Posted on 12/08/2007 6:58:18 AM PST by marktwain
It appears that we have positive identification of the rifle used in the Omaha Mall shooting. The pictures from Fox 42: Omaha show an ordinary SKS rifle with a fixed 10 round magazine. The same rifle that millions of people in the United States own for hunting and plinking. It is an acceptable deer rifle for most of the country.
There have been many reports of "assault rifle" used in the MSM, and reports of 30 round magazines. It appears that all of these reports are false, probably intended to stir up anti-gun sentiment before the election.
This is a rather broad statement. The other things listed "staying with friends" and "bouncing from job to job" are events that occur over time. So, there's still no evidence that the shooter was taking the medicine at the time of the shooting. In fact, other kids apparently say he had stopped taking his medication.
Police believe Hawkins stole the gun from his stepfather. He had a history of minor runs-ins with the law and had been in and out of foster care. Friends say he had stopped taking medication to treat his depression. Then he lost his girlfriend and his job at McDonalds. Hawkins left a suicide note at a friend's home where he was living.
Let’s not forget the US congress actually defined an assualt rifle-must have at more than two of these features...
Pistol grip, detachable magazine, flash supressor, folding/collapsing stock, bayonet lug....
An SKS is not an assualt rifle per the defunct AWB (assualt weapons ban )legislation.
In actuality, the generally accepted military defintion of an AW is pretty much the same, except that it must be select fire and of an intermediate caliber....
An SKS is a lowly battle rifle (and a poor one at that due to its caliber’s performance compared to any full cailber battel rife-M1, M14/1A ,FAL, G3 etc).
The SCOTUS ruled many years ago that any object can be a weapon, (and therefore if one used any common object in an assualt, they should be guilty of using an assault weapon).
Think intent.
God Bless and Happy Hanukah and Merry Christmas to all!
Please give us some context about the certainty of your data. We would all appreciate having accurate information.
That sure looks like an AK to me: remarkably tall front sight, with frame & furniture which rides rather high above the barrel too.
SKS doesn’t have a sight that high with comparable body rising above the barrel.
AKs are the kind of thing a murder-minded idiot would get for such a task. SKS is relatively obscure outside relatively serious shooters.
You just pull the action from the stock and pull the fixed magazine completely out. Replace the action in the stock minus the magazine and the after market mags go right in the hole in the stock pretty as you please and lock in place with the original magazine latch. I run 6 sks’s for ranch guns and they all have 30 rd magazines.
I am holding my sks in my lap and looking at it disassembled, the magazine well where the fixed mag goes has a latch mechanism in front of the trigger guard,which releases the bottom half of the hinged magazine. The trigger assembly has a fork in the front that holds the top half of the magazine in place when the trigger assembly is snapped into place.The front of it attaches approximately 2 inches in front of the chamber mouth under the chamber. The stock ak mag is not as long in the front. It has no where to attach to. It is rectangular shaped.
The bottom of the chamber of the barral is smooth on the sks.
There is an adapter (I used to have one that I discarded after the ban went into affect, naturally,) that fits into the well where the fixed mag is supposed to be, made of stamped steel, and in IT there is a well that is the correct dimensions to accept the ak mag. The AK mag will not fit into an sks mag well without the adapter. It is not interchangable. I suppose you could JAM it into the hole, but not function well.
At least not on the one I have in my lap, which is a bona fide chicom sks war trophy with matching numbers.
If you indeed have sks's that accept the ak mag, what you most likely have are sks's with the adapter in place, or perhaps one of those "paratrooper sks's " that was the subject of the post I originally responded to. What i was referring to in the previous post was in answer to the postwed pic of the "paratrooper" sks, with ability to accept the ak mag. Perhaps that is what you have. :-))
In either case, they either included an adapter for the sks to accept the mag, or modified the bottom of the chamber metal to accept the front lip of the ak mag, and closed out the hole in the stock
There are 30-round mags designed specifically for the SKS.
My point is that you have to either modify the well, or use an adapter, which, when attached to the box magazine, adds a snout to the front of the mag, or the adapter fits permanently into the well, which then accepts the box mag.
The ak mag does not in itself fit into an sks, unless it is one of the SKS-D models, specifically designed and machined at the factory to receive the ak mag. That rifle will no longer accept the standard sks magazine.
Don’t some states require a block restricting the magazine of a semi-auto to three shots for hunting?
Worth saying again, and made a small but critical touch-up.
Get off the AK mag obsession.
There are detachable magazines designed SPECIFICALLY for the SKS. (Hint: they are not AK mags.)
Norinco did make an SKS that took “AK 47” type magazines. No owner modifications needed. I own one of these. Not very common, though. I think the BATF pitched a fit and not many were imported.
Web search is your friend.
That’s an AK.
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