I have read that, according to some, if you have machine gun parts you can go to prison for trying to build a machine gun. If that's so, how to they sell machine gun parts kits?
I'm in process of building an AR-15 and am curious, from what I see, the M16 lower receiver is different than an AR-15 lower receiver. M16 full-auto parts installed in an AR-15 won't make a machine gun because there is no hole for the auto-sear and the area is milled different, no room for the auto sear. So, in an AR-15 receiver, all the full auto parts that you could fit would let it work normally in safe and semi, but Auto would only let the hammer follow the bolt forward and you would have to pull the "Charging handle" to re-c*ck the hammer. It seems everything except the auto-sear would work in an AR-15 for safe and semi, selecting full auto would only let the hammer down without firing.
To me, it seems that jailing someone for having some machine gun part, that work fine in an AR-15's, is kind of like throwing a man in jail for rape because he has a penis. Or giving everyone a speeding ticket because their car is capable of speeding. Crazy!
To clarify, it is not any M-16 parts, it is 5 specific parts, mostly the trigger group and the bolt carrier.
When installed in an AR receiver it can be easily converted to full auto with a drop in auto sear. At that point it comes under the NFA definition.
Luckily, you are able to adapt the M-16 parts to legal.
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Personally, I would pitch out and replace the selector lever and bolt carrier as they would be a pain in the ass to adapt. The rest would involve grinding the hook off the hammer, welding up the end of the groove in the trigger and cutting off the projection on the end of the disconnector.
However, Roger, if I were you, I would spend less time trying to scam the NFA and more time trying to figure out how to get your tools out of your mother's garage.
I have an AR-15 lower parts kit, that's the parts I plan to use in the lower receiver.
The M-16 bolt carrier is supposed to be legal to use in an AR-15. AR-15 bolt carriers are the most difficult to find part now AFAIK.
My machine tools are in my garage at my other house where my mother lives.
Scam the NFA? The M-16 bolt carriers are legal, some AR-15's came with them, other parts are questionable. The auto-sear is the only part I know of that has no use in the semi-auto rifle and it doesn't fit an AR-15 receiver according to M-15 versus AR-15 blueprints.
I'm pretty sure it would be easier to make a full auto modification to an AR-15 than it would be to convert it to an M-16.
"Constructive intent" or some such. If you have all the parts to assemble into what would be an NFA firearm and don't have the tax stamp to go with it you are presumed to have the intent to assemble them into an illegal firearm. If you say have a set of full auto internals for an M16 and do not have a firearm to install them into (no AR type receivers) you are legal since you don't have the complete set of parts to produce what would be an illegal firearm.
Full auto however is pretty pointless for an individual weapon and just wastes valuable ammunition. FA is for "crew served" weapons with a military supply line backing them for an ammo supply.
The auto sear, on the left in this picture of an M-16 receiver, won't fit an AR receiver because the AR receiver is left thick above the selector detent. Also, the AR receiver doesn't have the pin hole for the auto sear. A person couldn't assemble the M-16 auto parts in an AR receiver to make a machine gun unless they milled above the select fire detent and drilled the pin hole. A person could use them to make a machine gun if they had a M-16 receiver but the AR receiver would require modification.
Exactly, that's why, other than it's illegal, I don't want to build a machine gun. I'd build one if it was legal but it would be too expensive to shoot very much in auto. Currently I have an M16 parts kit but I have no AR-15 lowers completed yet. I have a lower parts kit for an AR-15 to use in my lower that I have to machine, I just have to find out if possessing a complete AR-15 lower, with no full auto parts, makes it illegal to have the machine gun parts kit.
I bought an M-16 parts kit with the intent to build a legal AR-15. I just don't want be accused of intention to build a machine gun just because I have the parts that came in the parts kit. I don't and won't have a receiver that the parts will fit in. Even if this country came down to a civil war or revolution, the sound of machine gun fire would make a target out of the person with the machine gun. They need to make game calls with the sound of machine gun fire to draw the attention away from the gun owners!
The Democrats did it!!! Finally I know who is buying guns like crazy people! I thought it was the conservative nut jobs who were buying all the guns and hiding their 25th assault rifle in a PVC tube in the backyard.
