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 ...
How many rounds do you think such a contraption would fire continuously before something would let go? Would you have any control over it?
I once had a .22LR AR-7 that would double tap with one pull of the trigger one time with a certain magazine and then jam. I disposed of that magazine because #1 I didn't like it double-tapping, #2 I didn't like it jamming, and #3 I didn't want a semi-auto that was out of my control.
I've worked with selective-fire weapons and I expect them to function the way they are supposed to when the controls are set to that particular function. Anyone who tries to make a semi-auto do what it was not designed to do is not only breaking the law but is a fool as well for violating just about all of the rules of firearms safety.
"Pretty cool to watch, actually. But extremely dangerous."
He he . . so would be watching a grenade explode up close but I'll take someone else's word for it.
I would be very, very careful about asking this sort of thing. Read: I would not ask at all, ever. This is exactly the type of crime the BATFE exists to burn your family alive or shoot your wife in the head for prevent.
LOL. This won't work. You'll need an entirely different bolt among other things.
They may just be misinformed or not knowledgable about those issues.
So...what is John McCain like in private?
Incorrect. The SKS is a completely different design from the AK-47. The only thing interchangeable between the two is the cartridge. The SKS is a semi-auto ONLY rifle and was built by many different countries including China.
There are no guns "readily convertable" to fire full auto on the market. There are no mysterious "conversion kits". But, to be truthful, the ATF is so psychotic they once declared that your shoelace could be declared a "machine gun" if someone used it to make a gun fore more than one round per trigger pull.
The trouble is that most ATF agents have no idea what it takes to make a true machine gun. Heck, half them don't know an M1 Garand from an AK-47.
Don't forget the Remington 1100 with a Choate magazine extension. 10 rounds total = 27.5 oz. of lead down range in a short time.
The problem is that what you've got then is an uncontrolable and unreliable weapon. What you're describing is deactivating the disconnector, which means that once you pull the trigger, depending on the cyclic rate, and your luck, you may find that you empty your magazine (or not, due to jams or possibly actually allowing the hammer to catch on the sear) after the first trigger pull. This is NOT the way a really full-auto weapon works.
Mark
Which is why class III dealers get class III lowers... The design of the AR-15 was specificly to make it difficult to convert into a select fire weapon. As you state, it's a "non-trivial" task.
Mark
I once borrowed a buddy's highly modified for competition 1100, and I was VERY impressed. He had the afore-mentioned Choat magazine (I liked it so much, that I bought one of their stocks for my Mini-14), a thick, soft rubber butt-plate, and one of those mercury recoil reducers in the stock. I shot it at a bowling pin match. 5 aimed shots, five pins on the ground (from a table) in just under 3 seconds. It felt like a very big and loud .22!
Mark
That is assuming one is stupid enough to try and rob someone who owns and most likely really likes to shoot machine guns.
And as a poster above put it, even if you do know how to do it one should never discuss it with anyone who isn't a Class III dealer themselves.
L
Not knowing the man,I couldn't say.
My guess is that he is a ego-maniac that would say anything to get/keep power.
Personally,I think he is a liberal,But maybe he only plays one on TV hoping the newsfakers will like him.
According to Jeff Cooper, full-auto is only useful when your position is being overrun. For everything else, semi-auto is preferable, and this is taught to all our military nowadays.
As the SEALs say, fast is slow, and slow is fast.
-ccm
There were some in circulation before the BATF and Congress tightened things up in 1981, and these were grandfathered in, so it is possible to buy an unregistered drop in auto sear. However, the legal unregistered ones are 1) expensive, 2) illegal to own if you also possess an AR-15 rifle or even certain combinations of AR-15 and M-16 parts, and 3) don't fit in most newer AR-15 guns anyway, as Colt modified them to prevent using the DIAS device back in the 80's.
-ccm
Even better, a pencil eraser taped or glued in a certain place would give you full auto fire, without permanently modifying the weapon, and you could get rid of the temporary modification with a flick of your finger. I think that's why the open bolt Mac-10 became the closed bolt Cobray.
-ccm
I have no doubt that conversion is more involved thant the liberal gun haters would have us believe but this guy seems to have about as much mechanical aptitude as an eggplant and seems to be proud of the fact. Not everyone is so mechanically helpless.
I hadn't heard about that one. You'd think the heat generated inside the weapon would melt the eraser pretty fast. Don't doubt it though. You know the really sad thing? All of that class of firearm; the MAC, COBRAY, TEC etc are a total POS. Only the Uzi qualifies as a quality gun. Even then, the semiauto Uzi is nothing more than a marketing ploy. But if you need quality Class III, Uzi does it.
STEN guns?
hmmm, then only outlaws will have beds.
(STEN guns were made from same spring as beds during WWII?)
The mayor of chicago thinks that eight minutes is good enough for the common people.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.