A district court in South Carolina once ruled, basically, that a pistol with a vertical fore grip is not an Any Other Weapon because it’s still a pistol:

25. Title 26, United States Code Section 5845(e) defines “any other weapon” as:

… any weapon or device capable of being concealed from which
a shot can be discharged through the energy of an explosion
… Such term shall not include a pistol or revolver having a
rifled bore, or rifled bores, or weapons designed, made or
intended to be fired from the shoulder and not capable of
firing fixed ammunition.

26. A “pistol” is defined in Section 5845 as

A weapon originally designed, made and intended to fire a
projectile (bullet) from one or more barrels when held in one
hand, and having (a) a chamber(s) as an integral part(s) of or
permanently aligned with, the bore(s); and (b) a short stock
designed to be gripped by one hand and at an angle to and
extending below the line of the bore(s). 27 CFR 178.11
(emphasis added).

27. Even after being modified with grips, the pistols are still “pistols” as defined above and not “any other weapon” as defined by 26 U.S.C. section 5845(e).

Despite this, the ATF says that such a pistol is an Any Other Weapon:

ATF has long held that by installing a vertical fore grip on a handgun, the handgun is no longer designed to be held and fired by the use of a single hand. Therefore, if individuals install a vertical fore grip on a handgun, they are “making” a firearm requiring registration with ATF’s NFA Branch. Making an unregistered “AOW” is punishable by a fine and 10 years’ imprisonment. Additionally, possession of an unregistered “AOW” is also punishable by fine and 10 years’ imprisonment.

The ATF seems to be asserting that, basically, if it’s not something else, it must be an any other weapon. In other words, such pistols do not meet the definition of an AOW but they don’t meet the legal criteria for pistol either. Hence, the ATF just picked one.

To make this clear, if you own, say, a Glock 17, which has a rail for accessories, and you own one of these, which happens to fit that accessory rail, and you attach it, it’s equivalent to possession of an illegal machine gun.

Publicola has more.

Posted in uncategorized on April 11th, 2006 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |