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Generally the one that makes it illegal. For the AR platform, for instance, that would be the full-auto trigger group and a lower receiver drilled for a third

Generally the one that makes it illegal. For the AR platform, for instance, that would be the full-auto trigger group and a lower receiver drilled for a third hole to accommodate it. Some pro-gun people have gone to great lengths to find loopholes in the machine gun laws, and most of them are currently tied up in litigation with the ATF.

lazide 3y ago
Ah, but you said it yourself. Is the third hole the problem? Or the drop in auto sear? Or the combination? According to the ATF, it’s any of the three of course. Plus anything else that they don’t like.
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  In absence of an easy definition, what is illegal should be the gun which has the capability that is banned. If someone wraps a shoestring around a trigger group to make it "automatic", boom, it's an automatic weapon, seize the gun and arrest the citizen. It's the characteristic. It's why banning guns based off scary black foregrips is silly. If we were to limit guns meaningfully in the US, we should ban all semi-automatic weapons with interchangeable magazines. You still have bolt actions, revolvers, shotguns, but this lowers rate of fire/reload time in combination well enough to meaningfully encumber terrorists. For the 2A crowd ( of which I am a tepid member), my main principle is that citizens should be no less armed than their domestic law enforcement. So if we as a country made such a change, we would have to set a date past which domestic law enforcement must also switch back to revolvers and shotguns only. And now we really live in a fantasy world! Truly, it would be better for society to be less armed, but we're past the point of no return. I say this as someone who owns close to a dozen firearms, including mosins, AR-15 and several semi-automatic pistols.
  - lazide 3y ago
    Yup. And it always was, near as I can tell. For a long time it’s been about the PR and how it ‘feels’ when selling the law though, not about actually solving a real problem. The reason why Law Enforcement is never going to do that is because they regularly run across criminals that are already better armed than they are. LAPD started carrying AR-15s (and for many units full auto M4s) because of the North Hollywood bank shootout [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout] for instance. And there have been many instances since then. This isn’t a theoretical concern for normal folks either, even in the Bay Area. Just a few years ago, there was an attempted home invasion robbery in Sunnyvale by someone armed with what clearly would be classified as an assault rifle in CAlifornia, with what looked like a drum magazine. [https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/police-2-armed-suspects-attempt-to-enter-sunnyvale-home-overnight/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/police-2-armed...] Both are major felonies to possess in California. Which, of course, isn’t likely to stop someone who was clearly intent on committing several felonies already. They never caught them, so it wasn’t clear if it was fully automatic or not. Thankfully the owner was suspicious enough it didn’t turn into an actual home invasion, and Sunnyvale has enough bored cops the perps bugged out before they could force the issue. But this isn’t that unusual or isolated of an incident. And very few places are as well run as Sunnyvale. The laws definitely stop anyone law abiding from having something similar. So why should someone law abiding be willfully handicapped against something like that? Cop or civilian? We can argue training or licensing, burden of proof to show you’re law abiding, or whatever - but that’s not the state of the situation in CAlifornia as I’m sure you’re aware. Or most of the other states where possession of those things is illegal. It’s just flat out illegal - unless you work for the police, anyway.
    - unethical_ban 3y ago
      I think we see the same picture. Well, finally, I would say that a blanket ban on the sale and manufacture of new semiautos with switchable mags would very likely make them disappear over time the way automatics would, for criminals as well. Then you aren't criminalizing their possession, but the supply will naturally go down. I get your point about how bad guys have good weapons sometimes and so people and cops need to be armed, too.
      - lazide 3y ago
        Yup. It would reduce supply significantly, and frequency they show up for sure. But as I noted in another reply, Europe is about as restrictive as it comes and you still end up with things like [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66059738.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66059738.amp].
      - psunavy03 3y ago
        > Well, finally, I would say that a blanket ban on the sale and manufacture of new semiautos with switchable mags would very likely make them disappear over time the way automatics would, for criminals as well. Then you aren't criminalizing their possession, but the supply will naturally go down.* I don't support the most extremist takes on it, but with comments like this, you aren't a "tepid 2A supporter." You flat out oppose it, so let's at least clear the air and be honest.
hajile 3y ago
It goes WAY beyond that. In an AR-15, if you put a dot of paint where you would drill the hole for the pin that makes it automatically, that prison time even if it’s never drilled and it’s physically impossible to install the pin for the auto seer. Likewise, a guy recently got put in prison for painting the design for an automatic part on a piece of sheet metal. The ATF needs to be reigned in hard. Information isn’t the same as doing.

