I’m sure the ATF will get right on this
Some idiot decided to destroy his AR-15 after the Florida shooting to keep a gun off the street or something. The problem for this guy is that he just cut the barrel. That gun can still fire. But it won’t cycle. So he has, inadvertently, made a short barreled rifle, which is illegal.
At least this other idiot did it right.
February 21st, 2018 at 9:02 pm
Pretty sure he didn’t. ATF generally requires 3-4 diagonal cuts with a torch that displaces at least 1/4″ of material, so that the parts are basically impossible to weld back together. Looks like he just used a chop saw which doesn’t cut it. (pun intended)
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:47 am
Saw cut doesn’t cut it any more.
Shattering the receiver also works. I made key chains from a couple of serial/logo areas of destroyed M16A1’s that were from receivers that had been masticated by something.
February 22nd, 2018 at 12:18 pm
What … sad displays of magical thinking and totemization, the entire lot of it.
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:04 pm
“LaRoque said his AR-15s weren’t necessary….”
My understanding is that such things aren’t necessary, right up until they really, really are.
February 22nd, 2018 at 2:04 pm
I still say idiot 1’s looks more like an airsoft.
February 23rd, 2018 at 9:28 am
During the Obama Administration, 7000 select-fire, full-auto (AR-15’s) were purchased, they were called “personal self defense rifles”. But when, semi-auto rifles rifles are in the hands of citizens, they are called “assault weapons” or “assault rifles”. Whatever is banned to us, should also them according to “the equal protection of the laws” (14th Amendment)!
February 23rd, 2018 at 5:58 pm
1) The Equal Protection Clause applies to the states, not the Federal government. The Feds have to do “equal protection” under the Due Process Clause of the 5th Amendment; the 14th is incorporating that to the States.
2) That is not and never has been how it works; the Clause is about policies being applied on criteria unrelated to the lawful goal in question (unlawful goals are themselves unlawful).
Given that the Supreme Court agrees that the NFA is per se lawful, it’d take a lot more than “but government employees on the job get to have guns we don’t!” to make a successful Due Process or Equal Protection challenge.
“Government employees are special and different” is almost always bad policy, but not unconstitutional per se.
(IT might almost have some traction, sort of, if government employees were exempt from the NFA as persons, even while off-duty.
But their PDWs are for their jobs, and they’re still subject to the NFA for anything they own as their own, and in their free time.)
February 25th, 2018 at 10:45 am
“Congress can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. “This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. If this link between the two is absent, every government degenerates into tyranny.” –James Madison, Federalist No. 57