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The Rise of Untraceable "Ghost Guns"
WSJ via MSN ^ | 1/7/2018 | Zusha Elinson

Posted on 01/07/2018 9:41:41 AM PST by T-Bird45

Axel Galvez had a deal: $7,500 for five untraceable semiautomatic rifles. And he had a buyer: a felon who planned to ship them overseas. Now, he just needed weapons that would be invisible to regulators.

To avoid background checks, Mr. Galvez bought rifle parts, then assembled the five guns at the Los Angeles machine shop where he worked. He offered to build his buyer 100 more for $130,000.

An underground gun-making industry that enables criminals to elude background checks and bypass gun regulations is creating a growing trade of “ghost guns,” weapons that can’t be traced by police, authorities say.

Mr. Galvez’s buyer turned out to be a government informant; the 36-year-old machinist pleaded guilty in November to unlawful firearms manufacturing and dealing, according to court documents.

Ghost guns have been in the spotlight since a Northern California man, who was prohibited from possessing firearms because of a restraining order, killed five people in a November rampage using semiautomatic rifles that he made himself, police say. Other gunmen have employed the weapons as well. In 2016, a Baltimore man fired at police with a homemade AR-15, and Santa Monica shooter John Zawahri used a ghost gun in his shooting spree that killed five in 2013.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; batfe; gunsmithing; tools
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To: T-Bird45

I don’t understand.. aren’t receivers treated as if they were guns?

My understanding is that you can’t build a gun as described.
Unless the machine shop was manufacturing the receivers themselves.


21 posted on 01/07/2018 11:00:31 AM PST by Toughluck_freeper
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To: Toughluck_freeper

It’s an 80% receiver in “as-cast” condition that has machining remaining to turn it into a functional receiver. Current law allows someone to do this for themselves but it is not for sale or transfer.


22 posted on 01/07/2018 11:08:21 AM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: T-Bird45

Yes, and the left makes gun laws that do nothing to stop this, while harassing non-violent honest citizens.


23 posted on 01/07/2018 11:14:58 AM PST by I want the USA back (If free speech is taken away, dumb and silent we are led, like sheep to the slaughter: G Washington)
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To: T-Bird45

I’d like to get an 80% lower, but it seems silly to buy it on the internet with a credit card.


24 posted on 01/07/2018 11:25:31 AM PST by MileHi (Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
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To: T-Bird45

When they are selling batches of 100, they aren’t ‘customizing their firearm’.

And when one sells to someone who is stating that they want to break the law, one is too stupid to own guns.


25 posted on 01/07/2018 11:29:07 AM PST by PAR35
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To: T-Bird45

CA to ban self made ghost guns that don’t exist.


26 posted on 01/07/2018 11:38:01 AM PST by SkyDancer ( ~ Just Consider Me A Random Fact Generator ~)
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To: SkyDancer

California’s Bans of;

Plastic bags...

Extra Tax on cigarettes,

Gasoline and
Regulations on

Ammo.

Ain’t Skeered of no Ghoust gun.

Pot and illegals are ...
Well...

Cali is messed up.


27 posted on 01/07/2018 11:52:06 AM PST by Big Red Badger (UNSCANABLE in an IDIOCRACY!)
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To: T-Bird45
Weapons that cannot be traced by police. Ok, so what? How does tracing it help in any way? IIRC most firearms used in crimes are stolen or otherwise obtained illegally. So tracing would seem to be rather pointless other than for statistical analysis of previous LE failures.

If it is illegal for someone to possess a firearm then it is illegal for them to buy/build/steal one. Making the building process tougher, more expensive, or downright illegal isn't going to stop the criminal already determined to break numerous other laws. But it will further the gun control agenda. That's what this is really about - control.

28 posted on 01/07/2018 11:55:10 AM PST by ThunderSleeps (Doing my part to help make America great again!)
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To: PAR35

“When they are selling batches of 100, they aren’t ‘customizing their firearm’.”

When I made that statement, my intent was to compare the typical purchaser of the 80% receiver who wants a DIY project being the primary market with those being targeted by for this enforcement push. The article’s theme is to paint all purchasers as those selling un-numbered rifles illegally. IOW, trying to do the usual smear of all gun owners with the acts of lawbreakers.


29 posted on 01/07/2018 12:00:54 PM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: vette6387
I just imagine it’s being done already, since some custom AR’s use CNC- billet machined lowers already, so the programming already exists and is probably being distributed.

Absolutely. Check out cncguns.com and ghostgunner.net.

30 posted on 01/07/2018 12:02:21 PM PST by Charles Martel (Progressives are the crab grass in the lawn of life.)
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To: T-Bird45

The answer to this menace to society is to ban machine shops.


31 posted on 01/07/2018 12:03:25 PM PST by Rebelbase (The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.-- H.L. Mencken)
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To: T-Bird45

You have a good message, but you need to pick your poster boys more carefully.


32 posted on 01/07/2018 12:06:52 PM PST by PAR35
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To: Vendome
"What about Ghost Cars or Ghost planes..."

Or Ghost Presidents. Oh wait

33 posted on 01/07/2018 12:25:38 PM PST by precisionshootist
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To: T-Bird45

“Hope Lon Horiuchi stays away.”

I wonder how his conscience is doing these days.


34 posted on 01/07/2018 12:51:28 PM PST by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: Toughluck_freeper

That’s pretty much my understanding. A customer of mine — a precision tool & die outfit — had a customer with Remmington. The manufacturing area had to be physically separate from the rest of the operation and every component was serialized with full traceability. Federal requirement.

My guess is that MSN doesn’t understand the Law, and easily fell for a false story, repeating it to their own embarrassment.


35 posted on 01/07/2018 1:07:58 PM PST by Tallguy
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To: dsc; T-Bird45

That son of a b!tch should be in jail serving a life sentence. If he had shot an Iraqi woman holding a baby, that’s exactly what would have happened to him. But he shot a “right wing extremist” and got away with it.


36 posted on 01/07/2018 1:20:22 PM PST by Hardastarboard (Three most annoying words on the internet - "Watch the Video")
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To: Rebelbase

Youre 100% correct. It may cripple our economy, but if it saves even one life it will be worth it...

;-)


37 posted on 01/07/2018 1:45:27 PM PST by WayneS (An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. - Winston Churchill)
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To: T-Bird45

It’s a shame the Wall Street Journal is wiling to publish this crap.


38 posted on 01/07/2018 1:46:38 PM PST by WayneS (An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. - Winston Churchill)
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To: precisionshootist
Image and video hosting by TinyPic
39 posted on 01/07/2018 1:52:43 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all white armed conservatives)
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To: T-Bird45

Ghost guns appear to be most prevalent in California,

where there are restrictions on assault weapons that make it difficult to buy guns that are available in other states.

Bingo!!

See also Prohibition


40 posted on 01/07/2018 2:07:15 PM PST by NoLibZone (If ISIS is playing the NFL I will root for ISIS.)
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