While Paul Allen backs I-594, he buys Panzer tank...

[Dave Workman]

...and now he's suing in California to get the tank, for which he paid $2.5 million.

Ya just can't make up this stuff

Billionaire Allen backs gun control while trying to buy German tank

The San Francisco Chronicle today is reporting what must qualify as the zenith of "let me see if I have this straight" situations when it revealed that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who donated $500,000 to the Initiative 594 campaign on Aug. 11, is now in a legal battle over possession of a – are you sitting down? – WWII German Panzer tank.


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[erudne]

but it's a tank built by Socialists with slave labor for the purpose of murdering and oppressing millions
In that light it makes perfect sense
BTW the article states he also owns a SCUD, anyone read "One Second After"?
Call the FBI
Call DHS
Oh, wait....

 

[TacticalDragQueen]

Is that one of those new assault tanks I keep hearing about!?

 

[Stomper]

It's different,because he's rich, and a lefty.

 

[Chee-to]

Wonder what a box of bull-it's cost for that thing......

 

[44mag2ndamend]

Let us help him with his efforts, please forward the above information to all his left, liberal friends?

What an profound statement he is making.

 

[The Heretic]

To paraphrase Animal Farm - "All people are equal, but some people are more equal than others".

Paul Allen may be a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them.

It isn't stupid to want to disarm everybody else while you arm yourself to the max.

All that said, most people who know his spending habits know that he buys lots of war memorabilia, especially airplanes (I have seen some of it and I know a guy who used to work restoring some of it) - as far as I know, none of it has operational weapons, and I would doubt the tank does either.

So I wouldn't push it too far with the intelligent person who knows what the facts.

Fortunately, most anti-gun people don't know a fact from a hole in the ground.

 

[Sgt Nambu]

"Do as I say, not as I do!"

 

[44mag2ndamend]

"Do as I say, not as I do!"

"Not as I do, or else you will become the victim of me".

Signed Sincerely,

Satan your eternal bastard.

 

[scrandall01215]

I was listening to Lars Larson today and he was talking about paul Allen and did you the hypocrite bastard is trying to buy a old fully functioning Army Tank!!!
What a joke it's ok for him to have his armed body guards (I used to go to blazer games and sat 3 rows behind him and B. Gates court side )
They both had personal body guard and you could see the bulge in their suits. And now he feels he should own a working tank, but us peons get nothing. It thoroughly pisses me off.
Sorry if I'm ranting it just makes me sick.
Stacy

 

[8ball]

Allen is a hypocrite, no doubt. It's a pity because he's done some good things for Seattle in the past, but his support of 594 was the last time I knowingly support any of his ventures.

 

[balaperdida]

I am not defending Allen.

This would be a great point on which to ridicule Allen, but let's be sure we have all the facts.

The main question is whether the guns are capable of firing ammunition. Tanks are a common sight at memorials around the USA. Some, like the one in Rigby, ID, are supposedly able to operate all the mechanical functions except the guns. That is, the tank can be driven and the turret operated. If this question was answered in the linked article, I was unable to find it.

Thus, the claim "fully functional" could mean that the tank can be operated as a vehicle, or that it could be operated as a weapon. Big difference.

If it could be operated as a weapon, it would be required to be NFA-registered as a "destructive device" due to the bore diameter. That is, if I understand the rules correctly.

If the tank is an NFA device, then a NFA background check would be required.

Be careful. There could be ample opportunity for blowback from Allen and the rest of the anti-2A Bloomboogers.

 

[U201491]

Like every Marxist left wing jerk, I can have em but you can't.
They are in for a rude awakening. Very Rude and very Just !
There is a countdown clock they have no clue exists.

Allen has joined the league of the globalists long ago.
Their goal is to have all, while the rest become servants.

 

[rick benjamin]

SF Gate has a photo of the Nazi Beast

 

[rick benjamin]

This link has a different history to a different tank
EDIT: the link is regarding another type tank, not the "Allen" tank.
Here's where I got distracted

 

[rick benjamin]

Panzer means "tank" in German. The Allen is a "Panzer MkIV" aka Panzerkaupfwagen IV
as opposed to a German Panther Tank=Panzer MkV
Panzer MkVI=Tiger

 

[soberups]

So is it even legal to own a functioning tank cannon, or ammunition for said cannon? I was under the impression that privately owned tanks were required to have the cannon removed or rendered inoperable.

 

[The Heretic]

So is it even legal to own a functioning tank cannon, or ammunition for said cannon? I was under the impression that privately owned tanks were required to have the cannon removed or rendered inoperable.

It is legal to own cannon/mortars/etc., even explosive rounds, if you have the proper licenses/permits/etc. - I am not sure about a tank with a functioning main gun - but maybe. I have read that often when weaponized vehicles and aircraft and water vessels are sold by the US DOD as surplus, they not only have the weapons removed and cut up, but the "hard points", where the weapons are mounted, are removed to make it hard to reinstall weapons.

Generally most of tanks bought by civilians would probably have the main gun decommissioned in some fashion and I would assume that would be the case here - although Paul Allen could surely afford to pay any fees/etc. to own a functioning cannon. Hell, you got the Dillon crowd running around with mini-guns mounted in helos:

Like I said, except for the obvious hypocrisy, I think people are making too much of this. Eventually someone will point out that all of the weapons on the tank are decommissioned.

 

[TacticalDragQueen]

A tank is just as dangerous withouta cannon....remember the Killdozer from Colorado?

 

[The Heretic]

A tank is just as dangerous withouta cannon....remember the Killdozer from Colorado?

Yeah, but armored vehicles do not require a permit to own. Neither do bulldozers and nobody is complaining about armored vehicles owned by anti-gun advocates, even though that is essentially what Allen is buying since I doubt the guns are functional.

People would do a lot better to point out that he walks around with bodyguards rather than to complain about the tank. Ditto with Bill Gates.

I.E., it is easy to say that the unwashed masses shouldn't have guns when your bodyguards have them, when you live on walled estates in gated communities that enjoy priority police protection and low crime.