Article – Prosecutors say Iowa police chief lied to buy machine guns

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How does the saying go? Pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered? Or something along those lines. The gist of it being that greedy or selfish behavior can be overlooked until you get a little too greedy or a little too selfish.

Case in point: the police chief of a three-man police department who police letterheaded 90 machineguns for department use….and tried for a minigun.

A small Iowa town of 800 residents likely has no need for a police force armed with 90 machine guns to keep the peace.

That, at least, is the view of federal prosecutors, who on Wednesday announced the indictment of Adair Chief of Police Bradley Wendt on charges of making false statements to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to obtain numerous machine guns over a four-year period on behalf of the Adair Police Department, which during Wendt’s tenure has never had more than three officers.

I admire his entrepreneurial spirit, and his taste in giggle-switch-equipped firearms. But there’s only so much you can do before the Eye of Sauron homes in on your otherwise benign collecting activities. And, of course, using your position to procure thundertoys to rent out at a profit…well, that’s a bit on the ‘abuse of power’ side.

Machineguns are fun, no two ways about it. I think about the line in “When we were soldiers” where the colonel tells the sergeant that he needs to get himself an M16. The grizzled old sergeant says “I reckon the time comes I need one, there’ll be plenty of them laying around.” Same with machineguns. Nine times out of ten, theyre probably unnecessary for the task at hand. But that tenth time….boy, nothing else will do. If you’ve got the, literally, tens of thousands of dollars for an MP5 or Uzi….have at it. But for a survivalists needs, I’d rather take the money and buy gear more likely to be of use in a crisis.

However, when the zombie rise and I come across some zombified state trooper with a full-auto M4…..well, he won’t be needing it anymore, and it’d be a shame to let it lay there to rust.

 

11 thoughts on “Article – Prosecutors say Iowa police chief lied to buy machine guns”

  1. Might be worthwhile to add the manuals and exotic batteries for all the fancy NVG that will also be laying around.

  2. The cops should take a line from the back wall of the mess hall at West Point.
    ‘Don’t lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate those that do’.

    Whenever I hear ‘machine gun’ or full auto the Thompson sub-machine gun comes to mind. It was a work of art. So well designed and manufactured the shooter could write their name in the backstop. They sold for under $30 when first marketed at hardware stores across America. Seems like sometimes we reinvent the wheel when the technology of our forefathers did the same thing back in 1918.

  3. This Chief was stupid to say the least. The fact he was an FFL and was then selling them through his business. He ready thought he would get away with it!! Oddly, it took him trying to buy a departmental mini-gun to raise ATF eyebrows and not that he bought 90 select-fire weapons for a 3-man department. Dumb and Dumber at work here for sure.

  4. As far as the law goes, the most questionable thing he did was oay for some of the guns himself instead of with Department money.
    It is also sketchy that he signed law letters for items for his own store, but that is more a state or local conflict of interest issue, not a federal one.
    I assume this is part of the more general crackdown by the ATF on post 86 machine guns.

  7. Submachineguns and Automatic rifles are not Machinguns! Please use the proper nomenclature for these weapons.

    • According to BATFE bump stocks. Just the stock is a machine gun. Geniuses. We have Geniuses running the gummit. Then how is it every thing is so totally screwed up.
      And soon anything with an arm brace will be a machine gun.
      Once they require all citizens to get a chip implanted just thinking about a gun will get you a life term.

  8. Years ago I was able to buy an M11 with all the Lage goodness and the original upper with 10 working mags for under 4 grand. Just the lower alone is banging on 10 grand now. Iā€™m glad I bought it and it satisfied my full auto itch. 9mm is way cheaper to fire and I get the fun factor without having to sell my kidney. The price of all things full or select fire now will only push people to the dark side to satisfy the craving. What ever happened to all those Sten gun parts kits ?ā€¦

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