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Man Orders TV On Amazon, Gets Shipped Assault Rifle
First time accepted submitter InfernoApple writes "Seth Horvitz, a Northeast D.C. resident, thought he had ordered a new high-definition television a few days ago through Amazon.com from a third-party merchant. When the package arrived yesterday, however, Horvitz opened the oddly shaped box to find something completely different. Instead of the flat-panel TV he had bought to enjoy with his wife, who is pregnant, Horvitz opened the long packaging to discover a Sig Sauer SIG716, a high-caliber, semi-automatic assault rifle capable of mowing down, well, just about anything."
He obviously was buying the TV so that he could hoist it a few stories above the ground and kill whatever poor sucker stood under it when it drops. Amazon just knew him so well from his previous purchases that he'd rather just have a rifle!
Instead of TV package contained high-powered assault rifle.
Would not buy again.
It's just a misunderstanding, officer. I ordered an issue of Big'uns!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
How is his wife's pregnancy relevant?
"Yesterday, I got a gun for my wife." "Pretty good trade, don't you think?"
I want to know what kind of retailer carries HDTVs and assault rifles? Maybe Best Buy should adopt this idea, TVs, guns and chicken!
tonyaldo.com
Somewhere, deep in the desert, a hidden meth lab got a nice new TV.
...to shoot all the execs and writers that produce the shit that would have displayed on his tv.
Silence is a state of mime.
Dear Secret Service, I do not know the above poster. We just hang out here.
i defy anyone to "mow down" anything with a semiautomatic rifle. get a grip
You misunderstood. According to the summary, the weapon is capable of mowing down pretty much anything all by itself. This is similar to news reporting of SUVs causing horrible accidents.
Cars don't cause accidents. Guns don't kill people. IDEs don't write bugs.
I suppose it is fatter than a .223, but it ain't no .50cal.
The SIG716 is not an "assault rifle" and you won't be "mowing" anything down with it. It is a conventional semi-automatic rifle that can be legally owned just about everywhere. Also, it is in a large caliber that makes it better suited for hunting than for rapid fire.
If the guy had been shipped a functionally equivalent hunting rifle with a classic wood stock there would not be as many ninnies getting the vapors over it. Unless Amazon has never made a shipping error before, this is a non-story.
In this case it is 7.62x51, roughly identical to the .308 Winchester.
That is legal for deer hunting in all 50 states, unlike the weaksauce 5.56x45 used in actual assault rifles.
So he didn't actually get an assault rifle, semi-auto hunting rifle that happened to be painted black, had an adjustable stock for comfort and rails for attaching a scope, bipod and other accessories.
For those unaware, an assault rifle is a firearm capable of firing in a fully automatic mode, as opposed to semi-automatic or single-action. Furthermore, the most common round used in assault rifles is a pittance, it is a .22 caliber bullet (granted with a lot more power and better aerodynamics than the .22 LR you shoot in Boy Scouts). But even with all that it is considered pitiful, not much more than a varmint round.
Here in Pennsylvania it is illegal to hunt dear with a .223 caliber because it is not considered powerful enough to ensure a clean kill. In fact, those evil high caliber rounds are often half the size of a hunting cartridge.
So where does the term "high power" stem from? Not the cartridge itself. But the capacity of the firearm. Essentially, you had a 45 caliber semi-automatic designed by the Revered John Moses Browning. This held about 8 rounds. They're big short fat stubby rounds. 8 rounds of firepower was two more than the average revolver. The Revered than creating the Browning Hi-Power using a much smaller 9mm round. The result was a capacity of 15-19 rounds. Hence hi-power simply mean greater capacity, often related to small, weaker, less powerful bullets.
In fact, the current .223 round used in M16/M4/AR15 (semi-automatic version) is essentially considered the smallest, weakest, bare minimum rifle round that can ensure a reasonable expectation of success. Compared to what gramps used in WWII or worse, WWI, it's laughable - unless you're shot by one of course.
^^^
oldhack: "Security is a waste of money until shit hits the fan. 5 minutes later, it becomes waste of money again. "
A border patrol vigilante is busy trying to figure out how to load a magazine clip into his assault rifle flatscreen.
Came to post this. The article throws about "hi power", "mows down about anything", without ever specifying the caliber. 7.62x51 (not x56) is a standard NATO round, about 10% less powerful than a 30.06.
And as someone above said, the gun is probably worth twice what the TV he ordered is.
Can someone tell me which make/model of TV he ordered and if it was cheaper than that 716?
I have a friend that owns the 516 (5.56 version of the gun instead of the 7.62) and it's a nice chunk of hardware...
What's a "high-caliber" assault rifle?
A contradiction in terms.
