President Trump pardoned a Navy veteran who spent nearly four years locked up for selling old military gun parts that federal agents say were illegal machine guns and rocket launchers.
Story Snapshot
- Patrick Tate Adamiak, a former Navy master-at-arms, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2023 for selling weapons and possessing unregistered devices.
- President Trump granted Adamiak a full and unconditional pardon as part of a wider clemency batch covering 30 people.
- Adamiak’s supporters, including the Second Amendment Foundation, say he sold inert relics and legal gun parts, not working weapons.
- The case highlights how vague federal firearms classification rules can turn hobbyist collectors into felons.
Navy Veteran Spent Years Behind Bars Over Gun Parts
Patrick Tate Adamiak was an active-duty Navy master-at-arms who had been accepted into training for the Navy SEALs when armed federal agents arrested him in April 2022. Prosecutors said he sold eight machine guns to an undercover Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) informant between October 2021 and April 2022. A federal jury convicted him the following October.
A judge sentenced Adamiak to 20 years in prison in 2023 after his conviction on charges tied to unregistered firearms, a machine gun, and destructive devices. Agents also said they found 25 more unregistered guns, two grenade launchers, and two antitank missile launchers at his home during the raid. That total sentence stood even though he had no prior criminal record.
Defense Says ATF Turned Inert Relics Into ‘Illegal’ Weapons
Adamiak’s supporters tell a very different story. The Second Amendment Foundation says he never sold a single real firearm, even while earning about $10,000 a month selling military surplus and gun parts online legally. His attorney argued the case was the first time the government applied the National Firearms Act to parts the ATF normally allows anyone to buy without paperwork or ID.
The defense says the disputed items included a PPSh-41 receiver that isn’t a firearm under current law, plus an M203 and M79 that were legally transferred by a licensed dealer using legal 37mm barrels instead of regulated 40mm ones. Supporters also say two RPG launchers were missing the parts needed to fire and had holes drilled into their chambers, making them inert display pieces rather than weapons.
A retired ATF firearms specialist who reviewed the seized items for the defense concluded none of them qualified as a firearm under federal law. Adamiak himself told Newsmax he never sold anything requiring a federal firearms license, insisting every item he sold was a non-regulated gun part.
Federal Firearms Law Turns on Technical Classification
This case exposes a bigger problem conservatives have flagged for years: federal gun law often hinges on confusing technical definitions rather than common sense. Whether something counts as a “machine gun” or “destructive device” depends on legal criteria that most Americans, and even some judges, find hard to apply consistently. That gray area gives federal agencies enormous power to decide who becomes a felon.
The Epoch Times reported that many items seized from Adamiak were frames and receivers, parts that are treated as firearms under federal rules even though they cannot fire a shot on their own. The Supreme Court ultimately declined to take up his case, leaving the conviction in place even as a resentencing loomed.
Trump Grants Clemency as Case Reaches Supreme Court
President Trump’s pardon ends a legal fight that dragged on for nearly four years and drew support from gun-rights groups across the country. Military.com confirmed the pardon covered a Navy veteran who spent almost four years in prison for possessing and selling unregistered weapons. The move came as part of a broader clemency action covering 30 people with federal firearms convictions.
President Trump granted Patrick Adamiak, a decorated Navy Veteran, a full and unconditional pardon, bringing an end to a twenty-year federal prison sentence that we believe never should have happened in the first place.
Last year, Palmetto State Armory, along with the Right to… pic.twitter.com/mepujTpxNv
— Palmetto State Armory (@palmettoarmory) September 8, 2026
Gun-rights advocates are celebrating the pardon as proof the ATF overreached, while pressing for accountability from the agency itself. For conservatives who have long argued federal bureaucrats twist vague gun laws to punish law-abiding collectors and veterans, Adamiak’s release stands as a rare win. The bigger fight over how the ATF classifies old military parts is far from finished.
Sources:
military.com, wavy.com, foac-illea.org, saf.org, theepochtimes.com, freedomfortate.com, wiley.law
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