When is a gun not a gun?
If it’s built before 1898. Seems the guy couldn’t be in possession of ammo, though. I wonder if that applies to blackpowder ammunition? I know that, federally, blackpowder guns, regardless of the year made, are not considered firearms.
November 19th, 2008 at 10:57 am
And in Texas, a cannon is not a cannon if it is a spud gun kept and used solely for “pyrotechnic” purposes, rather than for firing projectiles. The regulations do not say if the police will check for mashed potato residue when they catch you with it in the cow pasture, with the cows huddled at the far end mooing in fear….
November 19th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
I’m not sure Volokh got it right. It’s “manufactured before 1898 and for which fixed ammunition is not readily available”.
Black powder loading or not — it’s whether it shoots a cartridge you can buy off the shelf. 19th century cartridges are still loaded to blackpowder pressures even in modern smokeless factory loads in order to be safe for the older guns, BTW.
So your great-grandfather’s Peacemaker in Colt .45 or Winchester 73 in .44-40 both qualify as firearms but his ’74 Sharps buffalo gun doesn’t.
November 19th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
“…federally, blackpowder guns, regardless of the year made, are not considered firearms.”
True if they load loose powder rather than fixed metallic cartridges. Then there are some states and cities that restrict even these guns. (we have to make the distinction between the powder used, and way the gun is loaded. There were, and are, metallic cartridges loaded with black powder, and as nk says; the guns that fire them are legally considered guns)
And yet again we’ve stumbled onto one of the tactics of the totalitarians; they have us constantly running around trying to figure out whether we’re breaking any laws, so much so that it can become too much, and some people will simply give up trying.
November 19th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Then there are the cap-n-ball revolvers, which aren’t guns, that can be fitted with a conversion cylinder allowing them to use fixed metalic cartridges. Your 1851 Colt Navy then can fire .38 Special and your 1847 Colt Walker becomes a .45 Colt. I have no idea what the rules are in that case. Like they could possibly make a lick of sense anyway. Like any of this makes any sense.
November 19th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Lyle #4,
They become firearms. They must have been manufactured before 1898 and no fixed ammo currently produced for them to be exempted.
For example, nobody makes .38CF for the original Colt Navy Conversion. So it’s not a “firearm”. If you have an original from 1871 or so, you can make your own loads and it would be legal. However, were you take a post-98 replica of a Colt Navy, bore out the cylinder, extend the firing pin, install a cartridge shield and, then, machine your own cases, cast your own heeled bullets and load with black powder, it would be a “firearm”.
November 19th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
all you need to know and more about pre 1899 guns
http://www.rawles.to/Pre-1899_FAQ.html
key part, paper trial free.
November 19th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
cyrus;
That would appear to contradict nk’s bold and in comment #2. The “and for which fixed ammunition is not readily available” would seem to apply only to replicas. If the text Rawles gives is correct, any firearm made before 1899 (and is not an NFA arm) is not a firearm according to the feds;
“18 USC 921 (a)(16).
(A) any firearm (including any firearm with a matchlock, flintlock,
percussion cap, or similar type of ignition system) manufactured in or
before 1898;
and
(B) any replica of any firearm described in subparagraph (A) if such replica —
(i) is not designed or redesigned for using rimfire or conventional centerfire fixed ammunition, or
(ii) uses rimfire or conventional centerfire fixed ammunition which is no longer manufactured
in the United States and which is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial
trade.”
So yes; if I install a .38 Spec. conversion cylinder in my ’51 Navy replica, I guess I’m making a firearm, which is, by the way, legal. However, if I read the above language from sec 921 correctly, It’s not a firearm if I put the same conversion into an original ’51.
November 19th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I’m behind the times. Ignore everything I posted above. “Ammunition” is now defined as any component –powder, cases, bullets, primers — so a felon cannot even possess a loaded wheelock.