The Firing Line Forums

Go Back   The Firing Line Forums > The Conference Center > Law and Civil Rights

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old October 21, 2019, 06:17 PM   #1
wolfwood
Member
 
Join Date: August 10, 2012
Posts: 31
NRA Board Member Tom King speaks out against home built firearms

NRA Board Member and head of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Tom King, speaking out against our ability to legally make firearms for our personal collections and use. I think the bare minimum when you are paid to be a gun rights leader is to not come out in favor of gun control.







https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/in...SvxYIJIbDvrzvQ


The head of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association said the sale of ghost guns is a growing problem.

“These '80 percent' guns are providing a way for prohibited people to buy a firearm,” Tom King of the NYSRPA said, referring to people who don’t have a gun permit or are otherwise prohibited from possessing a gun.

He said self-assembled guns provide a way for competition shooters to make a custom-fitted firearm. Such weapons should have serial numbers and be registered — and any new legislation should consider such a provision, he said. But it appears increasingly, King said, people trying to evade the law are the ones buying and selling self-assembled weapons.

“It appears what was meant to be something for competitive shooters and serious shooters to build their own unique firearm may be turning into a criminal enterprise,” King said.
wolfwood is offline  
Old October 21, 2019, 06:59 PM   #2
mikejonestkd
Senior Member
 
Join Date: January 3, 2006
Location: Brockport, NY
Posts: 3,715
Tom King is very well known here in NYS, and not as a friend of the 2A.
__________________
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
mikejonestkd is offline  
Old October 21, 2019, 07:07 PM   #3
American Man
Senior Member
 
Join Date: June 21, 2018
Posts: 218
They are probably only worried that they won't be able to blame the midwestern and southern states anymore for all the crime and violence in all the anti 2A states.
American Man is offline  
Old October 21, 2019, 07:15 PM   #4
zukiphile
Senior Member
 
Join Date: December 13, 2005
Posts: 4,436
Quote:
“These '80 percent' guns are providing a way for prohibited people to buy a firearm,” Tom King of the NYSRPA said, referring to people who don’t have a gun permit or are otherwise prohibited from possessing a gun.
My understanding is that this isn't a problem. ARs don't turn up in criminal shootings much, and I've never read that one of these high profile shootings involved an 80% lower. If it had happened, I'd expect dozens of NYT stories calling for an end to the 80% "loophole".
zukiphile is offline  
Old October 21, 2019, 07:25 PM   #5
Aguila Blanca
Staff
 
Join Date: September 25, 2008
Location: CONUS
Posts: 18,414
"Prohibited people" don't buy 80% receivers and build guns. "Prohibited people" buy stolen Glocks on dark street corners, late at night.
__________________
NRA Life Member / Certified Instructor
NRA Chief RSO / CMP RSO
1911 Certified Armorer
Jeepaholic
Aguila Blanca is offline  
Old October 21, 2019, 08:08 PM   #6
rickyrick
Senior Member
 
Join Date: March 15, 2010
Posts: 8,233
Nah, I bet most 80% receivers end up as junk due to the ineptitude of the people attempting to finish it...

... I mean, come on, there’s people that screw up barrel nuts and hand—guards.

On a serious note, I foresee a future when all rifle parts are serialized from cradle to grave.
rickyrick is offline  
Old October 21, 2019, 08:46 PM   #7
zukiphile
Senior Member
 
Join Date: December 13, 2005
Posts: 4,436
Quote:
Originally Posted by RR
Nah, I bet most 80% receivers end up as junk due to the ineptitude of the people attempting to finish it...

... I mean, come on, there’s people that screw up barrel nuts and hand—guards.
That's my guess too. I became interested in building ARs so I could make just what I wanted, and do it with my very limited mechanical skills. If I had the sort of skill to make my own lowers, maybe I'd have opted for something that included real craft.

I can understand someone being proud of having finished a lower so it looks good and works correctly. It's harder to understand someone doing it for any practical reason.
zukiphile is offline  
Old October 21, 2019, 08:57 PM   #8
TXAZ
Senior Member
 
Join Date: September 5, 2010
Location: McMurdo Sound Texas
Posts: 4,322
Quote:
Originally Posted by rickyrick View Post
Nah, I bet most 80% receivers end up as junk due to the ineptitude of the people attempting to finish it...

