA proposed this https://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?documentId=ATF-2018-0002-87401&attachmentNumber=1&contentType=pdf. Basically, amnesty and open the registration.

        • @Frank
          Sorry, I know who mine is (Leek, the traitor) and I’m voting Libertarian in that race. My state senator is dead, but I’m still voting for her (not entirely sure what happens when the dead win in Florida, but it’s better than the Dem).

          @Anymouse
          Except for all the interviews they said otherwise in. Wayne LaPierre Laval is exceptionally clear in this interview that he supports a ban, not just a “reexamination”.
          https://youtu.be/2pk2LqqqtDs?t=4m9s (go to 4m 9s)

        • There is a useful answer. Vote pothead.

          Why don’t you run in the next 2020 Rep primary? For US HOUSE.

        • Again, I bet you had no idea who your legislators were Nasishi.

          YOU have, over and over, have PROVEN you don’t know the legislative fight over the GCA of 1968, which was a steam roller and which the NRA BRILLIANTLY gutted.

        • “Well, these are legal, but we’d like the ATF to RECONSIDER them.”

          You don’t see that as Full Retard and begging for further infringements?

          Then we have nothing to discuss.

          And I guarantee I’ve done more for the 2A than you ever have.

      • NRA has been relentless with calling me. The spam from them alone makes me regret the decision to become a member. I get at least 1 call every day from them, at this point I don’t even answer my cell phone unless I know the number. At this point I don’t think letting my membership lapse will stop the calls.

        • Call them up and tell them you wish to be put on the “do not promote” list. The calls and mailers will cease.

        • Upgrade your membership ya tightwad.

          I think may 4 things from them a year. A couple are “enter to win”. And if you’re too much of a snowflake to handle that can’t help you. The Constitution does not require you to open/read mail addressed to you,

  4. “A tip”…so some asshole in his family probably sold him out. He could have just removed the full-auto parts and hidden them away somewhere and none of this would have ever happened. You don’t really “modify” an M1A to get it to full-auto M14 specs, like drilling a third hole in an AR15 or an AK, so it would be reversible with some M1A parts right? I was under the impression that it was just add-on parts and cutting out some space in the wooden stock.

    • Your close to the facts, he was informed on both for having the weapon as well as using & possessing marijuana, he was not charged for the marijuana only weapons offenses.

      Couple of lessons here:
      If you have weapons and like legal access to them don’t use illegal drugs.
      If you have an “illegal” weapon(s) keep that to yourself.
      Remember every time you do a drug deal you expose yourself to law enforcement.

      The BATFE & the US Attorney’s Office played hardball with Pick from day one, he was ordered detained after arrest last year. They could have done a simple drug count, but wanted the NFA charges. They wanted to make an example of Pick.

      Judge Marcia Crone is fair but as tough as they come for sentencing, you do not want to cross her.

      Hopefully Pick will end up at the medical facility at Carswell or a minimum security camp, tough to say with the NFA charge. Perhaps someone could put in a word with DJT for a pardon…?

      • Serial number obliterated, giggle switch…
        don’t really have an issue with the pot.
        This smells like there is a whole lot more to this story.

        • Oh, the humanity! A gun without a serial number! A mechanical mechanism that allows it to fire while holding the trigger down! This man – no – this sub-human barbarian, deserves to be locked up for his wanton display of possession of contraband as dictated by his supreme State Masters, who know all and what’s best for all and protect us and nourish us from the cradle to the grave.

          I say find the deepest darkest hole and toss him in.

          Oh and 2A for LIFE! OOOOrah.

        • I have an old single shot 22lr rifle from that era that doesn’t even have a serial number. Since the rifle in question was full auto, I’d assume the military serialized everything at the time.

      • So so sad that this fellow should have just simply keep the weapon out of sight or, just applied for ATF class three license to have the weapon! The sad thing here is that someone, a friend turn him in is nothing more than shame to put a 70 year weak and sick man in prison, making him a felon; that is what the democrats are planing so you have nearly 174 million older felons. This country is gone to the lowest point in ever history of this Country.

        One thing I would never ever help any federal Government agency especially the ATF, a wanta be police department..

        Fuck the Government

    • probably lot of guns like this out there…the trick is being a bit more secretive about it…they tend to jump on this sort of thing rather quickly…

  5. Because he got away with it for many years is no excuse. You do the crime, you do the time. He knew he was breaking the law all of those years and took no action to correct it.

      • “Where’s the victim?”

        How about the US Taxpayers who paid for that M14 before it was stolen and resold.

        Why else do you suppose anyone attempted to file off the serial number?

        • Do you have any evidence that it’s a .mil M14 and not a model openly sold on the US market prior to the MG registration ban? No? Fuck off.

        • See, Mr.C. This is what happens when you assume.
          You get the wit and a slap from Pwerserge.

          Mr. P, fist bump.

        • The military destroyed most of its M14s in the 90s. Cut them up and dumped them in the ocean and had to buy more in the 2000s from the Baltic states to fight in Afghanistan. So who really screwed the taxpayers

      • Well and there is the whole shall not be infringed thingy… Yeah I see no crime here unless it is on the fed and the states for making any arm illegal for United States citizens to bear.

        • Actually, it is not a crime for a law abiding citizen to possess a fully automatic weapon in America; it is only illegal to possess one without paying the government the outrageous price of the permit to own one.

      • Seems unlikely as hell that he didn’t know….

        Start with how he acquired it. Even in Texas thirty years ago, no one was at any gun show OPENLY selling a US Army Property machine gun with the serial number filed off. Someone put him in contact with the seller and he damn well knew what he was buying because even then it wasn’t cheap.

        Even if we accept the ridiculous notion that he had no clue that a US Army machine gun with the serial number filed off wasn’t illegal, he would have to have been living in a cave for the past thirty years to not know about it by now.

        No this is mostly just proof that you can be an veteran, and a war hero, and an old rich guy, while still being stupid enough to show your “friends” your favorite illegal toy.

      • “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” – Thomas Jefferson

        I don’t see any Americans anywhere. Rather than upholding our obligations to disobey unjust laws, we just point fingers and crow about how everyone deserves what they get for knowingly breaking the unjust laws.

        Welp, they should know better. Derp a derp.

        When will we break free from these velvet chains?

    • “One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

      “…In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”

      – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

    • One might say we have a duty to break unjust laws.

      This old man had the stones for it, you?

      When the gov outlaws semi autos, you going to line up and turn yours in?

      • or just hide it better?…calls to mind what happened after Grenada…grunts caught with AK’s did time…while officers got a reprimand…..

      • Yes, and I’ve done exactly that many times before Texas had an LTC or CHL. And I let every cop I had any interaction with know it, as well as many others, even at the Texas Capitol.
        I was always willing to pay the fine or do the time. I was very open about my behavior, and the purpose of it. I was very lucky, in that the LEOs I met with didn’t care, or in some cases, actually didn’t believe carrying a pistol without any licensure was illegal. This would have likely turned out very differently in another state.
        I didn’t get my CHL until my boss told me that, to work there, I had to get my CHL because he didn’t want the liability. Since this was a private deal between two citizens, I agreed.
        Now I’m an FFL and a manufacturer with multiple SOTs (which I also think is just and constitutional), so now it’s hard to even commit a possession related crime if I wanted to.

