What one company is doing about the AWB and its possible Sunset

Armalite website ^ | unk | Mark A. Westrom

[Long Cut]

The ArmaLite® Post-PostBan ™ Rifle Program

Fact: Unless reauthorized or replaced with a worse program, the Assault Weapon Act of 1994 will expire in September, 2004.

Possible outcomes are:

“Reauthorization,” i.e. no change in the law.
Replacement with a worse law, even to the possibility that production is halted.
Expiration of the law.
Expiration for only a short time, and then be reauthorization or worse.

The AW Ban is a cosmetic law, and we’d all like to own rifles without the blemishes that it established. If the law expires, there’s plenty of time to wait for a new rifle with “pre-ban” characteristics. If any of the other three outcomes occur, a delay could be a real mistake. The purpose of the PPB program is to prepare purchasers for any outcome.

The program offers customers a way to avoid the risk of delay, yet also have the benefits of a change in law. The opportunity is provided by the design of ArmaLite’s® 2003 rifles.

1. Beginning immediately, ArmaLite® 2003 rifles (with a pinned muzzle brake, or none installed) ship with a certificate that will provide customers a pin-on flash suppressor and installation instructions at no charge. Unless earlier legislation makes it illegal for customers to install the device, flash suppressors will ship in summer 2004 to allow time to get the rifle modified even if there’s an opportunity of only a few days.

Until the law changes, the flash suppressor will provide a reminder to every customer that it is essential to get out the vote in 2004.

2. For customers who wish to go an extra step and install a bayonet lug, ArmaLite® will continue to sell pin-on sight bases with bayonet lugs, and will provide installation instructions for gunsmiths. All ArmaLite® clamping front sight bases are easily removable, with no pin-holes in the barrel, so pin-on bases can be easily installed.

3. For customers who wish to be able to convert their rifle to a “Pre-Ban” configuration immediately upon expiration, ArmaLite® will produce and sell AR-10™ collapsing buttstocks (the AR-10™ requires a special collapsing buttstock). It is likely that prompt installation of such a buttstock will allow customers to make other changes at a more leisurely pace.

Installation of options 2 and 3 both are already available for law enforcement customers (with proper rifle markings). Civil customers must await a change in the law, and flash suppressors, bayonet lugs, and collapsing stocks will all be accompanied by clear information about the law to prevent a violation.

4. Pre-2003 rifles with pinned front sight bases or threaded-pinned-welded brakes, or customers who wish threaded brakes on 2003 models instead of pinned ones, require gunsmith or factory replacement of those parts. ArmaLite® offers the components for sale, and will perform conversions at normal shop charges.

Mark A. Westrom
President

[Jeff Head]

I have stated from the get-go that I disagree with the policy of disarming the general Iraqi population. We should let those citizens stay armed to defend themselves and help clean up the mess...but it would be difficult for our forces, going into an Iraqi on Iraqi firefight to distinguish the bad from the good if it got to the point where their own people could not handle it...and that is likely to still happen.

When we find ba'athists and former Hussein loyalists, I have no problem with them going in there and kicking the doors down. we shoould focus on that IMHO.

As to the number of personnel we have lost. Every single one of the losses is a tragedy to the families, loved ones, friends and this nation. But realistically, in invading and occupying a country as large and as ethnically fractured as Iraq..the losses are small by any comparison to any major war effort. We lose more citizens on our own streets in the major cities in the same time frame.

I do not say that to minimize or trivialize it...just to set the perspective.

[Burkeman1]

I understand your statements. I too think the same way. Yes- 400 Dead is a tragic figure. And I don't want to lesson their deaths. But it is hardly indicative of a military "quagmire".

On the the other hand it is a political, diplomatic, and financial quagmire that this country was darn fool to engage in.

But the image of our troops kicking in doors of entire blocks of neighborhoods that they think might harbor rebels? I thought the majority loved us? Wasn't that what we were told?

That brings up images that are not good. And that fact . . . that we have to do such indiscrimante raids- tells this amatuer that our intel is soft and weak and they do more harm than good.

Just an opinion.

[Jeff Head]

My own sources on the ground over there indicate to me that the vast majority are happy we are there. z,pz. I believe that to be the case, but also believe that the media and the democrats and left will do anything they can to paint the picture as badly as possible. We help their cause with such actions as general fire arms confiscations.

...and, on top of all of that, in areas with larger numbers of hold overs, it is a hard and brutal job to ferret them out along with the infiltrators and terrorists from other countries. Intel is soft in some areas, but in others we are getting a lot of help from the locals. The Sunni triangle is the biggest problem and it is no accident that the largest numbers of ba'athist holdovers resides there.

[Burkeman1]

I hope you are right! Destroy the Ammo dumps all over Iraq and then hunt down the 5000 rebels that American intel says is against us. Then it will be over!

[tx65]

Hi Long Cut,

It will be interesting to see what develops in the next 9 months as the clock ticks down. While I would like to be optimistic that an ineffective gun restriction will go the way of prohibition, I will be quite content if it remains in it's current form with NO changes. To do my part, I have been writing elected officials including Bush to show him my opposition to this law that is a waste of the paper it is printed on.

TX65

[Long Cut]

I'm real hopeful right now, tx. Financial considerations have forced me to put off a purchase of a new rifle at this time. I'm going to have to gamble on it sunsetting so I could fit a new semiauto into the family budget.

Assuming, of course, that prices come down a little.