lazide 3y ago

Ah, but you said it yourself. Is the third hole the problem? Or the drop in auto sear? Or the combination? According to the ATF, it’s any of the three of course. Plus anything else that they don’t like.

unethical_ban 3y ago
In absence of an easy definition, what is illegal should be the gun which has the capability that is banned. If someone wraps a shoestring around a trigger group to make it "automatic", boom, it's an automatic weapon, seize the gun and arrest the citizen. It's the characteristic. It's why banning guns based off scary black foregrips is silly. If we were to limit guns meaningfully in the US, we should ban all semi-automatic weapons with interchangeable magazines. You still have bolt actions, revolvers, shotguns, but this lowers rate of fire/reload time in combination well enough to meaningfully encumber terrorists. For the 2A crowd ( of which I am a tepid member), my main principle is that citizens should be no less armed than their domestic law enforcement. So if we as a country made such a change, we would have to set a date past which domestic law enforcement must also switch back to revolvers and shotguns only. And now we really live in a fantasy world! Truly, it would be better for society to be less armed, but we're past the point of no return. I say this as someone who owns close to a dozen firearms, including mosins, AR-15 and several semi-automatic pistols.
- lazide 3y ago
  Yup. And it always was, near as I can tell. For a long time it’s been about the PR and how it ‘feels’ when selling the law though, not about actually solving a real problem. The reason why Law Enforcement is never going to do that is because they regularly run across criminals that are already better armed than they are. LAPD started carrying AR-15s (and for many units full auto M4s) because of the North Hollywood bank shootout [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout] for instance. And there have been many instances since then. This isn’t a theoretical concern for normal folks either, even in the Bay Area. Just a few years ago, there was an attempted home invasion robbery in Sunnyvale by someone armed with what clearly would be classified as an assault rifle in CAlifornia, with what looked like a drum magazine. [https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/police-2-armed-suspects-attempt-to-enter-sunnyvale-home-overnight/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/police-2-armed...] Both are major felonies to possess in California. Which, of course, isn’t likely to stop someone who was clearly intent on committing several felonies already. They never caught them, so it wasn’t clear if it was fully automatic or not. Thankfully the owner was suspicious enough it didn’t turn into an actual home invasion, and Sunnyvale has enough bored cops the perps bugged out before they could force the issue. But this isn’t that unusual or isolated of an incident. And very few places are as well run as Sunnyvale. The laws definitely stop anyone law abiding from having something similar. So why should someone law abiding be willfully handicapped against something like that? Cop or civilian? We can argue training or licensing, burden of proof to show you’re law abiding, or whatever - but that’s not the state of the situation in CAlifornia as I’m sure you’re aware. Or most of the other states where possession of those things is illegal. It’s just flat out illegal - unless you work for the police, anyway.
  - unethical_ban 3y ago
    I think we see the same picture. Well, finally, I would say that a blanket ban on the sale and manufacture of new semiautos with switchable mags would very likely make them disappear over time the way automatics would, for criminals as well. Then you aren't criminalizing their possession, but the supply will naturally go down. I get your point about how bad guys have good weapons sometimes and so people and cops need to be armed, too.
    - lazide 3y ago
      Yup. It would reduce supply significantly, and frequency they show up for sure. But as I noted in another reply, Europe is about as restrictive as it comes and you still end up with things like [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66059738.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66059738.amp].
    - psunavy03 3y ago
      > Well, finally, I would say that a blanket ban on the sale and manufacture of new semiautos with switchable mags would very likely make them disappear over time the way automatics would, for criminals as well. Then you aren't criminalizing their possession, but the supply will naturally go down.* I don't support the most extremist takes on it, but with comments like this, you aren't a "tepid 2A supporter." You flat out oppose it, so let's at least clear the air and be honest.

hajile 3y ago

It goes WAY beyond that. In an AR-15, if you put a dot of paint where you would drill the hole for the pin that makes it automatically, that prison time even if it’s never drilled and it’s physically impossible to install the pin for the auto seer. Likewise, a guy recently got put in prison for painting the design for an automatic part on a piece of sheet metal. The ATF needs to be reigned in hard. Information isn’t the same as doing.