Posted on 11/21/2012 8:30:52 AM PST by marktwain
SAN DIEGO - A long line of people snaked out of a North County machine shop on a recent Sunday. The customers were there to build a gun.
Customers do not get to the machine shop until after they are checked out by Ares Armor in Oceanside. Team 10 promised not to reveal the location of the actual machine shop.
Dmitri Harris runs the Ares Armor store, along with his buddies, some Marine Corps infantry veterans. The shop is busy because more people are finding out about the chance to build your own gun without having to go through any registration or government signups of any kind.
It is possible because of the Gun Control Act of 1968. It reads, "an unlicensed individual may make a firearm," but also says it has to be for personal use and cannot be for sale or distribution.
Harris warns that not everyone can build their own gun. Non U.S. citizens, felons or anyone disqualified from gun ownership cannot participate.
Read more about the 1968 law and information from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that clear up any ambiguities here, here and here. Additionally, you can read letters from the ATF here and here.
Team 10 purchased a piece of aluminum and watched as it was turned into a receiver for an AR-15. It can take four or five hours to do this, depending on how busy the shop is. Inside that machine shop is a computer-controlled milling machine that cuts out the aluminum.
(Excerpt) Read more at 10news.com ...
Cool. I want one.
detailed plans for lower receivers are available all over the internet and more and more people have access to CNC machines now, so this is not surprising. The rest of the parts, uppers, etc, are all available without checks and are not serialized.
I guess some people expect the democrats who now have more power than ever to make it illegal for honest, law-abiding citizens to own guns and to deliberately allow criminals to have guns.
What gives them that idea?
All you'd need is a small machine shop in your garage and you'd be up and running. People probably need to understand, however, that all the usual restrictions apply: no machine guns or other guns that would make Schumer's panties bunch up. Not saying I agree with it (I definitely do not). Just saying you'll be opening yourself up to prosecution if you start manufacturing machine guns in your garage or anywhere else that's trying to fly under law enforcement's radar.
Too bad News10 did a story like this. I now expect that there will be other news stories and the legislature will step in to try and put a stop to it.
Which was probably the exact intention of running the story.
It seems that with CNC machine tools, one can make one’s own gun simply by renting the time on a machine that is programmed for it, and being the one to press the “start” button.
Very clever.
Not long ago during a discussion about 3D printing, someone mentioned this turnkey machine approach has been tried at times in the past until the ATF steps in and shuts the operation down.
My father helped me build a wicked long hunting knife in the garage with nothing more than 1960s technology and a worn out 18" long steel file that he gotten at a garage sale for a quarter.
Yes, this must be disconcerting to the left. They put their computer skills to use stealing elections, while we use ours to fabricate firearms and share this DIY info. Sooner or later, our selection will win out in very spectacular fashion.
If anything, these open-access machine shops are becoming more numerous. I’ve gotta go check out the new TechShop in Round Rock, Texas. If it has has adequate CNC metalworking equipment, I’ll buy a membership and see what I can do with a block of aluminum and a USB flash drive.
That was the whole purpose of the news story...
My son is on a competitive robotics team that I help coach. We’re in the process of assembling a CNC router and have a 3D printer.
Might be fun.
I’ve been thinking about signing up at a techshop near me, but not for making a gun. Please let me know how this goes. Perhaps even put together an “instructable”?
Might be fun.
Maybe more fun to built your own 3-D printer with a 3-D printer
Yep.
If people would quit fixating on making an AR-15, they could make many quality guns with nothing more than a simple lathe. If they’re willing to invest a fair bit of time, they could make a passable gun with a drill press and a bunch of hand files.
If people get off their plush posteriors and started reading (there’s that word again) about older single-shot guns from the 1880’s to 1900 or so, they’d find that there were many falling/rolling block designs one can make pretty easily without much in the way of machine tooling. All you’d really need to buy would be a barrel. You’ll need to buy a chamber reamer, but you can ream a chamber by hand, you can make all the cuts needed by hand, and if you clamp rather than thread the barrel into the receiver, you might not even need a lathe.
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.