The unasked question about "ghost" guns

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Reese-Mo
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The unasked question about "ghost" guns

Post by Reese-Mo »

Maybe not the right place in the forum for this, and if so I apologize.

All this hullabaloo in the news about so called ghost guns burns my toast.

"There is no serial number to trace, criminals can use them" says the so called authoritative persons in front of the TV camera.

So the question I have is, if a thug just takes his (probably stolen) gun, does a little butchery and obliterates the serial number that's already there? Isn't that much easier, cheaper, faster than going through all the trouble of carving out your own receiver? Nobody seems to ask that.

Yes, that would be illegal to do (get rid of the serial number), but gotta remember, it would be the law abiding doing so.
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Re: The unasked question about "ghost" guns

Post by Archer »

Kevin Leon, who goes by De Leon but never bothered to change his name legally, is credited with the ghost gun term in the same ignorant ranting sentence where he decries the AR ghost gun's use of 30 caliber clips capable of emptying 30 rounds in a half second.

He is a total waste of the air he breaths but the term sounds threatening and cool and so all the gun grabbers have seized on it. An ignorant term used by the prevaricating and ignorant to frighten and deceive the ignorant. Certain people and/or manufacturers within the firearms community have also decided to use it as a marketing tool for both firearms and tools to make firearms both because it sounds cool and it points out the ignorance of the people who came up with the term.

WRT the AR design in general and the hobby/personal use manufactures from 80% lowers...
ATF screwed up.
When the AR was developed ATF figured the Lower was harder to manufacture than the upper and so they decided to serialize the lower and administratively define the lower as the gun. The lower didn't fit the LEGAL definition of a firearm. ATF never fixed the definition they simply enforced the regulation as administratively defined.

Fast forward some 50-60 years or so and ATF goes after a gent who is privately manufacturing lowers for resale in quantity without paying excise tax or applying serial numbers. The gent in question has a smart lawyer who decides to contest the charges on the grounds that AR lowers do not fit the definition of firearm and despite the administrative custom that has been followed ever since the AR was designed his client, the defendant, cannot be convicted of something which was not technically according to the letter of the law illegal. He failed of course to mention that his client was in fact INTENDING to break the law, and was not in actuality operating in good faith or as a rules mechanic before he got caught. The client/manufacturer/defendant gets acquitted.

So now ATF has egg on their face. There is about sixty years or so of existing ARs that no longer fit the definition of serialized firearms and ATF has to close the loophole they have in fact created.

I haven't read all the details on what they have proposed, but I suspect that the ATF in typically stupid fashion is attempting to 'fix' their screw up in the manner that will be the most invasive and moronic possible. That is to say I expect that instead of changing the definition of firearm to cover the case of the AR in the manner they have been enforcing for the past sixty years they will instead attempt to force future production into a mold that fits the definition.
In the process they expect to do about three things:
1) preclude future manufacturers of AR type weapons from getting off on similar charges through this loophole.
2) disrupt the 80% market by changing the definition of the firearm to the upper or requiring the matched serialization of the upper and lower together thus requiring a completely different set of tools and jigs and operations to complete a 80% upper rather than or in addition to a 80% lower.
3) at least inconvenience and at worst turn into criminals current owners of existing ARs that now do not fit the definition of properly serial marked firearms as the ATF comes up with a horrible scheme to force these millions of weapons into compliance or destruction.
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Re: The unasked question about "ghost" guns

Post by Reese-Mo »

To the best of my knowledge, it has never been against the law to make your own firearm from scratch, so long as its for your own personal use. The issue comes when you dispose of it to another person, which makes you "manufacturer".
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Re: The unasked question about "ghost" guns

Post by Archer »

Agreed, at the Federal level, but there have been several attempts to use the 'own use' to justify getting caught with production runs of tens to over a hundred that were actually produced for sale or that were in transit for transfer across the southern border.
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Re: The unasked question about "ghost" guns

Post by Reese-Mo »

That's just silly. Maybe stupid is as stupid does. Why produce receivers here, when you can produce them there (over the border) and just ship 80%'ers over without hassle? Then again... .stupid is as stupid does.

In 2005 I went to Maryland to visit some friends. It was fall, and they had the local school "hayride" through town, grade by grade (its a tiny school). So they loaded up fifty kids on a few linked wagons with hay bale seats (and side railing of course), and pulled 'em though main street at about walking pace behind a ancient Allis-Chalmers. As things would have it, my friend had kids a few grades apart, so we just stood outside and waited, and waited... for each grade to pass. I got to lookin' down the street, and noticed a few guys goin into the bank (the _only_ bank in the tiny town) with shotguns, and camo gear. Duck hunters were all over the place (the town is on a wide river), so I didn't think much of it, thought it was quaint they could go into a bank that way. They left. Cops arrived. Rut roh. I went to the cops, told 'em what I saw. The perps were quickly caught as the road they took out of town was a big loop with no exits. Dumber yet, when I went back to be state's witness, a day before trial they changed the plea to guilty. Local newspaper reported they robbed the bank to get money for some fancy rims. I couldn't help but think, just steal the damn rims, its not a federal offense! Stupid is, as stupid does.
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