Making an AR-15 In the Wired San Francisco Office 391
An anonymous reader writes: Wired's writer Andy Greenberg writes about his experience fabricating an AR-15 lower receiver with the Ghost Gunner CNC mill. (That's the same device that was demoed in a Slashdot video earlier this year.) Greenberg points out that CNC millng isn't new, but reports nonetheless: "Aside from a single brief hardware hiccup, it worked remarkably well. In fact, the Ghost Gunner worked so well that it may signal a new era in the gun control debate, one where the barrier to legally building an untraceable, durable, and deadly semiautomatic rifle has reached an unprecedented low point in cost and skill."
Fabricating an assualt rifle in California... (Score:2)
Re:Fabricating an assualt rifle in California... (Score:5, Interesting)
Semi-auto rifles are legal in California, but the state heavily regulates cosmetic features for some reason(I guess to prevent feelzbad).
AR15's can be made legally with proper care two different ways. Heck even after NY tried to make them illegal, those ingenious gun owners came up with a way to make them fit within the law there.
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Re:Fabricating an assualt rifle in California... (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially surreal when my wife learned to shoot same weapons in PRC at 12 years of age as part of the school curriculum, when around here we'd probably try to bring someone up on charges for doing that. Sometimes the gun control side sounds like the "abstinence only" education argument. Both seem to think lack of knowledge and superficial fixes will solve unrelated problems (i.e. sociopaths running amok).
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People want to make threats go away. That is easier than making one's self powerful enough to deal with the threat.
Gun control proponents think that taking guns away from other people will make them safer. In fact, it will just make them and their neighbors attractive targets. But logic is powerless against strong emotions like fear.
Painting gun control advocates as people who want to take all guns and melt them down is about as intelligent as claiming that gun owners are people who want it to be easy for criminal gangs to amass huge arsenals. There are differing levels of extremism on both sides. Just last week I went to the range and came across a guy trying to zero his 223. He had fired off around 30 cartridges by the time I got there and the barrel of his rifle was getting pretty hot. So this guy asks me if I can help him zero the
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Look Out!
It's "deadly" too!
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Its not an assault rifle. Those have been banned nationwide since 1986, and controlled/registered nationwide since 1934.
You mean ownership of fully automatic weapons has been banned since 1986. Assault Rifle is essentially a made up term which can apply to what ever the government nitwits want it to apply to. It does not mean fully automatic weapon.
Re:Fabricating an assualt rifle in California... (Score:5, Informative)
Its not an assault rifle. Those have been banned nationwide since 1986, and controlled/registered nationwide since 1934.
You mean ownership of fully automatic weapons has been banned since 1986. Assault Rifle is essentially a made up term which can apply to what ever the government nitwits want it to apply to. It does not mean fully automatic weapon.
DAM lack of edit. I mean ownership of fully automatic weapons BUILT after 1986 has been banned!. Nearly anyone can own a fully automatic weapon built before 1986.
Re:Fabricating an assualt rifle in California... (Score:5, Informative)
"Assault Weapon" is the term made-up by gun-control spin doctors.
"Assault Rifle" is a US military term for a fighting rifle in intermediate caliber (not pistol, not long action) capable of full-auto and/or burst fire.
AR-15 is (as you know) not an Assault Rifle.
M4 is an Assault Rifle.
They function differently, but to most folks, they appear exactly the same. This is how gun-control types inject fear, uncertainty and doubt into the debate.
The GCA banned the manufacture of transferable "machine guns" made after May '86.
The GCA, therefore reduces the supply-side of the equation for transferable full-autos. Transferable M-16s cost in excess of $10,000, plus the $200 excise tax to transfer them from one owner to the next.
An individual may legally own a full-auto capable weapon provided that they pass the strict NFA (National Firearms Act) requirements and that the weapon was made before May of '86.
IANAL etc
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Note that most military rifles (including the M16) are quite accurate. Or didn't you know that they were used at the National Matches at Camp Perry? Along with the M1 Garand, 1903A3 Springfield....
Note also that the "high firing rate" you speak of is pretty much the same firing rate a .22LR Ruger 10/22 has. Or a Winchester or Remington semiauto .22, for
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No, he doesn't even mean that, because it's not true. One can't purchase a new automatic rifle, but you can (subject to state law) buy and/or own one which was registered prior to FOPA in 1986.
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Way off. May 1986 was when the Hughes Amendment took effect, which was a part of the FOPA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org]
Fully automatic machine guns made after may of 1986 were at that point made illegal. Pre 86 machine guns are legal and transferrable so long as the ATF approves the transfer (and the gun is in the NFA registry, legal in your state etc).
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See 18USC 922(o)
(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), it shall be unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun.
(2) This subsection does not apply with respect to—
(A) a transfer to or by, or possession by or under the authority of, the United States or any department or agency thereof or a State, or a department, agency, or political subdivision thereof; or
(B) any lawful transfer or lawful posse
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Its not an assault rifle. Those have been banned nationwide since 1986
Pardner, I can go by my local "Grab a Gun" [google.com] and buy [grabagun.com] any [grabagun.com] one [grabagun.com] of dozens [grabagun.com] of assault rifles.
What you or some candy ass Washington lawyer want to call 'em is your own durn bidness. Down here in Texas we know what these guns are, and they sure ain't the pea-shooter Glocks we give our kids to play with.
Yee Haw! [gunshots]
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Interestingly enough, none of the guns you linked to were selective fire (which is part of the definition of "assault rifle"). What they are is rifles that look evil, but are functionally identical to a Mini-14, which was on the EXEMPT list of the "assault weapon ban"....
Even more interesting is that they're all "peashooters". Sorry, .223 isn't really much of a rifle round. Not even legal for hunting deer most places
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No, the NFA of '34 enacted the tax stamp for full auto, short barrel rifle/shotguns, destructive devices, and "any other weapon" weapons.
Funnily enough, when Mr Miller's case went to the SCOTUS, the government was planning on arguing that the 2nd protects arms as would be issued to the average infantryman - and at the time, that meant a bolt action ('03A3/A4) or Garand, so the full auto Thompson and sawed off shotgun Mr Miller was convicted of having weren't protected by the 2nd.
What is issued to the averag
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1) "Assault rifles" are not a thing.
'Assault rifle' has a specific definition -- a selective-fire weapon firing an intermediate cartridge (i.e., between a pistol round and a battle rifle round) that uses a detachable magazine and has an effective range of at least 300m; from Jane's Gun Recognition Guide, the U.S. Army defines assault rifles as "short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine gun and rifle cartridges". You are correct, though, that the media construct of 'assault weapon', w
Re:Fabricating an assualt rifle in California... (Score:5, Informative)
There are plenty of guns in California that are based on the AR-15, AR-10, and AK-47 platforms that comply with the law.
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You are thinking of 'Assault weapon'. Assault rifle has a clear definition (select fire). Assault weapon means 'pee yourself scary' to those that coined the term.
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Assault weapon means 'pee yourself scary' to those that coined the term.
Sounds like they'd run from a .22 long barrel then. I grew up in Canada, and learned to shoot with a pellet rifle and .38 special as a kid almost 30 years ago. Now of course we've got all those laws about how 'guns r scarrrrryyyyyy' and all that. Never mind we can still get some pretty good guns up here, they just take forever.
If it's one thing I miss about living in the US, it's being able to head to a range just to shoot whenever you want. Up here, finding a open gun club is a pain in the ass where I
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Re:Fabricating an assualt rifle in California... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't know. But I'm pretty sure it's "known to the state of California to cause cancer."
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Here it is from the fed's mouth [atf.gov] and here [atf.gov]
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Dammit... I thought my case was impeccable until that IANAL statement: "But some random coward said so, he even linked the source, twice!"