An assault rifle is A) fully automatic (with a fire selector that includes either full auto or burst) and B) fires an intermediate rifle cartridge, meaning not high calibre.
If it's high calibre, but still a military rifle, it's a battle rifle. If it's intermediate calibre, but limited to semi-automatic fire, it's just a semi-auto rifle.
You can't legally buy assault rifles, or select fire battle rifles for that matter, if you're a civilian living in a first world nation. Doesn't matter what you might see in the news that says otherwise, go try it at your local gun store and see how far you get. If it's got automatic fire capability, it's a military weapon belonging in the hands of soldiers, and cannot be owned by your local gun nut anymore than he can own a live grenade.
Referring to anything that looks remotely dangerous as either an assault rifle or machine gun is a good indicator that the person doing the labelling knows fuck all about the subject at hand. "Assault style rifle", which is the weasel word term for weapons like the one in TFA, is about the same thing as a car that looks like a racecar, but drives like a sedan; legal, fancy looking, but boring under the hood.
(Disclaimer: I am Canadian. The second amendment down south is none of my business either way. I own no guns. I am firmly in the "guns belong in the hands of professionals" category. Anyone busting out the "sure, that's what an NRA drone wants you to think" in response to my post presumably didn't read the post script.)
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Just one vote.
rewriting history since 2109
Is that article originally from the Onion?
Geez, they're just lucky that they're still alive. That very big gun, capable of mowing down, well...just about anything, could have leapt out that box and killed her unborn child!
I mean, unloaded guns, still in packaging, have killed untold numbers of unsuspecting hipsters.
different sizes of bullets can be used in different sized firearms.
a smaller round could "bounce" if somebody is wearing a heavy jacket but something like a 7.62 X 51 mm NATO round might even get past some low end body armour.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
You know that and I know that but journalists don't seem to know that.
The term semi-automatic is really quite misleading for most people. It sounds a lot more impressive than it really is. Of course any weapon that doesn't look rustic is going to come off as bad-scary.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This story was on the local Washington DC NPR affiliate yesterday, and they did a much better job describing the problem -- it was quite obviously a UPS bungle, underneath the address sticker on the package, there was *another* address sticker, with the address of a gun shop in Maryland, which confirmed that they had indeed ordered this thing, and were waiting for it. Amazon doesn't appear to have done anything wrong in this case.
The part that I thought NPR did poorly was, both they and the guy who was the subject of the story kept going on about how dangerous the situation was, and I thought that was kind of over-blown. It was left on his porch for a while, which put it at risk for theft, but the gun was, as far as I can tell, not loaded, and there was no suitable ammunition anywhere around. So, it seems to me that, practically speaking, it was no more or less dangerous than a similarly-sized shovel or crowbar, independently of the presence of pregnant women and other vulnerable people.
When someone shows up with the right ammo, *then* it's dangerous. But not before.
2*3*3*3*3*11*251
"Assault Rifle" is a military term for a rifle that can be fired as semi-automatic or fully-automatic. The SIG 716 isn't an assault rifle and a Corvette ZR1 isn't tractor trailer.
The author probably meant "assault weapon" but that's a meaningless word for "scary looking gun" The now-expired Assault Weapons Ban defined certain guns by model and feature but mostly it was about looking scary. The gun in question was released this year so it couldn't have qualified based on the model and I don't care enough to check if it would qualify based on cosmetic features.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It's DC. The price of housing forces you to have a kitchen/livingroom/closet.
What does a Canadian band have to do with Obama and Romney?
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
No weapon kills people, people do. That's why no one should deny me my constitutional right to buy a tank and build a nuke.
It was, NPR reported that his address label was stuck on top of one for the gun shop it was intended to go to. Pretty much every one of the articles on this story also neglects to state that you can't have firearms shipped to your house unless you have an FFL.. You have to go pick it up at a gun store and go through a background check.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
You have this exactly opposite. Like all gun grabbers, your facts are based on hearsay and idiot web blogs. There is a dictionary definition of assault rifle, and it includes full auto or burst mode. Full auto guns come in a variety of types, full auto only box fed or belt fed is a machine gun. Semi-automatic box fed is not a machine gun, shoulder fired full auto is not a machine gun either. The defunct ban attempted to ban appearances only, pistol grip, box magazine, rails, collapsible stock, etc. and you have swallowed it all hook line and sinker.
You can't legally buy assault rifles, or select fire battle rifles for that matter, if you're a civilian living in a first world nation. Doesn't matter what you might see in the news that says otherwise, go try it at your local gun store and see how far you get.
No, but you can go to a gun show and buy a kit that allows you to mod your gun to full auto. I have two uncles who are gun collectors, and this is no urban legend.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
NPR reported that the label under this guys address is for a gun store in PA. This is really poor reporting. The washington post version lacks this detail as well, as well as any reporting that you can't ship firearms to a persons home unless they have a FFL.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Cars don't cause accidents. Guns don't kill people. IDEs don't write bugs.
if only. Then we'd never have recalls on cars, never have to patch bugs in IDE's and never have never have guns that accidentally discharge.
2012 jeep review in sweden the vehicle is consistently blowing tyres and nearly rolled over once. Most of the video is trying to figure out why it nearly rolled over once but not on subsequent attempts. But the tyres blowing at 70-80Km/h is uh... bad. Really really bad.
Bugs fixed in Visual studio 2012 some of this stuff goes back years and has to be compared against the c++ STL precisely because the way it does work, and the way it should work are not the same.
Don't get me started on years of various nVIDIA and AMD tools not playing nice with OpenGl or Directx.
Wiki on accidental discharge lists two scenarios, where a weapon is dropped, or when a weapon overheats that it can accidentally fire if it was improperly designed (e.g. a poor choice of materials).
So yes, cars themselves can cause accidents, guns do kill people, and IDE's can cause bugs in your code.
Preferably one written by someone at least knowledgeable about guns. It's neither high caliber, nor capable of "mowing down just about anything".
It's gas-powered semi-automatic: One trigger pull, one round.
It's 7.62x51mm NATO, which is nearly (but not exactly) identical the .308 Winchester it's based on. It could be potentially classed as high-power (the .308 being a hunting round), but it is not high caliber.
It features the so-called "scary assault rifle look", particularly since it uses the popular modular rail mounting for components and accessories using with a common attachment design. But then there is no law that all rifles must look like grandpappy's squirrel gun, or be "not scary looking".
As for "mowing down", that's hyperbole. Any weapon is capable of such a thing if misused, be it a knife, gun, car, or simple bottle of Chlorine gas from your local pool.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
wrong! the term Assault Rifle DOES mean fully-auto or 3shot burst.. its the stupid fucking media and morons that dont know better than think something that LOOKS like an AK47 is the same thing they see the gurilla fighters using on TV. Technically the media and morons in congress call them 'Assault Weapons'. Get your facts right. The Stermgewere was history's FIRST assualt rifle. It used a cut down version of a rifle cartrige instead of using pistol ammo such as was common for the sub-machine guns of the WWII era. The assault rifle round had much more penetrating power than the 45ACP and 9x19mm ammo of the subs but not as much power as the .30-06 rifle rounds, but could lay down a supression fire and was highly portable over a full sized machine gun turret.
I am reliably informed that at proper finishing schools you learn how to pluck and gut game birds, if not actually how to shoot them. So I think you may be misunderestimating what happens there.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The bass was really loud; I thought I blew the speakers, but when I tried again, it was still as loud. It was at that point that I noticed the large, gaping holes in my wall. Within a few minutes, police had arrived at my house, to ask if anything was wrong. I informed them that my television was malfunctioning, and they seemed to decide I was a lunatic and drove away. When I tried to RMA it, the man on the other end of the support line laughed at me and hung up.
Would not buy again.
DC isn't one of the 50 states.
The media term is "assault weapon" and the reason they usually don't use "assault rifle" is because the former has no real definition, where as the latter is a specific designation type and MUST feature an automated mode of fire. And I believe it is also defined as an individual firearm (as opposed to a squad manned fully automatic rifle, oft referred to as a machine gun)
Mind you that 1/2 the features that Jafiwam mentions above that were banned were in fact safety and ergonomic features:
- barrel shroud, a safety device to prevent burns from hot barrels
- adjustable stock, ergonomic feature developed to allow a 6'7" male soldier in the army and a 4'7" female soldier to utilize the same equipment.
- rails, ergonomic advancement allowing for quick mounting of scopes, lights, via a universal system - think Universal Serial Bus (USB).
depends on the gun.
mil-spec AR-15s yes, AK47s yes, most guns that were designed to be fully auto, and have the space in the housing and trigger selector that accomidates the second automatic hammer assembly yes.
every other semi automatic gun no.
not every civilian AR-15 can be made fully automatic with a simple kit. You might need the entire milspec low reciever parts kit.
its also a grey area, and not readily available everywhere.
You and a lot of posters are confusing "assault rifle" with "assault weapon", a term invented by the Brady Campaign to mean "scary-looking gun."
An assault rifle is simply a fully automatic, low-caliber rifle. An assault weapon, on the other hand, was legally defined as a gun with too much black plastic (pistol grip, barrel shroud, folding stock, others.)
DATABASE WOW WOW
With an assault rifle, he can get all the hi-def TVs he wants.
