I’ve noted in the past how gun laws (notably the Assault Weapons Ban) had made it hard for troops to get adequate supplies. For example, the military magazines for the M9 pistol had spring issues and there was a shortage of the magazines and springs because there was no civilian market for regular capacity magazines (see here and here). Also, there were reports that AR15 regular capacity magazines were harder to come by because the Army’s supply was old and no one was making new ones without an interest from the civilian market.

Now, gun laws are again having a detrimental effect on the efforts in Iraq. An acquaintance of mine has accepted a job as a contractor in Iraq. He is a policeman and has been contracted to serve in a consulting capacity with Iraqi police forces for one year. It’s a sweet deal in that he gets a pretty healthy salary; three trips home for vacation; and his wages are exempt from federal taxation. Of course, it does run the risk of getting him killed. There are many, many other policemen doing the same thing.

He must provide his own weapons for the job (though I would assume he’d have access to some when he gets there). As such, I was asked if I could build him some AR15s, if he bought the parts then I would assemble them. He wants an AR15 for a variety of reasons but notably because with the US military there, parts can be found. He wants two AR15s. One with a 10.5 inch barrel and telescoping stock (at least the AWB is gone, and he can get a telescoping stock legally) for use inside a vehicle; and one with a 16 inch barrel for longer range stuff. I informed him that the 16 inch would be no problem at all. However, to get a 10.5 inch barreled AR, he would have to go the National Firearms Act route and fill out an application to make a short-barreled-rifle; pay the $200 tax; get approval from the chief law enforcement officer in his area; and then wait for 3 to 6 months for approval from the ATF. He’s leaving sooner than that. And I won’t build one because I’d go to jail.

It never came up, but I’m sure he would want them to have full-auto/three shot burst fire control groups as well. If I were in Iraq, I would. Of course, if I built one of those for him, that would be making a machine gun and he and I would go to jail. And, since 1986, there can be no new transfers of machine guns to civilians.

So, we have a guy going to Iraq, contracted by the feds, who can’t equip himself with the weapons he needs/wants. Now, he can wait and get those weapons when he arrives in Iraq. And he could spend about $100 on an AK-47 off the street while he’s there too. However, he wants to get his weapons now so that he can function test them, take them to the range, break them in, and familiarize himself with these weapons before arriving in the combat zone. It’d suck to get there and realize your AR was faulty.

Posted in uncategorized on March 28th, 2005 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |