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Making an AR-15 In the Wired San Francisco Office
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."
Its not an assault rifle. Those have been banned nationwide since 1986, and controlled/registered nationwide since 1934.
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.
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.
It is not an "assault rifle" if it does not feature "A pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon." So depending on the grip that is attached to that lower, it is fine. Also, no flash suppressors, folding or telescoping stock, thumbhole stock, or grenande launchers. It also must not be a .50 BMG. The other option is to "permanently" attach a magazine that holds ten or fewer rounds of ammunition to the lower. If the rifle sticks within these parameters, then it is not an assault rifle.
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.
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.
Have gnu, will travel.
Kids want to get drunk now, not in a month.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
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).
Its a felony to buy a gun with a restraining order; its right there on the form 4473. People who say its incredibly easy to buy a gun usually aren't talking about doing it legally. In California there is a 10day wait even if you're a woman trying to get a gun to protect yourself from the ex you had to get a restraining order against.
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.
It all starts at 0
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.
Actually:
"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
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
Don't know. But I'm pretty sure it's "known to the state of California to cause cancer."
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
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;--
Have gnu, will travel.