United States v. Stoy Decker and Robert Matthew Cox

WEICK, Circuit Judge.

Cox and Decker were convicted by a jury in the District Court on an indictment charging them, in the first count, with conspiracy to possess a firearm required to be registered with the Secretary of the Treasury which had been transferred in violation of law, and, in other counts, with the substantive offense of possession of said firearm. Title 18 U.S.C. § 371; Title 26 U.S.C. §§ 5841, 5851.

The weapon in question was a tear gas gun. The difference between this gun and the conventional tear gas pencil is that the pencil usually fires a much smaller container of gas. There…