    • Not the point !! Open your eyes , the NFA should have never been. The 2nd is as close to written in stone as it gets. Though I’m sure you have never made a mistake in your entire life. I for one think the politics behind gun laws are all a pile of crap , all lining corrupt controll fanatics pockets with $$ see the light , it is a Shameful day when this kind of shit happens to a man that fought for your ” so called ” freedoms. 7 years in prison for a rifle that probably sat in a safe since 1980 , meanwhile people Cary semi automatic handguns that can be concealed , and are far more apt to be used in a crime than this 70 year old man’s M4. When they try taking every carbine , semi automatic pistol , should all the people unwilling to surrender them spend a decade or so in prison ? Let’s hope not. More work less bullcrap POTG. That’s what it is about , my / your rights as American Law abiding citizens. I’m going to vomit now .

    • What crime dipshit? 2A doesn’t ban M14’s. He should’ve been more vigilant in his non-compliance of the unconstitutional law. Too bad he didn’t make a final stand with that M14 when the jackboots came “huthuthutting” to his door. Could’ve taken a few of the pukes with him.

      • Yeah, that wouldn’t have made for a pointless display that would give the media lots of terrifying and motivating footage for the ignorant masses. Not at all.

    • Now that right there is an idea. I imagine SAF or GOA might possibly want in on that. I’ll personally give them more money if they do.

    • Does anyone know the crime he was convicted of? The rifle was probably a pre-68, which is when the GCA mandated a serial number. A college roommate had a perfectly legal pre-68 Sears .22 that never had a serial number. The serial number could have been removed when it wasn’t illegal. He could even be a 2-fer challenge of NFA and marijuana prohibition.

      • Where do you suppose this full auto M14 with the serial number filed off came from? Anyone want to bet that the serial number wasn’t the only marking filed off.

      • Yes, he plead to knowingly and unlawfully possessing the unregistered automatic weapon while using and possessing unlawful drugs.

      • Anymouse. I am by no means an expert here. But it’s my understanding that m14s were never surplussed or sold on the civilian market. Not even the ones that had been modded, and most were, to fire semi only.

        There are very few, very, very few legal to own unmodded m14s in circulation.

        • If this was bought in the early 80,s, it was perfectly legal to make or mod your semi to make it full auto.
          Just had to do the paperwork.
          No serial number? Fill out a form and have one assigned.

          A little bit of common sense woulda gone a long way here.
          I still think the story has some “back story” to it. It stinks.

      • I isn’t illegal to possess a firearm without a serial number if it didn’t have one to begin with. It is illegal to remove a serial number. Not sure about the situation where you own the serial-less gun, but weren’t the one who filespd it off, but it would be a contraband gun.

        • “It is illegal to remove a serial number.”

          As I understand it, that is correct.

          It doesn’t matter if it was yours legally before, just the act of obliterating a serial number on a firearm is a federal crime…

        • If I own the gun, that is stupid. They don’t even do that with cars. It is illegal for a shop to deactivate your air bags, but perfectly legal for YOU to do so.

        • It became illegal to remove a serial number, but this gun pre-dated the law, so they would need to prove it was removed after the law. Sounds like he talked too much, or his attorney didn’t research enough.

  8. I’m at a loss for words to accurately convey my feelings of disgust and rage and the person who “tipped” the atf.

    As Mr. Galt above succinctly put, if this man spends a day in jail, we are well and truly all talk.

    How often do we hear of gang bangers getting suspended sentences and probation, reduced charges and even gun charges dropped?

    Where’s was the NRA on this one, or more importantly the GOA or SAF?

  9. If he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, it may have caused a family member or close friend to pass on the tip.

    • If that was the case, an older relative losing his faculties, the reporting relative, instead of reporting, should have torched or melted that weapon into a lump.

  10. Well think about all those kids who will be saved from this full auto m14. I mean how many has he killed already? 20? 30? Oh zero? Well that’s strange…

  11. ‘Some Vietnam vets in Plano were not as sympathetic.

    They said Pick should’ve known better especially since the serial number on the rifle was scratched out.’

    This is true. The law may be wrong but if you’re keeping any firearm with the serial number scratched out you’re tempting fate and the federal government.

  12. Should not have plead guilty. Make them take it to trial and hope you get one decent one out of 12. No victim, no crime

    If you’re reading this and you don’t know what “jury nullification” is, please do a google search. It’s the last defense honest Americans have against tyranny.

    • He would have been tried in the Eastern District of Texas and found guilty, then he would have been maxed out. That’s what happens there.

      • At least he could of appealed if he had of gone to trial. I’m willing to bet he could find one sympathetic juror with him being an OFWG veteran with ostensibly no previous felonies.
        At the very least, the prosecutor might have offered him a better plea bargain.

        • Piss on all those considerations, he should be tried before SCOTUS. I have never heard of an appeal reaching SCOTUS concerning a machine gun (with or without a serial number) and 2A. But instead, he pled guilty.

  13. Once again, sadly, I must quote Tench Coxe who actually knew what the Second Amendment means:
    “Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American…. [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” (Tench Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.)

  14. What is this “we” BS. Break the law and I’m not breaking you out. MY line in the sand is the gubmint messing with ME. I may encounter said line if AR’s are banned. I don’t expect ANY help from you keyboard commandos/trolls. Yeah I think Vietnam dude got screwed…

    • First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
      Because I was not a socialist.
      Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
      Because I was not a trade unionist.
      Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
      Because I was not a Jew.
      Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me

      • Cry me a river cut and paste…everyone in America would know you can’t have a full auto gun wihout a gubmint permission slip. I’m an old guy-I don’t care.

      • You can take all your the “socialists” and the “trade unionists” fing marxist POS and stand them up at a wall. Or take them to the Katyn Forest.

  15. I feel like kneeling during the anthem to protest this horrible example of our broken government…

  16. As I said before select fire weapons will soon be for the rich only. No bump Stocks for the poor and no “go faster” triggers either. All with the blessing of many on TTAG.

    I have no problem with smoking pot inside your own home. But what happened to the rifle serial number?

    • The missing serial number is where this goes from “unlikely but still plausible ‘the poor old guy didn’t know what was going on'” to “yeah, this guy had a full auto, knew it was illegal, and tried to hide where he got it from”.

  17. Anyone else here from TX start writing to Ted Cruz. This is not right at all. Even if you are out from TX write…

    • Took Cruz ages to co-sign the HPA and Grassley-Cruz, which he tried to claim was pro-gun, is obviously not simply from the other name on it (the actual text is pretty anti-gun). Texans should do it, but not get their hopes up.

      • More bullshit from Naashi. You do not know anything and display your total ignorance over and over.

        Cruz was an original co-sponsor of Grassley-Cruz, that is a stone cold fact, he signed it before anyone since his office co-wrote it, you inveterate liar.

        It was a brilliant counter move to the Democrat proposals, which had gaind a huge amount of momentum and would have passed had this alternatives not been thrown out. It gutted and deflated the Democrats attempt at a universal background check bill and called for more prosecution of material perjury on 4473. it drew attention to the fact tha several Democrat city Police chiefs and the Obama politicized BATFE were not enforcing existing law against blatant straw purchases.

        Grassley -Cruz drove Everytown, mom’s and all of Bloomberg’s minions NUTS. It did NOT expand background checks AND it strengthened gun owners’ FOPA protections.

        But keep up your ignorance and lies. I am sure you never lifted a finger to help fight gun control, since you clearly do not know the issues.
        https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/294499-sens-grassley-and-cruz-present-alternative-gun-bill

        • I should I have made the separation clearer, but thinking I meant “it took him ages to co-sign the bill with his name on it” instead of “additionally he did this” is kinda being obtuse for the sake of being obtuse.

          If you find the actual text of Grassley-Cruz instead of what Grassley and Cruz tried to sell it as, you’ll see it’s hardly a pro-2A bill. It de-privatized medical records and gave millions of dollars to the ATF with just a promise they don’t do more fast and furious operations with it (operations that were ALREADY illegal and nobody was prosecuted for. I really doubt adding misappropriation of federal funds to potential charges would make the Obama ATF think twice.). It was another shitty “compromise” (our rights) bill, not something that scared the democrats.

  18. Allow me to copy/paste a comment posted on the CBS local website:

    “Read this and warning bells rang because of the statement, “Short time as a POW”. I checked a number of Vietnam POW data bases and did not find Alfred Pick listed anywhere. So spent some time searching various data bases and again could not find any listing of a Silver Star or any awards for Alfred Pick.. I’m just an old disabled Marine Gunner so maybe I’m wrong. Semper Fi.”

    • Navy vet here. You are right. He’s not on the official list of Vietnam POW’s. So, where does this come from?

      Could we be looking at another Stolen Valor guy? If so, it’s interesting that he was able to maintain it so publicly for so long.

      I find it somewhat suspicious that the story is that he purports to have used an M-14 in the army as a lieutenant. If he is 70, then he was born in 1948. A fresh 2nd lieutenant right out of college would have been 21 to 22 years old at the least when sent to Vietnam. That would mean he would have gone in 1969 or 1970. But the M-14 was phased out of Vietnam service in 1966-1967 except for combat engineer units. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M14_rifle So, I guess that leaves two possibilities, either he was a combat engineer or he was a 15 year-old 2nd lieutenant. (Unless he thought that the M-14 was “similar to” an M-16, which would be . . . preposterous?)

      Legalities aside, I suspect that this is wannabe poser who surrounded himself with tough-guy memorabilia to support his story.

      • More from a report on another firearms website:

        “While an artillery officer in the Army in Vietnam, Pick received the Silver Star, the nation’s third highest combat decoration for valor, after he took command of an infantry unit he was attached to after the commander was mortally wounded during an attack. According to a 90-page autobiography submitted to the court in his defense, Pick noted he was also shot down at least three times while serving as an artillery observer in small helicopters over hostile territory.”

        As an artillery officer, he would not have been carrying an M-14 after 1967. Also, one of the luckiest guys in the world to have been shot down three times in a helicopter and survived — damaged helicopters are not the most stable of platforms.

        This story becomes less and less believable.

        • Yes, but only on a limited basis. There are sniper variants, and ceremonial uses (e.g., the Old Guard). Some units and schools also use them in drill. None of these fits this man’s story.

  19. “Pick was originally charged with 3 counts, including making a terrorist threat to the staff at a local hospital saying “What happened in Las Vegas is nothing compared to what I’m going to do to you people”. This resulted in them raiding his home to search for weapons and finding cocaine, pot and an automatic rifle with the serial number filed off. He has been banned from other hospitals as well. His only daughter was sexually abused by both Al and his wife from the age of 4 years old including digital and oral penetration, pornographic photographs, vibrators and forced bubble baths with body rubbing. Al denied this vehemently at the hearing, His daughter had photograph proof which she retrieved from Al’s house following his arrest. The judge reviewed the photographs with both attorneys in closed chambers and found Alfred’s denials and statements regarding his character to be false. When his house was raided, child pornography was also confiscated. Al confided to another neighbor that he had stolen the automatic weapon during a target practice session, hiding it under some leaves and returning that night to the range to retrieve it. A few years ago Al was arrested for banishing a weapon over a parking space. Al refused to allow his wife’s body to be released for cremation for two weeks, holding it hostage as a tool to force his release.
    Al Pick’s neighbor for many, many years.”

    Posted by John Hammond on the CBS local website

    • “child pornography” [?]
      photographs?
      were those actual, physical photographs or ‘digitised’?
      if the latter: then: baloney!
      too easy for cops to confiscate yr ‘phone, laptop and/or tablet and, then, hey! presto! “find” some CP……
      that is when you know some-one is being set up…….
      there used to be a term for it: “character assassination”

      • You think it’s easier or less likely to be discredited for cops to fake digital child porn by physically porting it to one of your electronic devices then it is for them to simply plant hard copy photographs in your sock drawer? You’ve said some very dumb things in the comments here before that reflect a complete lack of common sense, sophistication, and just basic understanding of modern technology, infrastructure and society, but congratulations; that was the dumbest so far! (at least that I’ve read) Oh wait, wait were you the guy that said that in the event of domestic insurgency the gubmit would simply “turn off” the internet, was that you? In that case, that’s the dumbest. You are the definition of a bumpkin.

        • hunh?
          you got me mixed up with some-one else, you bink!
          i rarely comment on this ‘blog;
          but…..just to “humour” you…uh….no!
          “planting”/”porting” CP on to yr device is a lot easier than ‘planting’ actual, physical photographs;
          mainly: b’cs….. the cops might well be seen planting the photogs and many police depts now require the actual filming of searches to negate the claim by defence attorneys that evidence has been ‘planted’….
          how-ever….once the cops have got yr device(s) in their possession and back in the cop computer lab…..
          well…they can, then, do what they like with it….
          unless yr savvy enough to invest in very good encryption….

        • If you can get the device to a third party, meta data would point out any files that were created on or after the day of the raid. Pigs are probably too stupid to change the data.

          Even the laymen of the world should be using full drive encryption, and a VPN, regardless if you are innocent or not.

          Veracrypt is open source and free, just don’t forget your password or you are screwed, unless you made a recovery disc.

    • “Yeah, but the NRA. . .” “Muh 2nd Amendment!” “Jackbooted Gubmint Thugs!” “Gawdamn’ Tipster!” “He’s OLD!” “Vietnam hero!” “Prisoner of War!” “Prob’ly die in Prison!” “Gots Alzheimers!” “Cons’tution!”

      Oh. . . he’s a child molester, of his own child? A child pornographer? Made terroristic threats to a hospital? Stole the gun in the first place, and bragged about it? Waved a gun about before and got arrested for it? Kept his dead wife from being cremated as a ploy? Apparently lied about his military service? Had some cocaine, and not just pot? At bottom, just too big of an ASSHOLE to be among good people?

      Never mind. . .

      Is this the guy you want to make the Poster Child for The Cause?

      Nothing left to see, here. Move along.

      • NO I do not…obviously there’s a lot of problems anointing possible scum as your “hero”. All this “old man” BS too. I am only a few years younger…

  20. ‘Shall not be infringed.’

    The purpose, as we all know here, of the 2nd, was to keep the power in the hands of ‘we the people’ so when times — like these times we’re in — come, we can toss the bums out.

    We forget that politicians technically serve US. We arm THEM, for OUR purposes. But we keep the upper hand so that, should they get uppity and out of control (like these times), we can get them out with force, as that would be needed.

    We should regulate THEM, have restrictions on THEM. We decide who what when where why how THEY can carry / own a weapon. Do you allow servants to have more firepower in your home than you do? That’s what we’ve done.

    Allowing ANY infringement of the absolute right of citizens — we are the militia — to own whatever firearms and weapons, we turn it all on its head. The ones who are supposed to be our servants and do our bidding and protect our Constitutional rights … now are our masters.

    Any discussion of technicalities, as far as gun rights, is already buying into the system of laws which have removed our absolute right to own whatever weapons we choose — and those who serve us … those politicians … they are armed if WE say so.

    The servants have become the masters … the masters that we were supposed to be, have become the servants and slaves.

    Allowing our servants, to dictate to us what we are allowed to own, obviously ensures that we will have a very difficult time, at best, in forcibly tossing the traitors out.

  21. He violated three federal laws and we’re supposed to what, feel sorry for him? If you don’t want to go to prison, don’t break the law.

    • you are under zero moral and ethical obligation(s) to obey unjust, un-Constitutional laws…..
      TPTB really need to be “put-on-the-spot” over issues like this…
      say: a mass rally in Connecticut and NY with thousands of people “brandishing” AR-15s with hi-cap mags….
      bring the so-called “justice system” to a grinding, screaming HALT!
      then: watch how fast they ‘rescind’ those un-Constitutional “laws” 😏

      • It’s bad enough we have evil people who shoot up crowds with bump stocks equipped AR-15s. If we did not have the NFA, how long before someone with a 240 opens up on a crowd?

        The constitution only protects what the people are willing to tolerate.

        • Nonsense. You can kill more people, with a rental truck, or with a kind of gun legal and not even on the restricted list in Canada, your whining about bump stocks is idiotic. Brievik killed more people with a ranch mini-14, which is the second most popular gun model in Canada.
          Europe has had six times very large mass killings (40 or more) in the last decade than the US has had. Not 60% more, but 600% more. Lubitiz killed 150 and did not use a gun, Bouhlel killed 86 people and maimed 450 and did not use a gun Breivik used a gun legal in Canada, new Zealand and lots of places and with no bump stock and tat was a bigger school student shooting than any in the US.

        • You can’t kill people at 500 yards with a truck. If he used a 240 in Vegas, death toll would have been minimum 200, more like 400-1000. No outdoor venue would ever be safe. As it is now, no outdoor venue is truly safe, but you can take defense measures to keep the death toll down. And I’m not talking about how deadly bump stocks are, I illustrated what you can do with a shitty machine gun at 500 yards, use a real one and you have the 2nd on a bonfire.

        • Laws are words on paper, and a badge/commission into the military does not purge someone’s brain of evil thoughts. If someone were to “open up” with a 240 on a crowd, it would have happened already. There’s 240s (and bigger) machine guns in civilian hands in this country, and there’s plenty of them in government inventory, watched over by people no different than you or me. Sure, they’ve been “vetted”, which basically means they told the other human handing out the credentials for the job the answers they wanted to hear.

          McVeigh didn’t need a 240 to take out close to 200 people, by the way.

          Guns or no guns, the simple fact is that mass shootings are a statistically rare event. I don’t worry about snipers over music festivals, because it really doesn’t happen that often. I worry more about getting clobbered on the highway by one of Emma Gonzales’ friends who is too busy taking a selfie than to pay attention to the road.

          Source – live in South Florida and I see the daily demolition derby on the highways around here, and the perpetrators are usually younger people.

        • Try and buy 500 lbs of fertilizer and see if the feds are not knocking on your door. There are not that many true machine guns in civilian hands, not the sub gun’s. What happens when there are tens if not hundred of thousands.

          Slide fires had been out for a while, but once the information on how to set them up for reliable fire and surefire finally made 100 round magazines that work with them, within 2 year someone shot up a crowd. If the NFA restrictions on machine guns was removed, how long before someone takes a light machine gun to a crowd. I guessing 5 years max.

          A sniper can get what 20 people or so, history has shown that the second can survive that. How would machine guns survive adding one or two zeros to that number? And what would the anti-gunners grab along with them?

        • Ok…

          Fertilizer explosives are for amateurs. In any case, it doesn’t take 500lbs of fertilizer to make an IED. Not even 20 if you get the chemistry right. How much bursting charge is there is a grenade? How about a claymore? Anybody with a basic knowledge of chemistry can make high explosives in job lots from things that are not even remotely monitored. Anybody with a basic knowledge of engineering knows you need lots of explosives to kill buildings, not people.

          On a side note, advocating limitations on your own rights because some crazy might misuse them makes about as much sense as castrating yourself because somebody else might go around raping people.

        • Your wasting your time dude. The other day “Excederine” said:

          “Innocent people would still get hurt and killed, even if guns were never invented to begin with, at the exact same rate regardless of the means being used.”

          You can’t un-fuck people willing to contort their brain with such mind bending absurdity’s. I mean think about that statement for a minute, just think about it.

        • @ G Gordan: since guns in civilian hands are used about 100x times for every non criminal killed with a gun (at last two million comared to two housnad pe ryear) the only “contortion” is those claiming stripping the law abiding of firearms woudl make them safer. It is a specious.

          and claiming no one can buy 100 lbvs off fertilizer without the feds knocking on their door is hilarious, millions of people do it every year. there have been multiple notations by former federal authorities that there is still no way to stop a McVeigh type bombing. there are not millions of pound sof fertilizer sold in the US every year, but millions of TONS. Also almost all of it is also stored and transported with zero security. One of the journalism journals a few years ago mentioned that a journalist had bought 4 tons of the same fertilizer with about 20 small cash purchases between him and another journalist, and the press outlet decided not to run the story since it would expose that there is not really any way to monitor this monitored

          As far as binders claim that trucks can’t kill a many, a guy with a truck killed more people than were killed in Las vegas.

          also Binder denies the biggest school shooting in the US was with simple pistol, not an assault rifle, and biggest school shooting in the world (which was in Norway, much bigger than any US school shooting US) was with a rifle (mini-14 ranch) not even on the restricted list in Canada and legal under all the gun control lobby’s proposals.

          The fact that the biggest murders by an individual have been with non-gun means, and the fact that the biggest mass killings in the past decade have been in Europe, which has had six times as many very large (over 50) mass murders than the US has had just gets ignored?

        • Blood in the streets! Blood in the streets!

          Oh wait….

          And just to be clear, while mass shootings suck, they are a statistically insignificant portion of firearm misuse in the US… banning machine guns for everyone because there are a few crazy people out there is the very definition of 1) pre crime, 2) stupid 3) guilt by association (a very liberal idea) 4) stupid

        • And yet you can’t go to a store and buy a SAW, why is that? I not saying that machine guns should be banned, I’m explaining why that ARE banned. There is a limit on what the majority of people will put up with.

          If trucks and IEDs were really that effective, why does the military bother with things like machine guns anyways. That is just a stupid argument. If there was no NFA, it would not take much planning to rack up a massive body count with a machine gun, just a hotel room overlooking a nice crowded venue and a 10K limit on your credit card.

        • Wow that’s a retarded argument… If machine guns were so effective at killing civilians in job lots, why did insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan use IEDs?

          Machine guns should not be banned. My rights do not and should not depend on the good behavior of some drugged out left wing nutjob.

        • @pwrserge

          Because IED’s don’t require an operator to be present to be employed. It’s called economy of force. And IED’s are disposable (obviously); newish well functioning GPMG’s were actually (relatively) scarce and highly prized, just as any force attempts to conserve its most causality producing weapon to be employed at decisive points in space and time, so do insurgents. When you fix yourself by operating a GPMG out in the relative open, you get smoked, just as Paddock did in Vegas. Even in a hit and run from a concealed bongo UAV’s and Apaches zero in on you. A GPMG would most certainly produce more causality’s but the GPMG gunner will likely never carry out another attack again. In Iraq mortars weren’t employed that often, because the dummies just literally didn’t know how to use em that well and we had radar coverage. Had there literally not been millions of loose artillery shells in Iraq that we allowed to go unsecured in our circle jerk search for WMD most causality’s could have been avoided. Your idea that people are gonna cook up bombs in there bath tubs is pure fantasy, you can say it’s easy all you want, it’s not. Why weren’t there a hundred times more bombings in northern Ireland if it’s so easy? 90% of IEDs detonated against coalition forces barely even chipped paint, there just not that effective against mechanized or armored forces. IEDs caused us to spend money and look weak doing it, that’s how insurgency’s win

        • Harry Floyd

          Way to miss the point kiddo…

          1. It’s not that hard to cook up explosives, anybody with a basic understanding of chemistry can tell you this. A hint might be that people have been doing it since the 1400s.

          2. The idea is to kill PEOPLE. A truck with a few improvised claymores behind its side panels would have killed orders of magnitude more people than that nutjob with all his fancy guns. Just look at what one goat rapist with a suicide vest was able to do in Manchester.

      • You can drive with a piece of cardboard instead of having a license plate, and you can also show the cops your pizza reward card instead of a valid ID/DL. You can also act like a complete know it all d-bag when they have legal grounds to detain you during an investigation, refusing to lower your window or to open your door, obstructing their investigation by providing a false identity, etc. Finally, you can tell the judge the insane sovereign citizen poetry you have learned over the past 6 months, the judge will probably ridicule you in seconds.
        Do whatever you think you can get away with, just don’t be crying like a little boy when you realize it all went to hell because you actually didn’t have a clue, and now nobody cares.

        • Your not giving them any ideas they haven’t already had. Better than fifty percent of guys on this site come here to indulge in an alternate reality. They know it doesn’t mean shit in the real world, but it’s cathartic for them. This comment section in particular has brought out a few readers with a shred of self awareness that’s atypical for around here, it’s normally a Walmart couch commando convention 24/7. It’s funny cause you can see in the comments some guys beginning to have moments of clarity, almost embracing it, then shrugging it off.

  22. Well, he pleaded guilty so folks shouldn’t get too worked up over it. There’s always the remote possibility that he is in early stage dementia and rather than subject his family to 24/7 caregiving time and expenses, he set himself up to get the government to take care of him. Anything’s possible.

    • No she doesn’t, you have no knowledge of her or how she conducts court or sentencing. Go to Beaumont, Sherman or Plano, Texas and observe a trial and a sentencing then comment.

      • She has violated her oath by sentencing people who broke laws that are unconstitutional. That’s all I need to know

  24. Hmmm… The NFA charges are pure BS, but evidently Pick is no stand-up citizen by any measure. What sticks in my craw though is nailing him for the NFA violation, but not any of the other illegal things he has done.

      • So true. The problem with laws is that the authors pretty much jizz in their pants every time they get to use them. If there’s never any NFA violators convicted, people outside of the gun world might question the need for the NFA.

      • There is also the evident abuse charges, threats, and sexual assaults that are all A-OK, but GOD FORBID someone own a scary object.

  25. Especially when a felony with a firearm is sent to the DA and he takes the firearm charges off for plea bargaining. The weapon charge should stand and take the other charge down. Criminals usually don’t get weapons charges filed, it is the good guy that owns a weapon that they try to scare straight.

  26. It’s likely he will die in prison unless he is released very soon. At his age confinement with the stress it brings will be fatal.
    The tipster had to be someone close to him and that’s a shame. The fed thrives on information from backstabbers.

  27. This is not Grandpa getting busted for his war souvenir. The serial number was obliterated. Something was definitely up with this guy.

  28. Study your History the 1934 NFA was inspired by the Chicago Democrats who were not on Capone’s payroll as revenge for not being there and like all Demon-crats it was lip service instead of tangible action, it did give a whole bunch of jobs too Demon-crat party workers! Then there was the Crook Johnson, Phony Gulf of Tonkin incident who sent us too VN for no reason except he personally gained tangible assets from the war and who passed the 1968 Control Ammunition act, (ammo records stopped after 2 months).
    Guess this guy should claim he’s an Illegal and Democrat then he’ll get off Scott free.

  29. The bootlicking comments in the Fox article are what get me. “The law is da law!” Meanwhile half these boomers still don’t have insurance under Obamacare because the law is “unconstitutional” I’m sure. Slavery was legal under the law at one point as well; that didn’t make it morally right.

  30. In my experience, people on home owner associations are usually gigantic assholes. Something tells me this guy liked to brag about his full auto rifle with the serial number filed off. How else would anyone know about it.

    I’ll be the devil’s advocate here. If this was a black dude caught with a gun with a scratched off serial number there wouldn’t be a second thought about him being thrown in prison for 10 years.

    • That’s a Bingo. Notice how when you start to get toward your seventies MJ stops being the horrible public safety threat you agreed it was in your youth when you saw all the hippies smoking it while you were off in ‘nam. And if your a drug addict because you “hurt your back” on a construction site that’s ok, but not if you were raised in a Ghetto or an orphanage and suffered mental, emotional, physical abuse from infancy.

  31. He should’ve liberally used his M14, and really given those shitheads a reason to put him in jail. I also hope he finds the snitch…

      • Being a LEO around here is like being a black stand up comedian on tour in a small southern town. It doesn’t take many beers past sun down for the townies to start telling you how to do your job if you don’t wanna get shot. Make no mistake; this site advocates murder, this comment section has just made it a little more clear than most.

  32. I was going to come down here and make a snarky remark about the devil’s lettuce, but I read a bit more about this case and have decided that this dude probably does belong in prison.

    • Personally I believe in original source material when deciding whether something is true or not.

      Some posters, at the cbslocal story, say Pick was a bad guy, Pick did these things, I was a neighbor ect.

      Without some type of verified collaboration , it’s all BS as far as I’m concerned.

      Show me the evidence!

  33. you would have a hard time convincing anyone that he didn’t know better. vets are not above the law, despite what some of you seem to think. it wasn’t his service rifle, he bought it as a show knowing it was FA

  34. I worked with a guy that joined the Marines when he was 14. He lied about his age after he ran away from home. He made E-6 by time he was 16. He was a LERP and a sniper. His weapon of choice was a customized 30-06 M14 sniper rifle. He hated the M-16 because it wasn’t any good past 300 yards and had no power. The M-16 was basically for officers who couldn’t handle the kick of a real rifle. He used to have nightmares all the time because of all the men he had shot. His K-9 german shepard Kiska was the most badass dog that ever lived and killed 7 Viet Cong before he was blown up while attacking a North Korean Special Forces operator making a suicide grenade charge. He was also in Laos and Cambodia on special missions. He received 4 Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Navy Cross. He was captured once when he ran of ammo but later escaped. It took him a week to get back and he had to crawl through a hundred miles of croc infested swamps and rice paddies. He had to kill snakes with his bare hands and eat them raw just to survive. None of this is on his DD-214 because it’s still classified to this day and they don’t put that stuff on a DD-214 anyway. This poor guy was found dead in a toilet stall at work last summer after he was told that we didn’t want to hear any more of his bullshit. We were told he had a heart attack. We don’t miss him.

