NR:
Authorities believe the gun used in the drive-by shooting in Midland and Odessa, Texas this past weekend was illegally manufactured and sold by a Lubbock, Texas man, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is currently investigating a man who they believe illegally manufactured and sold the AR-15-style rifle that Seth Ator used to kill seven people and injure 22 more on Saturday, before he was shot and killed by police.
Ator, 36, had previously attempted to purchase a gun from a licensed seller in January 2014, but failed the requisite background check because he’d been declared mentally unfit by a local court. A nationwide criminal-background check identified the court order and prevented the purchase, according to local authorities.
If Ator did in fact purchase the weapon through a private transaction, its seller was under no obligation to conduct a background check, but could be held criminally liable if evidence emerges that he knew his prospective customer came to him due to a previous background-check failure. read more
Depending on location you can build your own, but cannot build for sale to others without the FFL.
They’ll hammer him… If not the civil suits.
So, if this was true the background checks worked as advertised and this guy circumvented them to buy a home-built(?) semi-automatic rifle. I would presume the home-built one was put together out of replacement parts that can be bought easily enough. The Dems are insisting the same background check is done at gun shows that is done at a firearms dealer even though it’s likely that only the smallest percent of the exhibitors have the tech or the access to do so.
Ok, then how about having the feds/state have a booth at a gunshow where the tech and access is available to do the check and is manned by ATF or local Law Enforcement crew and for a fee can do fast check.
Actually even with this at the end of the day if you’re crazy/broken enough to do this mass shooting/murder crap you’re going to be able to get a gun. In a couple of years those 3D printers will be good enough and be able to handle the right raw material to print out all the parts necessary to mate with a barrel to give the same performance. Or you build a home made bomb (the web will show you how) or you ram a car at high speed through a crowd or you start stabbing with a knife or whatever.
Crazy is crazy and allowing citizens to own guns and receive proper firearms training will at least allow them to protect themselves, their family and others when the next crazy snaps.
Making your own firearms without getting govt permission is legal (except in California) as long as it isn’t an NFA weapon (fully automatic anything, or a rifle or shotgun with too short a barrel or too short overall). It has to be for your own personal use, though. You can’t transfer it to anyone else without the right license(s).
So, the guy didn’t manufacture the gun illegally. But he did sell it illegally, a big fat stinkin’ no-no as far as the statists are concerned.
Was the gun “manufactured” or was it pieced together through legal parts suppliers and sold to the crazy person?
The transfer of a legally assembled gun from parts is apparently illegal. However manufacturing implies machining of all parts to make the gun – there is a big difference.
If guns are being manufactured under the radar, then doesn’t that make all gun laws irrelevant and that my rights to acquire a gun should not be infringed?
@DrRiff – It’s the receiver (lower receiver for an AR type weapon) that’s considered by the ATF to be the serialized firearm. You can buy all the other parts via normal methods and take them home from the store or get them delivered to your home. But to purchase a complete receiver you have to go through a licensed dealer.
ATF says you can buy a partially made receiver without FFL transfer if it is no more than 80% complete. There are a bunch of companies supplying 80% receivers and instructions and jigs to finish it yourself.
But, unfortunately, you can’t legally simply piece it together through parts suppliers.
… how many ‘news’ outlets are going to report this?
I knew they were gonna completely screw and scapegoat the guy who sold him the gun. Watch the fed/state pile on pig fuck of this poor bastard.
This is one of the issues they don’t discuss when they talk about gun control. You can get a number of books and articles that show how to make automatic weapons with plumbing parts.
” But to purchase a complete receiver you have to go through a licensed dealer.” Nailed it.
Kee-rect, Uncle Al. Looks like they’re going to be going after the 80-percent receiver people now.
rickn8or: Yup. This guy will be used to outlaw 80% receivers (already effectively banned in CA), and the republicans will fold like a bad poker hand. Buy them while you can.
The only thing on a gun that is registered is the receiver (or frame on a handgun) itself.
All the other parts on the gun are unregulated parts and openly available for most firearms. Which means in a confiscation the only thing that would need to be turned in would be the fully stripped receiver itself (that’s the part that has the legally required serial number on it and is legally considered the actual firearm) So if you ever live where there is a confiscation, be sure to remember that.
Expect laws banning the sale of parts without proper background checking and permission or licensing in the not too distant future. When that day comes you will understand the reason you should only turn in the receiver by itself if you are forced to turn them in.
FWIW, a new receiver is fairly easy to manufacture for many popular guns, like the AR’s, 1911’s, and a few lesser known pistol caliber carbines and handguns, with minimal tooling or experience. That’s why you only turn in the stripped receiver.
” … books and articles that show how to make automatic weapons with plumbing parts.”
FWIW, it’s actually easier to manufacture an illegal fully automatic submachine gun than it is to manufacture the legal semi-auto versions of that type of gun. So when they are made equally illegal and carry the same penalties for making them, what do you think illegal clandestine makers will be making?
Every gun control law so far has made the claimed gun violence problems worse, don’t expect the new ones to do something different.
The Dems will now attempt to ban the manufacture of firearm parts which could be used in an illegal weapon. That is, all of them.
I can sell someone an ar i built as long as it has a serial number on the lower receiver but if i make an 80% from cnc or lathe i am allowed to own ot bit it can never be transfered or owned by anyone else. This is a very vague story and probably only told because how bad the dems want that gun show background check
All of the Democrat candidates want ARs banned. The House isn’t going to send a bill to the Senate that doesn’t include a ban of some sort. The votes for a ban just aren’t there.
The issue of gun control is more valuable to Democrats than any compromise the sell-out Republicans will offer.
you can also ‘manufacture’ an AR lower receiver w/ a 3D printer … just sayin’