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Also damn, who can type on a dutch azerty keyboard? This thing sucks.
IE11 without a spellchecker on work computer. Then again, this used to be an IBM shop. It's all dutch now.
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Or a fixed mag that holds 11 or more rounds.
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Look out ISIS!
I have a Ruger 10-22 and I'm coming for you with my Deadly Assault Rifle!
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Name one.
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Under Federal Law you can as an individual manufacture a firearm without a serial number or a FFL, HOWEVER, you may not transfer the firearm to another owner and the firearm must still follow the regulations set out in the National Firearms act (meaning you still need to get a tax stamp to make a short barreled shotgun).
Freedom (Score:2)
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There are plenty of people I wouldn't trust with a gun.
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There are plenty of people whom I don't trust to make an informed vote. Those cause the loss of much more innocent lives then firearms.
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Me too. So why do we go through such contortions to keep them away from guns instead of giving them the medical care they need to be people we can trust with a gun?
Or are you referring to something other than mental illness?
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That's OK, there are more people I don't trust with a car. Or anything more dangerous than a Q Tip for that matter.
This whole make your own gun is like the homebrew (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole discussion about making your own guns, sort of reminds me of the day I realized how easy it was to make beer. So easy that any 14 year old can walk into any random supermarket and buy everything they need to make a couple gallons of beer for less than it costs to actually buy the beer (as it should be!).
So all these prohibitions against selling alcohol to people under 21 are all pretty pointless, even kids without friends older than 21 can get their hands on unlimited supplies of the stuff with just a little thought and effort.
So the latest hopla about making guns is sort of a resurgence of the zip gun culture. Only the results are probably more accurate on the whole.
Re:This whole make your own gun is like the homebr (Score:4, Insightful)
You can make a damn effective single-shot shotgun with plumbing parts from the hardware store for about $12.
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You can apparently make a 9mm submachine gun [amazon.com] (albeit with unrifled barrel, so effective range is under 50m) with plumbing parts from the hardware store.
(We know that it's a real thing because the author of this book was imprisoned for actually making one after publishing it.)
Re:This whole make your own gun is like the homebr (Score:4, Interesting)
Just to clarify, making a gun is legal in the US, for anyone legally able to possess one.
Provided that the gun in question is not automatic. Automatic means either that specially trained ATF technicians are able to coax it into firing more than once with a single pull of the trigger, or that it uses an open breech design.
Open breech means that the gun rests with the bolt back. Pulling the trigger releases the bolt to move forward into battery, where the gun fires. Special parts are needed to cause the gun to stop after a single shot, and the easy removal of those parts makes the gun automatic, even if those parts are present.
By contrast, in a closed breech gun, the trigger releases a firing pin or striker, starting the cycle. Special parts are needed to prevent the gun from firing again until the bolt returns to battery. Removal of those parts turns it into a nightmare machine, unable to reliably contain the pressure of the burning propellant.
But a closed breech allows a disconnect in the action, requiring that the trigger release for each cycle. Without those parts, or with worn parts, the gun is an automatic. With those parts, it is semi-automatic, or self-loading. Or, a lever allows the user to select between the two, making a select-fire gun.
To summarize:
Open breech = automatic (by decree)
Closed breech, disconnector = semi-automatic
Closed breech, no disconnector, or selectable disconnect = automatic.
Private ownership of automatics requires special licensing of the owner, and a special tax stamp paid on the gun. Those stamps have not been issued since 1986, but owner licenses are available.
An ordinary person can also get licensed to manufacture automatics, but because the ATF won't issue a stamp for their product, they can't make an automatic for personal use. They can only use that license only to make guns for entities that do not require NFA stamped guns, which basically means military and law enforcement.
