They’re looking
I’d like to give a shout-out to my homie Ray-ray from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce Implementation Center.
Given the ATF’s recent ruling that the Akins Accelerator is a machine gun after having ruled it wasn’t (be wary of fickle bureaucrats), there have been quite a few searches for Akins Accelerator landing at this site from various .gov agencies, including:
U.S. Dept. of Commerce Implementation Center
DOJ
Dept. of Treasury
Office of asset forfeiture
NYC.gov
And they’ve been hanging out for a while when reading. I never bought one but was going to after I got my Christmas shopping done. Guess that’s out of the question now.
Just a warning that they’re looking. Careful out there and don’t do anything stupid. My advice if you have one is disassemble the unit now and keep checking the AA website for updates. And avoid speculation and that crazy-ass gun-nut talk we sometimes engage in.
Update: And I’m fully aware that there are a few friendlies out there that read the site and this is not an attack on you (hi, guys!). And don’t take it as such.
Update: First report of confiscation:
My AA was confiscated today
Are customer lists being provided to the BATFE? I had two agents come to my house today and request that I turn over my “machine gun”. I complied.
Update and bump: Advice from a subgunner:
Don’t fill out an abandonment form if they come for it because you will never get it back. Not sure if you have a choice but ask to get recipt that they have it so if the outcome is reversed you can get it back.
The Akins folks are challenging the law. Get a reciept so that if they win, you get yours back.
Oh, and call your lawyer if you own an AA. Now.
Update: link to confiscation is gone. Someone at subguns yanked it.
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Update: Statement from the Akins folks:
Allegations are being posted on the Web about ATF Agents showing up on customer doorsteps and confiscating product. This is not happening. Please consult the company webpage http://www.firefaster.com/ regularly and treat it as your only reliable source of information. All updates will be made to this page first.
Attorneys for Akins Group Inc. have submitted a written Compliance Plan which is under review by ATF. Upon agreement on the details by all parties, those instructions will be posted here.
If accepted by ATF, that Compliance Plan will contain instructions which, if followed by consumers, will eliminate the need for any face-to-face interaction with any law enforcement people from any agency.
And what is said plan?
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December 15th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Heh. The BATF already has my number because of my C&R license 😉
December 15th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Oh yeah, well they sat on my couch and we had a good little chat about building AKs.
But that’s post for another day.
December 15th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
If the accelerater was initially not qualified as a machinge gun, why would the ATF have a list of buyers?
December 15th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
DK, i think some folks are perusing the internet starting rumors.
December 15th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Because most people bought them on credit cards? They could get a pretty sizeable list unless there were people buying them and reselling them.
Personally I suspect they will be grandfathered. I knew I should have bought like 20 of them when I heard about them, but I was just about to head out to law school and didnt want to take a 20,000 dollar gamble at the time. Whoever bought a pile of those will be sitting on a gold mine once they are registered.
December 15th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Also filed in the missed opportunities column was only buying 1 saiga-12 when they were 190 bucks each. I had the money back then and I knew they would go up in value, but I didnt plunk it down.
December 15th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Oh yeah, well they sat on my couch and we had a good little chat about building AKs.
That’s a story I’d like to hear.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
You have to understand what the Atkins Co. lawyers are trying to do. They are simultaneously tring to save the corporation and the owner. Both are seriously at risk, legally.
No offense to Atkins corp, they’re on our side, but their statement, flying in the face of fact as it seems to do, was written by their lawyers. Lawyers have this thing called “deniability”. If they haven’t been served with a statement from the AA owners attesting to the fact that their systems were seized, they can say that they don’t know about it, and if they don’t know about it, it LEGALLY DIDN’T HAPPEN, so they can then post a blurb saying it isn’t happening.
I think “BJ” Clinton did that a few times during his impeachment investigation.
Yep, the old deniability ruse. Fools some of the people some of the time.
December 16th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Also, no offense to the BATFE sloggers who have to implement this foolish ruling from their boss. They have to go round up some AAs, and what easier way to do that is there besides searching the ‘Net for those who might have written that they own one?
BTW, as I understand the principle behind the AA, it adds a second operating system to the autoloading rifle. The primary operating system is blowback, but the design of the AA seems to add recoil operation to the action. When the weapon is first fired, and reloads the chamber, it has done so by the original (legal) semi-auto blowback system. But the recoiling action then enables a second round to be fired as a slam-fire, and at a sufficiently short interval that the weapon may be fired at a rate of over 10 rounds per second. The effect of that combined system is full-auto rapid fire.