    • And every military on the planet figured out that full power cartridges for a standard self loading infantry riffle is stupid. Hell, we figured it out before WW2, but the Amy ordinance department wanted one round for machine guns and rifles.

      • The guys whole life was a fantasy…. They hired him as an HVAC tech. After a couple of years of screw ups they asked for the license he claimed he had. He showed them a drivers license. They said we want to see an HVAC license. Well, he didn’t know that’s what they meant. They kept him on because he was a Vet and had PTSD. Yeah… right. He had a lot of issues but PTSD wasn’t one of them. He showed up every year for the Veterans Photo on Veteran’s day. With a Marine sweatshirt and hat. Nothing in his obit about being a Marine, a Vet, Viet Nam, nothing. Family knew nothing. The 30-06 M-14 was a dead give away.

  35. Lets send this guy to prison but a child molester lets always cut them some slack. See it all the time.

      • The layers of denial, ignorance and irony in this thread are amazing. It’s like the pimple of absurdity and contradiction that is TTAG came to a head and was squeezed by this article. You guys are eating yourselves alive in here, like a snake swallowing it’s own tail. Fascinating.

  36. I’m just going by what I’ve read here and a few other blurbs elsewhere so if there’s more details not here then I’m willing to change my mind.

    That said: I have no concerns about this. To me it’s not some travesty, just a criminal act that took time to be discovered (probably one of his wife’s relatives ratted him out and how did someone know it was select fire if they hadn’t seen the rifle?).

    I think 7 years is ridiculous but there may be minimum sentencing requirements in action.

    Why do I say this, why am I being so callous to vet?

    Because he IS a vet. He surely saw the select fire selectors was present.

    He also should have seen that the serial number was removed. It can’t really be done without some signs of that happening.

    He supposedly had one in service so he gets no slack claiming ignorance.

    I’m guessing he knew what he had and bought it for whatever reason but he knew what he had. He may have even tried it out. Would you buy an M-14 and not at least clean it and see if it worked?

    He may have forgotten he had it but how did the snitch know about it? Was it in a case in the open somewhere? Or did he possible show it off once to some buddies long ago?

    Lots of questions about this that could make him look better I suppose but I’ve got no real inclination to think he’s innocent.

  38. Quite often, firearms owners are their own worst enemies. The duck hunters don’t like the AR-15 “black rifles” so they see no problem if attempts are made to ban them. The traditional rifle owners don’t like machine guns, so they have no problem with them being legislated out of existence. Some pistol owners see nothing wrong with certain long guns being outlawed just as some rifle owners would have no problem seeing pistols banned. You see, anti-gunners want them all. They will chip away a little at a time until their goal of civilian disarmament is complete. They have an excuse for banning every firearm. Scoped bolt-action rifles are defined by anti-gunners as “sniper rifles” because they are “too accurate”. Magazine-fed weapons are suspect because of high (actually normal) magazine capacity. Handguns are suspect because they are “easily concealable”. The gun grabbers want them all and have made (flimsy and suspect) excuses for banning every type of firearm. They don’t care how long it takes. and will use incrementalism to their advantage.
    Friends, ALL firearms advocates must “hang together” and realize that an assault on ANY means of firearms ownership and self-defense is an assault on ALL forms of firearms ownership and self-defense.
    There is absolutely NO ROOM for complacency among ANY Second Amendment supporters. An attack on one is an attack on ALL…
    ALL firearms laws are unconstitutional on their face. Imagine the hue and cry if “reasonable” restrictions were placed on First Amendment activities, especially with the “mainstream media”. The Second Amendment is clear–what part of “shall not be infringed” do politicians and the media not understand…of course, they understand full well…it’s part of their communist agenda…
    Even the NRA bears some responsibility for capitulation on matters concerning firearms. The NRA failed when it allowed the National Firearms Act of 1934 to stand without offering opposition, the 1968 Gun Control Act, the NICS “instant check” system, the “no new machine gun for civilians” ban in 1986, the so-called “assault weapons ban in 1991, and other infringements on the Second Amendment. Let’s face it. What better way to increase membership than to “allow” infringements to be enacted and then push for a new membership drive. Yes, the NRA has done good, but its spirit of “compromise” will only lead to one thing…confiscation.
    If the NRA is truly the premier “gun rights” organization, it must reject ALL compromise…

    • The NRA failed when it allowed the National Firearms Act of 1934 to stand without offering opposition, the 1968 Gun Control Act, the NICS “instant check” system, the “no new machine gun for civilians” ban in 1986, the so-called “assault weapons ban in 1991, and other infringements on the Second Amendment

      What a litany of nonsense and total bullshit.
      1) ‘1934, blah blahc blah.
      Fact: 85 years ago NRA had no legislative lobbying imprimatur, stated mission, or funding by its membership for anything of the like.. NRA was 1/50th the size 85 years ago as well.

      The 1934 NFA original legislation had a total ban on all handguns in it. Again, the original 1934 NFA legislation submitted by FRD had a total handgun ban in it

      And the lie the NRA supported the original 1934 NFA is something that Gun control advocate .Adam winkler falsely spins and you are repeating it. Winkler in his book “gunfight” utterly cherry picks and misrepresents NRA position on that — and you are simply repeating the lies of the gun control advocates when it comes to NRA action on 1934 NFA.
      The NRA had the pistol ban removed. It gutted several other aspects of the bill as well. This at a time when FDR was achieving an 72% legislative success rate with Congress rubber stamping the legislation coming out of the white house.
      FYI , from wikipedia:
      Originally, pistols and revolvers were to be regulated as strictly as machine guns;[6]

      When Nanashi bought up that 1934 NFA last year I mentioned that the proposed legislation also effectively banned pistols and the NRA had that removed he denied it ever had pistol ban language. It did. Over and over we show these NRA haters do NOT know what they are talking about.

      2) “1968 GCA, blah blah blah”
      Facts: LBJ peoples wrote the 1968 GCA, it had massive steamroller power support in the public and the Congress and the NRA brilliantly, in what is a a case study in stunningly effective gutting and diverting of legislation, removed virtually all the substantive controls in that legislation. Most of Americans and most of the Congress supported       national registration of all guns, and handgun bans at the time and the NRA took national registration and several other substantive parts out of that bill, also while fighting handgun bans successfully.

      3) “the NRA supported NICS instant systerme., blach blah blah”
      Fact’; only as opposed to a no instant system, ie 30-60 day mail in wait times, and national registration

      4) NRA supported the assault rifle ban.
      Fact: that claim is 100% BULLSHIT. it opposed it. the polls at the time show 75% to 82% of all Americans supported a total permanent ban on manufacture, sale and possession of assault rifles, in other words massive majority supported CONFISCATION of them. The NRA was virtually ALONE in opposing that.

  39. Any autoloading firearm can become automatic by failure or fatigue, they don’t have to be altered to become fully automatic.

    A mechanical failure in the operating system can cause ANY semiautomatic autoloading firearm to become automatic.
    The Constitution does not specify what arms are legal or illegal, a violation of our constitutional rights, Exceeds Maximum law put in place to Control the Government, not the People!

    You cannot take a Natural Right and Converted into a Privilege and sell it back to people, that’s A direct violation of our constitutional freedoms and the Declaration of Independence, not to mention our Bill of Rights!