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
Seems to me that the "bogey man" keeping liberals up at night was the image of a lonely guy obsessed with butch looking guns. The ban seems to me to have been more about demonizing a section of the public than about controlling weaponry, and to me that's just an unsavory as the right wing demonization of welfare recipients.
I am pro gun control, but the old ban does not seem to me to have been the right way to go about it.
Nullius in verba
for a TV, so they sent him a rifle.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
... it ain't an ASSAULT RIFLE!
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
If you read TFA, it looks like it was a mistake by UPS, so why even mention Amazon? (And Amazon doesn't allow listing of guns anyway.) The article says the box was addressed to a gun dealer in PA ... not an error by Amazon or the vendor, but by the shipper.
Though I do wonder what was in the other box. The photo shows a big shipping box with the rifle box on top of it, there's still another box in the shipping box ...
> I bet everybody who was there was sufficiently impressed.
I dunno. That was almost a worst case scenario and it managed to score 13 and wound a lot more. If the idiot had used a more reliable weapon (ditch the hundred round drum) he could have got a few more. But remember he also built bombs which were supposed to create a distraction and only failed because of pure luck.
Imagine instead if the guy had been a little more rational (just not rational enough to realize how stupid the whole going postal thing is) and realized the bombs were far more lethal than the gun. Now imagine him coming in through that emergency exit with a dozen bombs. Toss some incendaries and smoke into the exits to cause the exit stampede to bottle up then lob fragmentations into the dense crowd. Use a pair (with sensible clips to avoid jams) of pistols to nail anyone coming toward him (easy targets) while continuing to toss various nasty stuff. Lead pipe cinch he would have upped his score with that plan. And this guy had some education, remember that. A chemical attack would have been within his ability. WWI tech poision gas should not have posed a problem for someone with his knowledge.
He went with the guns because he bought into the popular mythology.
Democrat delenda est
Yeah, you might get a TV.
Amazon doesn't sell guns unfortunately. Not real ones, anyway. I bought an AR15 a few weeks ago and would have liked to have bought from amazon so I could take advantage of my free shipping/prime account. I just rechecked, still no guns. I think it's more likely that the shipping company screwed up.
Amazon DOES NOT SELL FIREARMS!
YOU CANNOT BUY FIREARMS THROUGH THE MAIL!
IF THIS BULLSHIT IS TRUE MANY FEDERAL LAWS WERE BROKEN!
This is a classic political BS story that would never have appeared if it was not in the wake of mass murders involving firearms!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
No, no, wait, mods! This is clearly on-topic! Just look:
1. This person wanted to buy a TV for his wife, but instead got a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. See where I'm going with this? He'll kill his wife with the gun by accident!
2. This sort of shipping mishap must have been done by someone so inexperienced with the English language to mess up an order that badly. It can be assumed, therefore, that this job was outsourced from whatever third-party reseller being used in this case. The chief of said company must have made that decision.
3. This is a very embarrassing gaffe, overseas or not.
4. Amazon's been under attack recently by states demanding they collect sales taxes. And the TV that was supposed to be delivered would've been quite heavy. Combine those together, and the middle class will be crushed, and there's taxes!
5. Whoever did this will need to be hunted down and fired. Unfortunately, this will result in a McCarthy-esque witch hunt in the company until everyone responsible has been found.
6. Ownership of such a gun may not be a crime in DC, but we still need to figure out where it came from; it may be a felony in whatever country this was shipped from.
7. The customer couldn't abort the shipment before it got to him. Or rather, he had no reason it would need to be. But, he certainly wouldn't abort the order if he could use the gun to defend someone being raped.
8. Most likely, this entire affair was due to some penny-pinching MBA, most likely one from a prep school where they have no real concept of how the real world works. As a result, the outsourcing issue mentioned above, ultimately leading to this erroneous shipment.
9. The company probably wants to keep this a secret. See the part about it being a major gaffe.
10. This is obviously racist, too. I mean, would they accidentally ship semi-automatic rifles to BLACK PEOPLE?!? No. This was shipped to a white guy due to racial fears.
See? It all ties in to the article at hand. This certainly wasn't some political nutjob vomiting up a copy-and-paste checklist in the desperate, DESPERATE hope that someone, ANYONE will care about what he's saying.
FTA:
UPDATE, 10:45 a.m.: Ty Rogers, an Amazon spokesman, declined to say what the company is doing to remedy the situation.
Why should Amazon have to do anything in the first place? This was a shipping error by UPS and has nothing to do with Amazon. Amazon wasn't even the one directly selling the TV, they just listed the page for one of their third party sellers. UPS should be the company to remedy the issue by getting the man his TV. I suspect the person the gun was intended for is eager to get his $2500 gun opposed to the $400 TV he likely got anyway.
start your own website if you don't like that Americans own and operate this one.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire