B0MBOY t1_j4vxn69 wrote
The article is wrong, there are restrictions on who can buy or own or sell firearms, serialized or not. An unserialized firearm, or “ghost gun” is still a firearm and all normal laws apply. If you can’t legally own a gun you can’t legally own a gun serialized or not
FiendishHawk t1_j4w31b0 wrote
The point of the article is that if you can’t legally own a firearm you can still legally buy the bits to make a firearm. If you then assemble them into a firearm you have committed a crime, but it seem it took the cops a few years to figure out he was doing this. The guns also had no serial numbers so crimes committed with them would be hard to trace.
B0MBOY t1_j4w9lwy wrote
You can legally buy car parts even if you can’t legally own a car. Unless you wanna ban cnc machines, 3d printers, and every piece of steel and wood in the aisle of home depot, you can’t effectively regulate things that aren’t firearms yet
Maybe actually deal with felons instead of letting unrepentant unreformed felons loose again and again
FiendishHawk t1_j4whir1 wrote
So… how would you have dealt with this felon?
Gul_Ducatti t1_j4wilm5 wrote
As stated in the article, he used a harbor freight drill press and a vise with an X and Y Axis slide on it to do his manufacturing. He did not have an expensive, accurate mill or a 3d printer. What he did have access to were the components required to make the parts.
Stop selling 80% lowers, close the loop holes and it would be harder for low level guys like this to produce firearms.
As a 15 year Machinist, I can tell you it is a lot harder to go from a piece of raw stock to a lower than it is to go from an 80% to a completed firearm. The learning curve from scratch is immense.
Knarrenheinz1989 t1_j4wo2t0 wrote
You can make a firearm with any old pipe from Home Depot. It doesn't take much skill either. Hell, even fully automatic weapons can be produced quite easily from non gun parts.
Gul_Ducatti t1_j4ws1j5 wrote
Which is not what this particular guy did. According to the article he was purchasing parts kits to produce specific pattern firearms.
Yeah, you can make a zip gun or a pipe gun with minimal effort and knowledge, but that is a much different type of firearm than being produced.
Knarrenheinz1989 t1_j4wwlgt wrote
If making AR-15 lower receivers was too difficult for him, he would probably produce a receiver for a different kind of firearm, such as an AK (which uses a stamped receiver, which is made with a bent piece of sheet metal) or a Luty submachine gun (which was designed to be made with common hardware store parts).
Gul_Ducatti t1_j4wyfe0 wrote
That’s the thing, it was not difficult at all according to the article.
But that is besides the point. What if was just harder for someone with a felony record to be able to purchase the components needed?
Sure, the guy might be able to get what he needed to make a type of firearm from the local home goods store. However, many of these illegal firearms manufacturing stories do not point out that they were making pipe guns or zip guns or what ever other improvised weapon, they are almost always someone mass producing AR, AK or handgun patter firearms.
Because of the easy access to the components and the general effectiveness for the effort to make.
Knarrenheinz1989 t1_j4x1u62 wrote
Law abiding gun owners purchase parts for guns all the time because parts wear out or break. It would be completely ridiculous to undergo a 50 dollar background check to replace a 10 dollar part. Not only that, but you have to travel to a gun store or gun show to get the check done. Plus, most crime guns are still factory made firearms despite the buzz surrounding "ghost guns".
>However, many of these illegal firearms manufacturing stories do not point out that they were making pipe guns or zip guns or what ever other improvised weapon, they are almost always someone mass producing AR, AK or handgun patter firearms.
The mainstream media sensationalizes such stories because they want to scare the populace and pass more gun control. Most stories I see about pipe guns come from outside of the United States, in countries with far stricter gun control. In some third world countries, handmade guns used by criminals look almost indistinguishable from the gun it was copied from.
signedpants t1_j4xe96g wrote
This is definitely a level above my old felon uncle who made "shotguns" with pipes in his garage.
Knarrenheinz1989 t1_j4wopkl wrote
>The guns also had no serial numbers so crimes committed with them would be hard to trace.
Do you know what a file is?
_Abobo t1_j5atix2 wrote
The tracing bit is really not that important. Anyone can file a serial number off any gun in a few seconds with a dremel and that’s a billion times easier than assembling a gun. If the gun has been recovered so that cops can run the number, the only marginal benefit is that they can charge whoever reported it stolen (or a dealer if there’s a latter) with some sort of negligence.
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