  40. Ahh yes….the infamous ATF…weapon smugglers for the Mexican cartels, their actions end up with the murder of a Border Patrol Agent and ICE agent, and dozens of civilians….but they go after a 70yo Veteran who served his country with honor. Wonder why these macho boys with ATF aren’t doing something constructive like going after the street gangs in Chicago that murder scores every year.

  41. This is not one to hang your hat out on Guys.

    Go to prison as a Gun Nut

    _or_

    Go to prison as a child sex offender

    I think the prosecutor gave him a choice and he chose wisely.

    Lets face it Politics is wrestling with a pig , nobody gets out clean. If Im going to back a guy he’s going to be right ( in my opinion) and Clean.

    • Your mistake is trusting the government to tell you who is clean. The Feebs have a history of making up child molesting charges.

      • Says every convicted child sex offender. Half of the time the CP isn’t the PC for the warrant they just happen to find it along with the bank records, stolen PII, dope and the guns. Sometimes selling it is just another business for them, that’s why they don’t “consider themselves” to be sex offenders.

  42. Seven years for a $200 tax violation. Seems the 8th Amendment should have something to say here.

    • You’d think, right? I’ve never understood how there isn’t a corollary of some sort between the two forms of punishment, either dictating it or limiting it. Whether you murder a single person or destroy countless lives through a billion dollar Ponzi scheme, why should you ever be allowed to wander around free again? Shoplift 100$ and you can do time, but incur an EPA penalty hundreds of times that amount from dumping and you’re squared away and able to continue doing business.

      • I guess…over 200 comments and you and I are some of the few with a lick of sense. Muh 2A. Basic literacy missing…we ‘re DOOMED.

        • Uh-huh. Zimmerman puts out cat nip for dufuses of which there are plenty on this site, then just sits back and laughs. It’s simply mind boggling that it doesn’t occur to more of you that the guy that runs this site is just a money grubbing, cynical asshole fishing for clicks at the expense of actually informing the debate. It is hilarious to watch though.

  43. This is wrong and if he’s smart he will fight it. Our Constitution states that the right to own and bear firearms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. It doesn’t specify which firearms it covers them all. That charge and the law prohibiting people from owning fully auto weapons are unconstituional and should be thrown out. As for the marijuana charge, depending on how much was found, is a misdemeanor at best.

  44. Being in the criminal justice system, I know for a fact many of you all sovereign citizen numbnuts have interesting criminal records. We recently identified one of our local numbnuts as a child molester. I really wonder why all these wackos cannot stand the police…

    • Hyper-libertarianism is almost always a cover for psychopathy. These guys spend so much type just bullshitting each other they fail to realize that most people outside their meth-burg trailer park don’t think like them, and that a trained, intelligent competent public servant can immediately see through their bullshit and that it’s to protect society not to steal your guns, “take your kids for ourselves” (my personal favorite) or so we can put you in a hobbit home.

      • Their answer will be that you are just a bootlicker. The 2A is for everybody, always. No background checks needed. Convicted felons can have it as long as their crime was not to cause great bodily harm to someone, which means it’s all good if they just sold drugs, burglarized…In FL with the new post Parkland laws “they” can take all guns now, Ricky Bobby told me, and it doesn’t matter I did not read or understand the actual law! Don’t you know most cops want to take your guns? The TTAG cult is the laughing stock. A few of them will end up like this tool in FL who shot that guy for a….theft. They believe so hard in their own lies it makes them dangerous. But I was told stand your ground allowed me to do that?

  45. “Federal prosecutors released more information on Friday shedding light on Pick’s dark past.

    According to information presented to the court, Pick had repeatedly been cited for criminal trespass at various area hospitals for his aggressive behavior, involving both verbal and physical abuse of medical staff and impeding staff. The court also heard that police had been called on two prior occasions in 2014 to restaurant parking lots where patrons reported that Pick had been threatening and brandished handguns in encounters with him.

    Also, Pick’s daughter reported to Pick had sexually abused her from the time she was 4-years-old until the age of 17, taking nude photographs of her to, as he put it, “chart her growth” and sexually assaulting her.

    The court also received evidence that Pick threatened the Federal Magistrate Judge who detained him indicating he would fly his plane with explosives to kill the Judge and ATF agents who investigated his case. Pick also said he would “have taught the Las Vegas shooter a thing or two,” referring to the Oct. 1, 2017 mass shooting.

    “Obviously, there was a lot more to the sentence that was received – a sentence that Mr. Pick and his lawyer agreed to – than a single gun with a missing serial number,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph D. Brown. “Although Mr. Pick was a decorated veteran, he would use that status routinely to try to excuse his repeated criminal behavior. This was also not a mental health issue. It became a public safety issue.”

    • Please tell me it isn’t so! I cannot believe it, fake news! He is a decorated hero harassed by the feds!

    • Pick would “have taught the L.V shooter one thing or two”, such as how to get caught red handed because you have a big mouth and huge ego.

  46. But but but he is a real American hero who fought for our “freedom” when he had a boner ruining civilians’ lives in Nam! He can do whatever he wants! Murica!

  47. Dude has been a criminal for a long time. I’ll waste no time on this drug using, sexually abusing freak.

    This is not the hill on which to die. It’s not even a hill to think about.

  48. The number of straight up crazy folks that are for some reason drawn to TTAG and feel compelled to expose just how crazy they truly are with unhinged comments never ceases to amaze me. This fool from north Texas was lucky he only got 7 yrs. This guy is a crazy dopeheaded pervert and a total dumbass on top of his lengthy criminal activities. Had law enforcement failed to intercede and put this fool away before he had a chance to carry out one of his numerous threats, anti-gun progressive liberals would exploit that failure as a reason to enact more restrictive and punitive gun control legislation. This is a case of current gun laws working to put a bad guy away before he hurt someone. Too bad he didn’t get the 20+ year sentence he deserved.

    • 100 x this. All in all, this guy was a bad cat who is damn lucky he only got seven.

      Now, back to recursive self-righteousness, predictable pontificating, and unquenchable outrage that make TTAG so rewarding to read every day!

  49. The deeper you dig into this guy’s story, the more it stinks, he was caught with cocaine & marijuana as well as the full auto weapon.

  50. ATF is scared of illegals aka: MS 13, and the Cartels so they pick on the poor and grieving!
    as far as this Vet, He knew what he had if he was any kind of Service person with exception of Air Force!
    Drugs were probably used to alleviate some of wife’s Pain, 70 Years old and never busted for anything! no breaks for the VN war losers!
    Snitch probably was brother in law that wanted dudes gun collection and found a way too get it!

  52. 1. Full pardon right after the election.
    2. Should Americans win and the GOP holds both houses of congress, all BATFags involved in this have their annual salaries reduced to $1.

    • Try Reading the full article…
      Alfred Pick was sentenced by federal judge District Judge Marcia A. Crone to seven years in prison for a mistake he made nearly 40 years ago — buying a fully automatic gun that’s illegal for citizens to own. The rifle was similar to the one Pick had in the Army where he served as a lieutenant.

      “This gun was very rare at that time it was rare to see one so he instantly had a connection to it,” said Pick’s attorney Ryne Sandel. “Over the course of his life he and his wife and collected about 14 weapons, many of them were collectors items.”

      Pick lived in Plano’s Air Park neighborhood along with other pilots who enjoy a runway right outside their homes. The 70-year-old Vietnam veteran even served as the president of his homeowners association. Thus, when the ATF raided his home last year it came as a shock to friends like Mark Shackelford.

