11 ms·
I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable
- mig39 13y agoSo he wears eye protection when using tools, but not when test-firing a homemade AK-47? Idiot.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- shenanigoat 13y agoTo be fair, you don't know how many rounds he fired before the pic was taken.
- uptown 13y agoThe picture caption is "Firing my new AK. The rifles are popular because they work—every time." ... and his finger is on the trigger, which you're trained never to do unless you're prepared to fire ... so are you assuming he put his glasses on after he raised it into the firing position, and put his finger on the trigger?
- shenanigoat 13y agoTo be fair, you don't know how many rounds he fired before the pic was taken.
- shenanigoat 13y agoTo be fair, you don't know how many rounds he fired before the pic was taken.
- shenanigoat 13y agoTo be fair, you don't know how many rounds he fired before the pic was taken.
- Cushman 13y agoObviously you should always always always have eyes and ears on when shooting. That said, an AK is one of the easiest guns to build from a kit and the bolt and barrel are both professionally machined steel, so if it chambers a round it's probably safe to fire. The guy's not completely nuts.
- presidentender 13y agoThis has been legal for a very long time, and is the cause of approximately no violence. Much as with the discussion of 3d printed firearms, it's not so much that the behaviors of gun owners and gun builders has changed as it is that the prevailing discourse in the political arena and the news is different. The author refrains from espousing an opinion in the piece, but only just, and frankly I disagree with him. The rifles created at build parties don't cause crime. Violence in general is falling, and "gun crime" with it. Occasional, prominent tragedies are emotionally shattering, but making policy based on emotion has served us poorly for decades. Relevant previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3019586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3019586
- kunai 13y agoAgreed. This is politically charged linkbait.
- knowtheory 13y agoOh? Is it? How would you have preferred to see this reported? Is it just that Mother Jones published it? Is it something he said? Is it the fact that he destroyed the gun afterwards?
- Cushman 13y ago> How would you have preferred to see this reported? What "this"? That somebody built a rifle from a kit is not exactly newsworthy.
- knowtheory 13y agoHow many people on Hacker News (or hell, in the US in general) do you think have built a rifle from a kit? How many of them do you think understand what a receiver is, or what the difference is between an automatic and semi-automatic? If you genuinely think this is information that more people should not know then say so explicitly. There is a debate about guns going on in the US, whether you like it or not. The question is whether you want people to make informed decisions or not.
- joshguthrie 13y agoIt's not untraceable, I can see his name under the article title.
- jstalin 13y agoConsidering that rifles are used to kill fewer people in the United States than knives, fists, hammers, or bats, Mother Jones' attempt at scaring people about those who build their own guns rings a little hallow. But I get it, AK-47s look scary and so we should all be outraged. https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8 https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/...
- ctide 13y agoYeah, it'd be awesome if everyone knew about this so we could really drive that rifle number up and make it competitive with other kinds of guns. Think of how many people could be brandishing their own unmarked AK-47 instead of having to resort to killing people with bats! So barbaric!
- aidenn0 13y agoI guarantee just the cost of parts for what was built in the article exceeds the budget for most guns used in crime. On top of that it's not at all concealable which makes it even less attractive for crime. In places where you can walk down the street with a rifle and not draw attention, and the markets are flooded with kalishnakov based designs are very prevalent though, and were the market to get flooded, then they would be more common. I don't think enough people are going to hand build these to make that the case in LA though.
- asynchronous13 13y agoHere's a summary of the 2011 data from the linked statistics: 8,583 - Homicides by firearms (all types) 323 - Homicides by rifles 1,694 - Homicides by sharp objects (knives, etc) 496 - Homicides by blunt objects (clubs, etc)
- angersock 13y agoThe full table for firearms (2011) is: Handguns 6220 Rifles 323 Shotguns 356 Other guns 97 Firearms, type not stated 1587 So, er, yeah. GP is correct in their statement that rifles (indeed, it would seem, all longarms) are less favored for homicide than sharp and blunt objects.
- jerrya 13y agoSubstitute "Homebuilt PC without DRM" for AK-47, pretend it was written in 2023, not 2013, and then reread the article as well as the comments at Hacker News.
- DanBC 13y agoYour analogy fails because a homebuilt PC without DRM is currently illegal under anti-circumvention laws. EDIT: Obviously the problem is with circumventing the DRM - but in the context of the post I'm responding to (people home building machines with no DRM) I thought I was obvious.
- kunai 13y agoSources?
- DanBC 13y agoHere's the 1996 WIPO wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIPO_Copyright_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIPO_Copyright_Treaty) Here's the anti circumvention article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention) The problem is in circumventing the DRM, not just having a machine with no DRM on it. But that's the implication in a dystopian future-story where people home build machines with no DRM.
- mikeash 13y agoSay what? What part does my non-homebuilt computer contain that makes it legal, which a DRM-free homebuilt computer would lack, making it illegal?
- DanBC 13y agoRead the post I'm replying to. "Homebuilt PC without DRM" [...] pretend it was written in 2023 The implication is that the machine is built to circumvent DRM, not just to avoid using any DRMd media. Obviously avoiding DRMd media is legal. But using something to circumvent DRM is illegal. To directly answer your question: Licensed software and permission from rights holders.
- ricardobeat 13y agoThankfully this is illegal and will remain so in most of the rest of the world. 3% means there are more than 9.4 million assault rifles in US homes. Are they expecting an invasion?