Or, a person can get licensed to possess an automatic, and purchase a pre-1986 stamped gun. (Note that conversion devices like the Lightning like and the Drop-In Auto Sear [DIAS] count as guns here, as far as the law is concerned, even though they aren't guns.) Expect to spend about $10k getting started in this hobby.
Luty's SMG is an open breech design. Don't even think about building one. But the book is a good read. It will help you understand how the Taliban held off two global super-powers mostly using guns they made themselves. In caves. With hand tools.
Note 1: Conversion of an AR-15-clone is simple. Drill one hole in the right place, drop in one part, one spring and one roll pin, potentially swap out a few other parts, depending on the exact design of your clone, and you are done. But drill that hole without proper authorization and you are looking a 10 year felony sentence.
Note 2: Since we are living in a post-Constitutional, post-Rule of Law era, any owner of a semi-automatic gun can be arrested and charged for NFA violations at any time. The ATF technicians have years of experience getting guns to double fire, and access to soft primers that will fire nearly unprovoked. They also have all the time in the world to tinker with your gun, and they get paid a salary to do it. They will get your gun to double fire at least once, and away you go.
Re:This whole make your own gun is like the homebr (Score:4, Informative)
Home brewing was illegal from prohibition until Carter legalized it which is what started the U.S. micro brewing revolution.
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which doesn't make it more difficult, just means you get in more trouble if caught. To a lot of teenagers (and nominal adults) this is not a significant deterrent.
Re:This whole make your own gun is like the homebr (Score:5, Funny)
Kids want to get drunk now, not in a month.
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No. Kids want to get drunk now _and_ in a month. I had a still and a fake ID at 16. Couldn't pass for 21 unless it was real dark. But back then we could get beer with an 18 ID.
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In America, it is incredibly easy to buy a gun - even if, for example, your ex-wife has a restraining order against you getting within 1,000 feet of her.
Given how easy it is to buy a gun, it is incredibly silly to prohibit making guns.
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If we legalize the making of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, then what are we going to do with all the money we spend on the Bureau of Alchol, Tobacco and Firearms [wikipedia.org]??? Add even more letters to their TLA to justify its existence?
This organization needs to be ended and its responsibilities folded into the Department of Commerce and the FBI.
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what are we going to do with all the money we spend on the Bureau of Alchol, Tobacco and Firearms [wikipedia.org]???
Dunno but I can tell you it ain't gonna be spent on a director* or enforcement. If the duties of the ATF were folded into the FBI there might actually be sufficient budget to regulate firearms. That's a non-starter in the US.
(*OK after 7 years without one, congress finally appointed a director)
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Re:This whole make your own gun is like the homebr (Score:5, Informative)
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Not entirely true. A judge needs to approve this. I tried getting a restraining order against someone that was sending me harrassing e-mails but since they didn't have a history of violence against me or act on the threat it was not approved.
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So all these prohibitions against selling alcohol to people under 21 are all pretty pointless, even kids without friends older than 21 can get their hands on unlimited supplies of the stuff with just a little thought and effort.
I don't particularly mind kids who have forethought and can put in effort, get access to beer. If they're that smart, they're probably smart enough to not overdo it. No, it's the kids that don't think much about anything, and dislike effort, that should be kept away from drugs - including alcohol.
And it's similar with guns. Whoever thinks that making guns cheap and easy to fabricate without skills is a good idea, is nuts. I mean, if that's a good idea why not go beyond that, and give everyone who is unemplo
Re:This whole make your own gun is like the homebr (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoever thinks that making guns cheap and easy to fabricate without skills is a good idea, is nuts.
It doesn't matter if it's a good idea or a bad idea. It's the world we live in now.
It was probably not a good idea to let murderous dictators and their regimes know about the equation E=MC^2. We would definitely be better off if crazy people lacked the information to make nuclear weapons. But that's not even a question worth considering, because that information is already out there. We live in a world where the knowledge of how to make a nuclear weapon can be found on wikipedia.