You are correct, for that particular make of lower receiver. There ARE lower receivers out there that have the full M16 treatment except for the auto sear hole, fire control pocket fully milled out, these are dead-easy to convert given M16 parts and a drop-in auto sear. It can even be legal, given a registered DIAS and there are quite a number out there made prior to the '86 new machine gun ban. However, if you have one of said lowers plus an M16 carrier, it can still be converted even if the rest of the parts are for semi-autos, the Lightning Link mentioned by another poster is the bit needed. The only machine gun you can carry in your wallet. Also easy to make up. That's the reason that semi-auto carriers have the sear trip surface ground back or the carrier bottom totally removed, in the case of Colt's. ATF's interpretation of "readily convertible" (part of the definition of a machine gun in the law) is either 8 or 10 hours(depending on the source) in a fully equipped machine shop. You can do a LOT to a lower in that time, milling a bit of aluminum out is nothing. Like I said before, you SHOULD be OK with using an M16 carrier. Colt rifles you mentioned had other bits added in to prevent easy conversion, depending on vintage. IMO, a prudent person would grind the sear trip area back on the M16 carrier to show there was no intent of converting the gun. But if the ATF wants your ass, you're cooked with just about any AR type rifle. As mentioned, all they have to do is get it to fire 2 shots with one trigger pull. It doesn't have to work after that.
"Stanley Schaefer" wrote But if the ATF wants your ass, you're cooked with just about any AR type rifle. As mentioned, all they have to do is get it to fire 2 shots with one trigger pull. It doesn't have to work after that.
Stan
In that case the SKS I had (sold long ago) would have landed me in jail . With some brass cased handloads it would double on occasion ... scared hell out of me and made everybody at the range look at me funny .
Just because more than half of the U.S. population despises assault rifles and wants to ban them is not a valid argument for banning assault rifles.
Assault rifles are the sort of rifles that armies use. The sort of gun that a well regulated militia should have. So banning them goes against the Constitution. And the rifles are just rifles. There is nothing vile about them. What is vile is the movies and video games that show people killing each other.
It's a valid argument to be aware that you're on the losing side of a political debate, in which more than half of the voters are against you.
Well, with the addition of select-fire, yes. But they're close enough to attract Rambo wannabees, Walter Mitty Minutemen, and mass-murdering lunatics. They're the best tools for those jobs, if you include Bushmaster's argument that they'll "Renew your Man Card."
They're the guns that fulfill the desires of a wide variety of sociopaths.
You could try that argument, but based on court precedent, I think you would lose. It would be an even better argument for M-16s, but as the Court said in Heller:
"It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service?M-16 rifles and the like?may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment ?s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right."
So the principle has already been foreclosed. Then you're left with the question of whether AR-15s are in "common use" for lawful purposes (another provision of Heller), and you then have the fact that miltiary-style semiautos defined as "assault rifles" by state statutes make up only about 1.3% of the guns in circulation. And I doubt if the Court would overturn state laws that defined high-capacity ARs as "dangerous weapons" or "destructive devices," as some do now.
As long as you have handguns for home defense, the Court hasn't put any other limits on federal or state laws -- so far. We'll have to see if a challenge ever gets to the Court. After more than 20 years for some states, there hasn't been a successful challenge yet.
That's a matter of opinion. I think they're pretty vile, because they're designed to appeal to some pretty ugly instincts. But your opinion is your own business.
Ah, but that just leaves you dumber than you already are, Terrell. You probably don't even know that the Supreme Court precluded the "sort of rifles that armies use" in the Heller case.
Killfiling keeps you stupid. Look at Gunner, fer chrissake. It's taken months to catch him up on all he missed. d8-)
Get real. It is not a valid argument. It is only a statement of what peoples opinions are. A valid argument would be why assault rifles should be banned.
Hand guns are what you carry when you do not expect to need a gun.
Do you really think they are designed to appeal to ugly instincts? That is really funny. They are designed to be or resemble military rifles.
And I do not have an assault rifle, but what does that have to do with the price of tea in china? But the facts are that lots of people do watch them.
That's not the argument I'm talking about. The meaningful argument is about whether you have the votes.
In terms of popular votes, you don't. In terms of intimidation of enough Republican members of the House to block passage, you very well may.
Whether you want to ban assault rifles is pretty much based on your ideology. I'm not going to argue with you about that.
The politics of it is going to be interesting. Right now, it looks like Congress has decided that they'll take the safe course and not rile the NRA. They have primaries to worry about.
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