Totems
The ATF arrested an Upper Receiver. Yes, ATF was ordered to arrest a gun part.
Interesting how ATF concludes it is readily convertible:
[A]ll it took was some metal, a length of chain, some duct tape and some plastic wire ties for the federal inspectors to make his gun part operate in that fashion [full auto – ed], he said he was told.
Wow, first shoestrings. Now chain, tape and wire ties. ZOMG. I have all that in my house. Clearly, that indicates constructive possession.
Update: Back story from David Hardy: BATFE originally ruled that the item was not a firearm, let alone an NFA one; it was a conversion kit. After Len gave some expert testimony in several cases against the agency, it reversed its ruling and held that the kit was an NFA firearm.
January 28th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Yaknow… I watched a fair amount of MacGuyver when I was younger, but this is a bit crazy.
January 28th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
This has been brewing for a while, and is really part of a bigger story.
See, the MAC/Ingram/Cobray/whatever buzzguns are really common and cheap (at least as far as NFA weapons go), and there was a budding industry in the late ’90s bringing in various belt-feds (which are kinda fuzzy in that whole upper/lower receiver department; the AR/FAL analogy doesn’t work here…).
The belt-feds, after having the part that the BATFE called the receiver torch cut to spec, would be fixed up so that you could just plug in the lower half of your registered MAC-11 and… badabing, badaboom… you’ve got a belt-fed LMG or MMG.
People were selling fully-assembled “kits” that were essentially an entire MG-34 or PKM, less the trigger group, and saying “Hey, it’s not a gun!“, knowing good and goddam well it was everything needed for a machine gun except for the bangbangbang. They even had most of a re-welded receiver; just add trigger group and stir.
If someone didn’t see the BATF coming down on that little cottage industry from ten miles off, I’ve got a great real estate deal for them.
January 28th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Long story short, what you have there isn’t a “belt-fed upper receiver”, it’s the whole damn gun less the trigger.
January 28th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Tam, if that’s correct, then why the need for chain, duct tape, and wire ties?
Why not just add the trigger group, as you assert?
What am I misreading?
January 28th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Markie Marxist sez: “Cool! They’re going to start arresting gun parts. I know we Marxists push gun control as a distraction to keep the heat off of our Marxist/warrior/hero/criminals, but I didn’t know we’d made this much progress. We’re doing a better job of wrapping America around the axle of gun control and distracting America from crime control than I thought!”
“It’s the upper receiver!”
“No, no, it’s the lower receiver!”
“You’re both wrong, it’s the full auto functioning!”
“But you can’t have full auto functioning without the upper receiver!”
“Or the lower receiver either!”
“And don’t forget the duct tape!”
January 28th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
…but is is both a floor wax AND a dessert topping?
Regards,
Rabbit.
January 28th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Wizardpc,
That was some tech branch weenie proving he could simulate the function of the trigger group without actually needing the, you know, trigger group.
Chas,
Hey, you know what? I think speed limits are stupid and unconstitutional, too, but I don’t stand around wondering “Whuut Happin’?” when I get tagged for 90 in a 55; I know darn good and well what happened.
I think it’s a ghey law and needs to be repealed, but even my untrained eye can spot the flashing red lights and the train coming down the track; I don’t try and play dumb and claim a sooper sekrit conspiracy when the locomotive hits me.
This would be like making a suppressor that is complete in every way except for the threaded end, selling them as “suppressors”, and then getting all butthurt when a tech branch guy duct tapes one to the end of a gun and fuXX0rs you in court. The solution is to either fix the law or start the revolution, not sit and whine “But I thought I’d found a clever loophole!“
January 28th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Another example of gun laws that need repealing. Needlessly complicated and they have no useful civic virtue. You could buy any of this stuff without a license or record and the country would be as safe or safer.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
That actaully made my brain stop and I stuttered. Every time I think they can’t get stupider I see a endless pit in the ground.
January 28th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Yeah, chucky, I saw some of it here.
January 28th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
This is unconscionable!
Being forced to submit to this kind of testing was clearly a violation of that upper receiver’s fifth ammendment rights against self-incrimination.
January 28th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
With a ruger 10/22 removing the contents of the trigger group and simply yanking back the bolt would allow it to go full auto, correct? Well, should something bind the firing pin.
Sad that “trigger” in the law is both noun and verb…I guess sad isn’t right as they intend the laws to serve their control agenda.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Okay, Tam, but by that reasoning your AR-15 upper is a machine gun. NOT!!!
January 29th, 2009 at 10:30 am
emfdl,
Sigh.
No, it isn’t.
I’m assuming you are not familiar with mechanics of the belt-fed items in question?
January 29th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Imagine if I took an AR-15 and removed only the part of the lower with the P/G and lockwork, but left the magwell and buffer spring/butt stock ass’y in place. (Except that’s not a perfect analogy, because the AR has a hammer in the lockwork and fires from a closed bolt…)
Anyhow, this is one of those things that skirts the letter of the law very closely, but everybody supposed was going to get shut down.
There were guys selling complete MG-34’s with rewelded partial receivers, less trigger group, to plug your MAC FC group into, through the mail as non-guns. That’s like selling a zip gun without the rubber band and saying it’s not a zip gun.
Like I said, dumb law. Needs to be fixed. Asshole agency out of control. But not a big surprise at all.
The irksome part about it is that AFAIK, most of these other conversion kits were deemed to be firearms, but TITLE I firearms. They’re going after Savage by declaring his to be a TITLE II gun. That’s just being vindictive bastards.