There is no good way to keep bad people from owning cars, cell phones, computers, kitchen knives, baseball bats, etc. Now guns are in this category as well. It is just a fact that in the 21st century, making a precise replica of a simple physical object is no longer hard nor expensive. Arguing whether it should be is pointless.
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So all these prohibitions against selling alcohol to people under 21 are all pretty pointless, even kids without friends older than 21 can get their hands on unlimited supplies of the stuff with just a little thought and effort.
~50 million lazy teenagers would suggest otherwise. Are there even enough teenage homebrewers to make a statistic? I bet the number doing it because it's their only way to get drunk is around 6. Just because a rule doesn't make something foolproofishly impossible doesn't make it worthless, otherwise why have any rules at all?
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We brewed 'Schwanz sauger' wine. (From the Rhinelands of Hatch hall.)
It was as much to piss of the RAs as anything else. There was no rule against it.
Not like we didn't have a keg or two somewhere in the dorm every weekend.
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Only the results are probably more accurate on the whole.
Zip guns typically aren't accurate.
WAHOOOO! (Score:2)
Great. (Score:2, Insightful)
See, I get that the gun advocates want to prove a point here. I do. But the government is not ever going to say "Oh, you know what, you're right. That's silly. Go ahead and make all the guns you want". I realize that this is the libertarian fantasy, but it's just that: Libertarians masturbating.
Instead, what's going to happen is the government is going to start regulating CNC mills (or something equally absurd) in order to control the problem. Yes, that's a stupid thing to do. What, you don't think the gove
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Re:Great. (Score:4, Insightful)
OK so they ban mills. I can make a mill from stepper motors and linear slides. Going to regulate those as well?
You ae missing the point. Libertarians (actually the agorist wing) is doing this because this is how your bring down the State. Just like the drugs are finally starting to be legalized only after it becomes obvious how tyrannical and unjust the drug war is.
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They aren't going to do either of those things. The won't regulate CNC mills, and they won't drop restrictions on manufacturing -- they will just enforce existing laws using existing methods: get the guy you catch to roll over on his source for a reduced sentence. This isn't some new crisis for investigators.
New Era? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ghost Gunner...may signal a new era in the gun control debate
Presumably he means a "new era" of debate in which gun-rights advocates are not resoundingly winning that debate. This week's news is that the Texas legislature approved [hotair.com] campus carry and both houses of the Maine legislature approved [thetruthaboutguns.com] constitutional carry. And those immediately followed the Federal Courts rollback [hotair.com] of carry restrictions in DC. And last year Illinois legalized concealed carry. [isba.org]
I don't see how Andy Greenburg using a "Ghost Gunner" is going to reverse that trend.
3D Printers a Serious Danger to Civilized Society (Score:2)
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Ban the monkeys all the way down!
Lower receiver is not a rifle (Score:2)
I'd like to point out that a lower receiver is not a rifle, and it's not even the most stressed part of the rifle during use, it's just the part that the BATF has chosen must be serialized.
You still have to buy a barrel somewhere, and a bolt and a bunch of other furniture pieces and a bunch of small parts and have some technical knowledge to put it all together. Just managing to fabricate a lower receiver, which is basically just a hollow lump of metal with no moving parts, is more of a legal milestone tha
Serialized Part depends on the weapon. (Score:3)
For other rifles, such as the SCAR 16 and SCAR17S, the serialized part is the upper receiver.
On a Ruger Mark series pistol, the barrel is the serialized part.
I don't think the author realized that this depends on the weapon.
Personal Defense is a right (Score:2)
Legally Build your own rifle:
https://ghostgunner.net/
https://thepiratebay.vg/torrent/8598235/DefDist_DEFCAD_MEGA_PACK_v4.4_%28Raiden%29_%5BZIPPED%5D
https://defdist.org/
AR-15s make great home defense weapons along with 12 gauge shotguns.