      “He’s always been a good person to me,” Shackelford said.

      Shackelford learned later that authorities were looking for and seized an M14 rifle that Pick had bought at a Fort Worth gun show in the early eighties.

      “He was a gun collector and it was probably the piece de resistance of his collection… he had shown it to me. I’ve never seen it taken it out of the case,” said Shackelford.

      Federal prosecutors released more information on Friday shedding light on Pick’s dark past.

      According to information presented to the court, Pick had repeatedly been cited for criminal trespass at various area hospitals for his aggressive behavior, involving both verbal and physical abuse of medical staff and impeding staff. The court also heard that police had been called on two prior occasions in 2014 to restaurant parking lots where patrons reported that Pick had been threatening and brandished handguns in encounters with him.

      Also, Pick’s daughter reported to Pick had sexually abused her from the time she was 4-years-old until the age of 17, taking nude photographs of her to, as he put it, “chart her growth” and sexually assaulting her.

      The court also received evidence that Pick threatened the Federal Magistrate Judge who detained him indicating he would fly his plane with explosives to kill the Judge and ATF agents who investigated his case. Pick also said he would “have taught the Las Vegas shooter a thing or two,” referring to the Oct. 1, 2017 mass shooting.

      “Obviously, there was a lot more to the sentence that was received – a sentence that Mr. Pick and his lawyer agreed to – than a single gun with a missing serial number,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph D. Brown. “Although Mr. Pick was a decorated veteran, he would use that status routinely to try to excuse his repeated criminal behavior. This was also not a mental health issue. It became a public safety issue.”

      The raid and arrest on Pick’s Plano home came two weeks after his wife of 40 years died of cancer. They were using marijuana, which authorities found and added another criminal charge.

      Friends of the vet showed up to support him after he pleaded guilty in a Plano federal courtroom and was sentenced to 87 months in prison by a judge.

      “He’s had it all these years never robbed a bank or done anything with it,” said Shackelford. “Somebody that made one mistake and now 50 years later, he’s paying a really big price for it.”

      More than 40 years ago, Pick was awarded the military’s third highest honor, the Silver Star, after more than 100 combat missions and for a short time he was a POW.

      Factors that his friends and attorney say should have led to a lighter sentence.

      “He’s a really remarkable man to be honest,” said Sandel. “I do think it’s unfortunate for a gentleman like Alfred that’s had such an outstanding life to have it mired at the age of 70 by this federal felony.”

      “The man is a Silver Star winner, he saved lives, he took care of his wife, he’s been in custody for a year, I would think that when a man turned 70 and is an American hero you don’t destroy the rest of his life for one mistake,” said Shackelford.

      Some Vietnam vets in Plano were not as sympathetic.

      They said Pick should’ve known better especially since the serial number on the rifle was scratched out.

  53. Thoroughly amused at both the bootlickers and the reactionaries who refuse to see the whole story. Dude was a POS, but the gun charges are straight BS. The feds should have hit from for all the threats, molestation, and everything else, but the NFA is unconstitutional garbage, period.

  54. Ruby Ridge Again, Waco Again, you break the law and Wham o your in the Brig, unless you are an ATF agent or a protected Democrat, then it’s whine and Dine, and become treasonous, but that’s OK because they love you for your contribution too their power!
    Question what facts prove he was a POS, Police Record? or because he was a VN Veteran? Drug Dealer? Pedophile? most of what is read is like the Justice hearing, Hearsay!

    • From the Article itself…

      Federal prosecutors released more information on Friday shedding light on Pick’s dark past.

      According to information presented to the court, Pick had repeatedly been cited for criminal trespass at various area hospitals for his aggressive behavior, involving both verbal and physical abuse of medical staff and impeding staff. The court also heard that police had been called on two prior occasions in 2014 to restaurant parking lots where patrons reported that Pick had been threatening and brandished handguns in encounters with him.

      Also, Pick’s daughter reported to Pick had sexually abused her from the time she was 4-years-old until the age of 17, taking nude photographs of her to, as he put it, “chart her growth” and sexually assaulting her.

      The court also received evidence that Pick threatened the Federal Magistrate Judge who detained him indicating he would fly his plane with explosives to kill the Judge and ATF agents who investigated his case. Pick also said he would “have taught the Las Vegas shooter a thing or two,” referring to the Oct. 1, 2017 mass shooting.

      “Obviously, there was a lot more to the sentence that was received – a sentence that Mr. Pick and his lawyer agreed to – than a single gun with a missing serial number,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph D. Brown. “Although Mr. Pick was a decorated veteran, he would use that status routinely to try to excuse his repeated criminal behavior. This was also not a mental health issue. It became a public safety issue.”

      The raid and arrest on Pick’s Plano home came two weeks after his wife of 40 years

  55. Ok this is starting to become a problem here… Look when you post these little fluff pieces please don’t leave out the GIGANTIC section of text between YOUR 2 quotes that totally destroy the narrative you’re trying to run with. Fact is it’s looking more and more like this guy was a huge piece of shit and got exactly what was coming to him. Really Dan it’s a helluva detail to leave out that he had sexually abused his daughter for years and had pictures of himself doing it, threatened numerous hospital staff and other citizens, and even threatened the judge. Perhaps next time you’ll write a more enlightened synopsis of the case.

    Federal prosecutors released more information on Friday shedding light on Pick’s dark past.

    According to information presented to the court, Pick had repeatedly been cited for criminal trespass at various area hospitals for his aggressive behavior, involving both verbal and physical abuse of medical staff and impeding staff. The court also heard that police had been called on two prior occasions in 2014 to restaurant parking lots where patrons reported that Pick had been threatening and brandished handguns in encounters with him.

    Also, Pick’s daughter reported to Pick had sexually abused her from the time she was 4-years-old until the age of 17, taking nude photographs of her to, as he put it, “chart her growth” and sexually assaulting her.

    The court also received evidence that Pick threatened the Federal Magistrate Judge who detained him indicating he would fly his plane with explosives to kill the Judge and ATF agents who investigated his case. Pick also said he would “have taught the Las Vegas shooter a thing or two,” referring to the Oct. 1, 2017 mass shooting.

    “Obviously, there was a lot more to the sentence that was received – a sentence that Mr. Pick and his lawyer agreed to – than a single gun with a missing serial number,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph D. Brown. “Although Mr. Pick was a decorated veteran, he would use that status routinely to try to excuse his repeated criminal behavior. This was also not a mental health issue. It became a public safety issue.”

    The raid and arrest on Pick’s Plano home came two weeks after his wife of 40 years

  56. A man who’s only crime is not having paperwork will serve more years than the “troubled youth” who shot a rival gang member. Sad!

  57. The rabid police hating dumb@$$e$ who so frequently share their idiocy in TTAG comments have reached an all time low; they’re defending a dangerous pedophile who pathetically attempted to wrap himself in Old Glory and use prior military service as some sort of twisted free pass in his life of crime. The pervert not only illegally possessed a machine gun, but an illegal machine gun with the serial numbers ground off, which was surely done to conceal the illegal manner in which he obtained a full auto M-14. These usual suspect TTAG losers can’t go any lower.

  59. Show me where in the Constitution or any of its amendments that prohibits fully-automatic weapons. All these gun laws are unconstitutional, period.

Comments are closed.