... I mean, come on, there’s people that screw up barrel nuts and hand—guards.
BINGO!

I'm confident that people don't build an 80%'er to resell, (because they know the value on an open market is virtually nothing. And it could be a poor performer or potentially dangerous.

But I also understand that many people buy the 80%'ers as a protest against government policy A, B or C.

Given the choice of a Saturday night special manufactured by a low end "Jimenez" et al, vs an 80%, I'd take the Jimenez of an 80%'er.
__________________

Cave illos in guns et backhoes
TXAZ is offline  
Old October 21, 2019, 08:57 PM   #9
Pathfinder45
Senior Member
 
Join Date: January 7, 2008
Posts: 3,224
So, then, it sounds like the NRA has been infiltrated by its enemies?
Pathfinder45 is offline  
Old October 21, 2019, 09:19 PM   #10
FrankenMauser
Senior Member
 
Join Date: August 25, 2008
Location: In the valley above the plain
Posts: 13,392
I don't trust any political group in NYS to be above the board.
They're all shady.

Quote:
Nah, I bet most 80% receivers end up as junk due to the ineptitude of the people attempting to finish it...

... I mean, come on, there’s people that screw up barrel nuts and hand—guards.
I wouldn't be surprised, at all.
I did read (here or another forum) about a guy a couple years ago that went through six polymer 80% lowers before he got one that would function; but even it wasn't perfect.

I bought two, about five (six?) years ago, when the EP Armory "EP80" was new on the market. (And jigs were $150+ steel contraptions with two dozen parts.)
Both lowers had crap dimensions, before I even touched them. And I quickly discovered that the polymer being used (as least at that time) was extremely brittle, didn't have enough glass fiber content, and had a LOT of inclusions and voids. It was like working with low quality resin castings.

I drilled and machined them anyway, and made both function. But it wasn't a pleasant experience. I did enjoy making them work - that was the whole point of the exercise (not for 'ghost gun' or sticking it to the gub'ment) - but the end product sucked.
They sit in the bottom of one of the safes now, with my other garbage receivers and projects waiting their turn on the bench.

I hear that current quality is much better, but I consider my skill level to be above average. If I had trouble, simply due to native dimensions and low quality polymer, I'm sure the average idiot would end up with an even lower quality end product.
__________________
Don't even try it. It's even worse than the internet would lead you to believe.
FrankenMauser is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 07:56 AM   #11
MTT TL
Senior Member
 
Join Date: October 21, 2009
Location: Quadling Country
Posts: 2,780
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aguila Blanca View Post
"Prohibited people" don't buy 80% receivers and build guns. "Prohibited people" buy stolen Glocks on dark street corners, late at night.
Except for all those prohibited people who DID buy 80% receivers and build them and then went on to commit crimes with them. Let's not stick our collective heads in the sand and pretend it didn't happen. It may not be the most common way criminals get guns, but building a gun from an 80% isn't all that common anyway.
__________________
Thus a man should endeavor to reach this high place of courage with all his heart, and, so trying, never be backward in war.
MTT TL is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 10:59 AM   #12
zukiphile
Senior Member
 
Join Date: December 13, 2005
Posts: 4,436
Quote:
Except for all those prohibited people who DID buy 80% receivers and build them and then went on to commit crimes with them. Let's not stick our collective heads in the sand and pretend it didn't happen. It may not be the most common way criminals get guns, but building a gun from an 80% isn't all that common anyway.
If the country has about 300,000,000 people with about 14000 killed with guns, but only about 300 of those, about 2%, accounting for use of rifles of all types, how common can it be for an AR to be used, and then from that small number for a shooting to involve an 80% lower?

This seems as if it must be a vanishly rare event.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s...ta-table-8.xls
zukiphile is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 01:35 PM   #13
MTT TL
Senior Member
 
Join Date: October 21, 2009
Location: Quadling Country
Posts: 2,780
More like 325M people in the US.

The rarity of an event does not change it's impact though. Give about 20 illegal aliens box cutters let them use them to take over and crash a few planes in to buildings one day and the next thing you know the country will be in the longest war in it's history and the most expensive war in the history of humankind. Laws will be changed, the constitution tested and trampled upon and billions of people will have to take off their shoes before getting on a plane.

And here are nearly 20 prohibited people who built their own guns, including one mass shooter:

https://thefiringline.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=603981


A prohibited incel, loser who is fixated on mass shootings is exactly the kind of guy who will build his own gun.
__________________
Thus a man should endeavor to reach this high place of courage with all his heart, and, so trying, never be backward in war.
MTT TL is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 01:55 PM   #14
zukiphile
Senior Member
 
Join Date: December 13, 2005
Posts: 4,436
EDIT: I found the part of the article in that thread indicating ATF suspicion that an 80% lower was used in a 2013 shooting.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MTT TL
A prohibited incel, loser who is fixated on mass shootings is exactly the kind of guy who will build his own gun.
Is that the kind of guy who would obey a serial number requirement on his home-made lower?

Last edited by zukiphile; October 22, 2019 at 02:03 PM.
zukiphile is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 02:45 PM   #15
MTT TL
Senior Member
 
Join Date: October 21, 2009
Location: Quadling Country
Posts: 2,780
Quote:
Originally Posted by zukiphile View Post
EDIT: I found the part of the article in that thread indicating ATF suspicion that an 80% lower was used in a 2013 shooting.



Is that the kind of guy who would obey a serial number requirement on his home-made lower?
That isn't the point. The point is that someone made a statement that was patently untrue.

Prohibited people DO build their own guns.
__________________
Thus a man should endeavor to reach this high place of courage with all his heart, and, so trying, never be backward in war.
MTT TL is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 03:07 PM   #16
zukiphile
Senior Member
 
Join Date: December 13, 2005
Posts: 4,436
MTT TL, you are correct that the statement is literally false. I had allowed for an implied generalization rather than an absolute.

Quote:
"Prohibited people" don't [ordinarily] buy 80% receivers and build guns. "Prohibited people" would [more routinely]buy stolen Glocks on dark street corners, late at night.
My inferred qualifications bracketed. I wouldn't consider such a rare problem worth a new law.

Of greater concern to me than the serialization of 80% lowers is conflation of that issue with assembling rifles. I've assembled lots of rifles, but always with a lower from an FFL.
zukiphile is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 03:31 PM   #17
rickyrick
Senior Member
 
Join Date: March 15, 2010
Posts: 8,233
Would still seem easier to steal a gun and grind off the serial numbers, or buy a gun from a gun show in Indiana than to hack out an 80% lower.

The second you plan to attack someone illegally with a gun... seems you’ve already crossed the prohibited person threshold, after that it’s just tack—on charges.
rickyrick is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 05:49 PM   #18
MTT TL
Senior Member
 
Join Date: October 21, 2009
Location: Quadling Country
Posts: 2,780
Quote:
Originally Posted by rickyrick View Post
Would still seem easier to steal a gun and grind off the serial numbers, or buy a gun from a gun show in Indiana than to hack out an 80% lower.

The second you plan to attack someone illegally with a gun... seems you’ve already crossed the prohibited person threshold, after that it’s just tack—on charges.
The overwhelming majority of guns stolen are handguns. It is a lot tougher to steal a rifle. People leave guns in their vehicles all the time and don't lock them. If I were a criminal I could go tonight and open the doors on 25 random unlocked vehicles and find at least two, maybe three guns depending upon the neighborhood. They would all be handguns though.

For a rifle I have to either burgle a house or gun shop. It might take a lot of houses unless I know someone. Gun shops have alarms, cameras and the cops check them regularly. These are not nearly as safe and easy as opening the door to an unlocked car.

If I really wanted a long gun and had money or drugs I guess I could buy one in private party sale off of an internet gun trader but it would be a lot cheaper to rob them if I can get them to meet me in a good location, maybe late in the evening and I bring some friends. I might trade drugs with someone I knew to be a criminal who had already burgled them.