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;)
Guns are already untraceable! (Score:2)
Unlike cars, there is no public record of when they're resold, at least not in most states.
And it's not the receiver that would be matched anyway; it's the barrel.. and guess what? It's perfectly legal to replace the barrel on a gun, and then it won't match either. Regardless, that match can't be made unless the gun has been obtained, and you can't magically match a bullet to a registered gun and then track down the registered owner.
Guns are not traceable. They can possibly be matched, if recovered, but
40 years ago (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lower Receiver? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Lower Receiver? (Score:5, Informative)
Legally, it is.
Everything else is spare parts and can be bought/sold/traded without tracking or registration. The lower receiver is defined as the gun and is the part with the serial number.
The day the Stasi come to collect your registered guns, the only part you have to account for is the lower receiver. Everything else not present can be explained away as sold at a gun show, traded with friends, etc. Or perhaps it's buried out in the woods. So if people can make their own LR and dig up the hidden bits, the confiscators are royally screwed without a major change in firearms regulations.
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Not for long. The easy way out of this for the feds is to serialized the barrel. The barrel is 1) the hardest part of a gun to make and 2) the 'gun' part of the gun. COMBINED with the receiver you are mostly there.
I suspect the only reason that this hasn't been tried is that the NRA would cast the Evil Eye on it's clients, er, representatives.
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It's easy to make a barel. It's just hard to make a good one.
Re:Lower Receiver? (Score:5, Funny)
The barrel is 1) the hardest part of a gun to make
Not really.
And now the problem becomes tracking a 'gun' made up of several serialized, traceable parts. Barrels need to be replaced due to wear or when a weapon is re-chambered for different rounds. I'll guarantee that, should a system be developed to track multiple gun parts, it will be brought down by a relatively small group of gun owners switching parts around and submitting the required paperwork frequently.
Or I'll just design a rifle and name it an AR'; DROP TABLE Barrels;--
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It's not fear. It's part of the socialists plan to allow an uprising of the proletariat to effect political change. They want what you have and will rise up to take it or just destroy it when the left wing decides its time for the change. They can instruct the police to look the other way. But there's not much they can do about the Roof Koreans (and others) who are still capable of defending themselves.
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Or is you fear rational if its you with the weapon? Maybe you should seek some medical care?
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Just stay away from Gun Free Zones and you'll be fine.
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The license is only required to operate one on public roads.
Many states license people to possess firearms in public, and some states require a license to posses a firearm on private lands, unlike operating motor vehicles.
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feature only? The only feature that possibly matters is select fire, which is already federally regulated.
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The tolerances on an AR lower contribute very little to the accuracy of the gun due to the design. The cartdrige is locked into the barrel with a bolt. Once fired it is basically a loose bunch of parts until they all lock together at the last moment. The precision parts are the ones you can buy online without any checks.
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By the way, if you can CNC a semi-auto lower, it shouldn't be too hard to whip up a full auto one. Especially for the AR15. Look up "lightning link", which is basically 2 bits of metal that drop into the
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I don't know if your internet get's blocked but check amazon for ar parts. I can buy barrels and bolts.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb... [amazon.com]
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The whole thing about gun regulations over there is to regulate without actually regulating, because they have this constitutional amendment that everyone is so hot and bothered about.
What things like this mill does is reveal that the emperor has no clothes. A fact that everyone with a bit of interest in the subject knew, but kept mum about to maintain appearance.
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But once you have it, life is good. The only valid reason here to own a firearm is sport and hunting, so there's no discussion about "good" or "bad" guns, and the criteria for guns are very simple: a few rule
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And look like a twit, just like that dude. Don't know how he hasn't died of terminal stupidity so far.
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because they hate us and want us to die. That is why they're flooding the streets with guns. 3D printers make it even faster and more effective. They are more effecting at making us constantly die. That is what this is about.
Yippeee! That means I can get the anti tank weapon I've always lusted for. Those SUVs don't stand a chance!