This must be they ad in "Shotgun News" they are referring to.
Posted on 05/21/2006 8:15:36 AM PDT by SmithL
A ban on assault rifles, pushed by the mayor of Chicago and our governor, is moldering in the state House Rules Committee. Lawmakers can take no action until they reconvene in October. And even then, there's little chance supporters can pick up the three additional votes they need to send the bill to the Senate.
But like the villain at the end of a movie, the assault rifle ban never dies. It's just wounded, waiting to come back when you're not looking. So I thought I would look into the validity of its major argument. That is, this notion that it's easy to convert a semi-automatic rifle (legal) into a fully automatic rifle (illegal), also known as a machine gun (illegal).
I've been following the debate. One point always seems to go unexplained. Once some concerned police chief declares that semi-automatic rifles are dangerously easy to convert, the discussion leaps elsewhere. No details of the conversion task are forthcoming.
So I called a spokesman for Gov. Blagojevich in Chicago. Could you explain, I asked. How do you do this job anyway? Do you need a screwdriver? A power drill? How long does it take? Could the governor's office be a little more explicit about the mechanics of the threat?
I gave the helpful spokesman a day to do a little research, then called back. He told me had learned the root of the problem is the "conversion kit," something that allows you to replace a certain part in the rifle and make it a machine gun.
I see. Do you know the name of this part? He didn't. In fact, as he readily acknowledged, he knew almost nothing about guns at all. Not that there's anything wrong with that. He did tell me: "It's very easy if . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at starnewspapers.com ...
Hit and bumped.
Good article.
I have a North Korean AK-47 (my brother-in-law gave it to me to hold when he moved to Kalifornia). I asked my father-in-law if it could be converted to fully auto (for academic purposes, of course), and he said he knew how, but it was a somewhat involved process.
He understands wrong. While both are gas-operated, and both are chambered for the 7.62x39 cartridge, they are not the same rifle, or "versions" of the same rifle.
Virtually every Communist country has (at one time) manufactured SKS carbines, including China, Russia, Yugoslavia, etc., etc.
This is a great read.
I once got into an argument with a know-it-all hoplophobe at my brother's house who claimed that all you had to do to convert an AK rifle from semi to full-auto was file down "some part". I asked if he meant the sear. "I guess so."
I then proceeded to educate him that the only thing you would get with a filed-down sear on an AK was an inoperable weapon. That really ticked him off so he did the usual liberal thing and started ad hominem attacks on me, the NRA, the Republican Party, and every other group he did not agree with.
He really went bonkers when I pressed him about whether or not he had ever handled or discharged any type of firearm. Things were getting really interesting when my sister-in-law put a stop to our "discussion".
Don't you just love gun-haters? They are so easy to discredit.
Despite that, this is a good piece and it explains that the conversion isn't going to be done by a schoolkid with a nail file and a screwdriver.
It's easier to build a pipe bomb.
Of course, gun control advocates ignore the fact that if you DO have access to a machine shop, producing full auto STEN guns from scratch wouldn't be all that difficult. Guns aren't exactly cutting edge technology, and its easier to produce a full auto STEN than almost any other type of gun.
I'll take an accurate rifle any day, but my point is that such clever and industrious criminals could simply start producing guns despite any ban, if they were so inclined.
I had never heard Blagojevich and Daley make the argument that it is easy to convert semis to full autos. At any rate is flat out illegal to own a full auto in Illinois.
Getting beyond the simple mechanics of creating a full auto weapon though, what is being overlooked is that they aren't really that effective unless you're talking about belt fed machineguns. Submachineguns or select fire assault rifles aren't significantly more deadly than their semi-auto siblings. It's all a myth perpetrated by Hollywood.
I've pointed out the same to gun grabbers before and found that informing them that they can never get rid of guns tend to irritate them to the extreme.
Palestinian children make (semi) working guns with a piece of pipe a spring and a piece of metal rod.
This must be they ad in "Shotgun News" they are referring to.
I chose the M&M Engineering booklet specific to the SKS, which I understand to be the Chinese version of the AK-47.
Uh no Mike, the SKS is not "the Chinese version of the AK-47". The only commonality is they're chambered in 7.62x39.
That being said I don't know where this argument of conversions is coming from?!? I've never heard it from Daley or ijit Blago. Their sole argument, if you can call it that, is that they consider NO distinctions between a legal semi auto rifle and a full auto "Assault Rifle" when making their case to ban so-called Assault Rifles.
That is whole problem. All the tripe they spew is as if a semi auto fired like a full auto ("spraying hundreds of bullets, blah, blah"), which we know is utter nonsense.
And their goal is to eventually ban ALL firearms - period. First will be the scary looking non "assault rifle", then cop killer bullets - which means any rifle over .22LR, then any semi-auto loading rifle, etc, etc, etc.
much.
A real machine gun is one that has a continuous belt with hundreds of rounds before needing to refeed. They are better mounted on some sort of vehicle as it takes a two or three man crew to lug one and its ammunition around. The automatic rifle holds about 20 to 30 rounds and needs frequent changes. A marksman shooting selectively one round at a time at a crowd would kill more than wildly shooting off a clip.
Funny how Journalists know so little of guns, yet write so much about them, as they do about military and war...
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