Going to a gun show, where there are police everywhere, cameras everywhere, paying real money, paying a gun show premium price and then letting everyone in the city see me carrying it out would be the absolute worst option. Depending upon the show, a parking lot deal PPS might be a thing, but it could also be the police so best avoided altogether.

But if I knew a guy who helped make guns? The guns were cheap and not stolen, I could get whatever I wanted and not some plastic 3D printed garbage, it was done privately and I really, really wanted a long gun? Sure making one is a good option.

Criminals have made guns and other weapons for as long as there has been crime. Guns generally were all low quality type zip guns and the like. But this is the age of the internet. Gotta use that new technology.
__________________
Thus a man should endeavor to reach this high place of courage with all his heart, and, so trying, never be backward in war.
MTT TL is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 05:55 PM   #19
Ben Dover
Senior Member
 
Join Date: April 11, 2013
Location: High up in the Rocky Moun
Posts: 665
Let's not get too frenzied just yet.

Stating that people should obey the law is not an anti-gun position.
__________________
The soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as the prisoner's chains. Dwight Eisenhower

It is very important what a man stands for.
But it is far more important what a man refuses to stand for.
Ben Dover is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 06:48 PM   #20
rickyrick
Senior Member
 
Join Date: March 15, 2010
Posts: 8,233
Quote:
Going to a gun show,
I was on a break from work but I meant identify my gun show comment as sarcasm towards the anti—gun belief that high crime in Chicago is due to people buying guns at shows in Indiana
rickyrick is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 06:50 PM   #21
Aguila Blanca
Staff
 
Join Date: September 25, 2008
Location: CONUS
Posts: 18,414
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Dover
Stating that people should obey the law is not an anti-gun position.
But stating that the government will require people to sell their guns "back" to the government or else the aforementioned government will come get 'em is rather an anti-gun position.
__________________
NRA Life Member / Certified Instructor
NRA Chief RSO / CMP RSO
1911 Certified Armorer
Jeepaholic
Aguila Blanca is offline  
Old October 22, 2019, 06:57 PM   #22
MTT TL
Senior Member
 
Join Date: October 21, 2009
Location: Quadling Country
Posts: 2,780
Quote:
Originally Posted by rickyrick View Post
I was on a break from work but I meant identify my gun show comment as sarcasm towards the anti—gun belief that high crime in Chicago is due to people buying guns at shows in Indiana
I thought that was odd. Not that it couldn't happen but most criminals are not that dumb, and we are talking about some low hanging fruit out there.
__________________
Thus a man should endeavor to reach this high place of courage with all his heart, and, so trying, never be backward in war.
MTT TL is offline  
Old October 23, 2019, 01:17 PM   #23
NJgunowner
Senior Member
 
Join Date: February 13, 2009
Location: NJ
Posts: 1,254
I don't really mind the "need a serial #" part. I object to the "register" thing though. If the state/feds want to know that serial #123456 is an ar-15 more power to them, if they want to know I'm the one who owns it they've gone to far. Living in NJ and having to register handguns annoys the crap out of me even after 25 years of dealing with it.
NJgunowner is offline  
Old October 23, 2019, 03:28 PM   #24
Aguila Blanca
Staff
 
Join Date: September 25, 2008
Location: CONUS
Posts: 18,414
If there's no need to register it ... what purpose does a serial number serve?
__________________
NRA Life Member / Certified Instructor
NRA Chief RSO / CMP RSO
1911 Certified Armorer
Jeepaholic
Aguila Blanca is offline  
Old October 23, 2019, 04:30 PM   #25
Ben Dover
Senior Member
 
Join Date: April 11, 2013
Location: High up in the Rocky Moun
Posts: 665
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aguila Blanca View Post
If there's no need to register it ... what purpose does a serial number serve?
For one thing, it will identify it if it's stolen.
__________________
The soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as the prisoner's chains. Dwight Eisenhower

It is very important what a man stands for.
But it is far more important what a man refuses to stand for.
Ben Dover is offline  
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 02:46 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
This site and contents, including all posts, Copyright © 1998-2021 S.W.A.T. Magazine
Copyright Complaints: Please direct DMCA Takedown Notices to the registered agent: thefiringline.com
Page generated in 0.12912 seconds with 10 queries