I’d bet that on first consideration, the BATFE didn’t consider the overall scope of the entire system, they just considered what each of the action operating systems did separately. Maybe their lawyer advised them that they had to interpret it that way.
Here’s an analogy, see if it passes your test.
If I buy a gasoline-driven vehicle that has a 200-hp engine, and my insurance limits my premium to a sedan rate because of the modest output of that engine, as opposed to the much higher sportscar rate for the same car with a high-output engine, but then I trick out the engine with all sorts of bolt-on stuff that adds 400 horsepower to it, I may get by with the low rate UNTIL the insurance company reads that I’ve just won Street Comp class with the car at my local dragstrip.
Granted, the insurance companies don’t go out of their way to look for this sort of cheating, but it’s cheating none the less. If a claim arises with that tricked-out supercar, they are going to refuse to pay it and may even backbill me for the premium increase if they can show that I cheated them. The least that they will do is cancel my policy.
As the Atkins Accelerator gained more sales and notoriety as a “legal” machinegun, there was no way that the BATFE could overlook the overall effect of the device: that adding the modification gave the weapon the capability to be fired like a machine gun, and that was the reason that people were paying a thousand bucks for an “accessory” to put on a rifle that only cost $200 new.
Something, either incompetence in their evaluation, or a twisted legal concept that was applied, required the BATFE to give the device the green light at first. As the reputation of the device built up, there was no way that the BATFE could overlook it, because ANY semi-auto blowback operated rifle could be modified the same way, and that loophole is big enough to arm the entire population with.
December 21st, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Some of you guys are mis interpreting how this works. You do not change any part of the rifle you just stick it on springs. The rifle does NOT slam fire. A slam fire is when the firing pin gets stuck in the bolt for some reason be it dry firing, built up carbon and crud, that red shellac they put on ak ammo, etc.
You still have to pull the trigger with something when the rifle gets pushed forward one pull of that trigger for each shot. You can’t flip a switch and make it shoot many rounds with a single trigger pull. This is why its not a machine gun. Thats the law. There is no “spirit of the law” as that fool Feinstein said once. Its either an apple or an orange. There is no such thing as an orple. They them selves recieved a copy for (an SKS) evaluation and deemed it not to be a machine gun while in their hands anymore than they would call a rocking chair a machine gun. Thats all this thing does. Allow the rifle to rock back and forth still delivering one shot per trigger activation. The fact that you can shoot it at a higher and more even rate does not change its operation.
Riverdog, the 10-22 can fire a whole lot faster than 10 rounds per second. Look on Gungarage.com where they have the hellfire spring for sale and look at the video they claim all the firearms are legal semi auto. (they had it but they claim they are sold out and took off the video.) The one with the cool guitar music at the end. I think its called the “TAC TRIGGER AT THE END”. {http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zynxN7UP9e8 } I looked on you tube but they don’t have it. I do so I will try to put it up as an mpg file but its only a .wmv which they don’t take, if you would like to see it. Just search for TAC -TRIGGER or AK47 NUTTER. They show one where the guy just holds the trigger back (as far as I can tell by that poor video) and a bunch of shells get spit out but it doesn’t work like the akins. That also happens with the ak at the end “be one of the lucky ones and get your tac trigger–TODAY!”. As far as the lawyers interpreting anything, you may be right on that one. Better safe than sorry they say. Incompetent/ignorant fools say that.
Your analogy with the insurance may be valid but you have to read the fineprint. It usually says what they cover. Some won’t cover the car if you use it for business such as a taxi. Usually, if you look real close it has a statement about racecars, street racing, speed contests or whatever they call it. They specificly say they don’t underwrite vehicles engaged in those activites. So, if you have an ‘accident’ they will just wash thier hands of you. I heard of of a guy that did that with an autozone engine. It says they are for ‘normal’ use in passenger cars and the warranty is void if you use them for : towing, taxis, speed contests, modify for speed contests, vehicles over 2 tons, etc. The man was not happy he didn’t get his 3rd engine for his 4 ton moving van.
Some say they got greedy and started making these for rifles more powerful than the 10-22 but the letter I have seen was for not a 10-22 but for an sks firing of course the world’s most popular cartridge and since its name is associated with the ak 47 which most people think is necessarily automatic, after some reflection, decided it would be better to call the goose a duck even if its not. Their sample broke off from the stock. If you look at the pictures, what happens when the nylon bushings start to wear down all crooked and this starts to jam? Thats another deficiency of this design aside from the plastic stock that won’t hold up to repeated flexing.