Decorated Silver Star Veteran, POW Sentenced to 7 Years for a Gun He Bought 40 Years Ago
Plano, TX — Alfred Pick served his country honorably. After going on over 100 combat missions in Vietnam, Pick was given the military’s third highest honor, the Silver Star. He was also captured and did time as a POW. Now, after escaping a cage in Vietnam 40 years ago, the country he laid down his life for is throwing him back in a cage—over a decades-old gun.
At a gun show 40 years ago, Pick bought the rare M-14 rifle, similar to the one he used in Vietnam while he served in the Army. He put this rifle in a case, along with 14 other extremely rare guns and proudly displayed them in his Texas home for four decades. “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.” As CBS DFW reports, 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. When federal agents raided this American Hero’s home, they were looking for and seized the rare M-14 rifle that pick bought in the early 80’s at a Fort Worth gun show.
“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.
Instead of simply telling Pick that his rifle was “illegal” and asking him to modify or remove the firing pin to make it inoperable, masked agents of the state—armed with automatic rifles—ransacked the recent widower’s home, kidnapped, and caged him. Because the raid and arrest came just two weeks after his wife died of cancer, agents also found her cannabis that she used as medicine.
This was tacked on as another charge. This week, for having a rifle similar to the one he actually “defended your freedoms” with in Vietnam, Pick was sentenced to 87 months in prison by a judge. This, after he’d already spent the last year in a cage.
“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.”
In the land of the free, you can be issued a rifle to kill people in foreign countries at the direction of American politicians. However, if you come home and purchase this same gun to display to your friends and family, you will be sentenced to die in prison. And we still have the audacity to call this “freedom.”
“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.
There are a bunch of things that this leaves out from the CBS article and I am wondering why this is?
The way this was posted on steemit makes it misleading. For that reason I am removing our upvote from it.
Original Article:
Vietnam War Hero Sentenced On Illegal Gun Charges Was Violent And Abusive, Prosecutors Say
You left out this part of the article:
Not quite the hero after all.
Was he convicted for either of those things?
I'd imagine that farmergreen was pointing out that regardless to being convicted (which doesn't always equal innocence) this wasn't just some random AFT raid, but court ordered due to past complaints including brandishing firearms in a public place. Removing that part of the article makes it seem as if the government was just raiding a person's house for kicks. Which isn't the case.
My personal opinion of the story is that they should have sent someone to check on the Veteran's mental state before resorting to violence. But, that would require more money be put into the VA.
Prosecutors like to muddy the waters by throwing around wild accusations about horrific crap, then only putting the guy away for something else.
Look at Ross Ulbricht. They tried him for running a website. They smeared his name by accusing him of hiring a hitman, but never gave him an opportunity to defend that accusation in court. Destroyed a lot of popular support. Tremendously effective, because people say, 'Well sure, that seems like a harsh sentence, but there were other things too. Didn't he hire a hitman, or rape his daughter or something?'
You don't need any evidence, because you're not charging him.
Because you're not charging him, he never gets the chance to shoot holes in your fabricated story.
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All gun laws should be repealed they infringe on the 2nd amendment period. Guns should be like food at the store easily bought and no taxes.
Sad state of affairs!
Why there hasn't been a revolution yet is mind boggling.