- jaxb 13y agoThey expect their government to fail them.
- terrble 13y agoIt already has, repeatedly - but that's totally orthogonal. To imply that gun owners are worried about systematic government oppression that would necessitate an uprising is not an accurate portrayal of conventional wisdom, it's a half-assed attempt at interpreting the Constitution and extrapolating gun ownership rationale. But most gun owners in the US (that I know - and I know quite a few) possess them for hunting, collecting, and sport shooting, in that order.
- lotharbot 13y agoI know quite a few who own them for self defense / home defense, as well.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- reader5000 13y agoNo, most gun ownership is motivated by sexual signalling. Especially as blue collar niches are ravaged by automization, immigration, and outsourcing, it is increasingly difficult to for blue collar males to establish a sense of manhood. A small minority turn to gun culture as a means of reestablishing that sense.
- terrble 13y agoTaking it down a psychological path _maybe_ a bit too far to be useful, but accurate.
- stcredzero 13y agoLaws concerning firearms have many parallels to laws involving reverse engineering and programming. The lawmakers are about as ill informed in both cases, and it shows in the resulting laws.
- droithomme 13y agoIs this supposed to be a problem? The government does not need to know about our guns, not how many we have, not what sort they are, and not where we keep them.
- reader5000 13y agoActually society would be much better off if the government tracked such devices. A lot of people interested in gun culture have severe inefficiencies in their cognitive abilities. Almost all mass killings are perpetrated by individuals with severe cognitive disabilities or are on some sort of prescription psychoactive. As a prominent role of government is to protect its citizens from danger, the active tracking of mass-killing devices in the hands of these individuals should be a regular role of government. The situation is completely analogous with automobiles. The government ensures people granted driver's licenses are cognitively capable of safe operation of their vehicle. More importantly, the government tracks vehicles to ensure just compensation for parties injured by the operation of a motor vehicle. The only reason a similar institution has not been built for firearms is a) gun culture represents a small and decreasing minority of Americans and b) legislative capture by the munitions industry.
- hysterix 13y agoWow, where to begin with biased posts like these? >A lot of people interested in gun culture have severe inefficiencies in their cognitive abilities. First off you start off insulting a large group of people, painting broad strokes of assumption. You've already lost the majority of all your credibility (what little you had that is) at this point. >gun culture represents a small and decreasing minority of Americans There are more guns in circulation and owned and in the hands of americans than there has ever been in history prior to this date. Practically all your opinions on gun control and gun ownership are false. I'd tell you to go out and do some ACTUAL research on the subject, but judging by the fact you open your opinion insulting a vast majority of americans for no good reason at all, its falling on deaf ears. I guess I can finish saying that for ignorant people like you, it would be best if you said nothing at all, you are embarrassing yourself.
- MChristopherson 13y agoI scanned through the video included in the link. At the risk of sounding like a militia-bound gun nut, the video got me a bit annoyed: "fully functional AK-47" is tossed about rather often, when in fact the guy simply made a rather heavy hunting rifle. An AK-47, as used throughout the planet, is a machine gun. A fully-automatic machine gun. You hold down the trigger, and the gun begins firing at a high rate until you remove your finger from the trigger, or run out of ammunition. He did not build that. He built a semi-automatic rifle that is functionally equivalent in pretty much every way to a hunting rifle you can buy at your local sporting goods chain store. This harkens back to the "assault rifle" issue, which sees a type of rifle that is in every way equivalent to a semi-automatic hunting rifle labeled as an "assault rifle" because it looks more bad-ass than grandpa's deer rifle. --edit-- I'm kind of ruefully laughing at myself here, as after three years of reading Hacker News, this is the topic that got me to angrily dive to my keyboard to make an account and comment. This from a total urbanite who gets nervous at being more than three blocks from a taxi stand and a wet bar, and who would probably need counseling if confronted by any woodland creature larger than a mid-sized rat.
- maxerickson 13y agoA gun with a limited internal magazine is materially different than a clip ready design though. In the U.S., the legal use of assault rifle has not been particularly confused (it's always meant guns with automatic fire capability), just the sloppy and/or misconstrued use of the term in media and advocacy. Edit: Second paragraph is wrong, see link down thread.
- MChristopherson 13y agoHunting rifles with magazines are quite common. However, you do zero in on the effective difference between supposed "assault rifles" and semi-automatic hunting rifles: the magazine / number of rounds available. I think this is an important point, because when you cut through the furor, that really is the only effective distinction. And it's a heck of a lot more minor a distinction than the more common blending of "fully automatic machine gun" with a semi-auto rifle that merely looks bad ass, is covered with Tactical Stuff (TM), and uses a composite stock instead of wood.
- pragone 13y agoOne more reason why guns laws won't do anything without more information on what exactly they hope to achieve by passing them. I personally enjoy living in a city that bans knives and guns. I find it comforting to know that it's not likely for someone I pass to have a gun. I also can't go a single day without passing a dozen cops. However, there is plenty of data telling us there isn't enough data to make arguments one way or another about gun laws - no consistent, comprehensive studies exist that clearly point to legalizing or banning guns that will make an impact in either direction. I believe in funding studies that can give us an answer to that very problem.
- mikeash 13y ago> I believe in funding studies that can give us an answer to that very problem. Sadly, the gun lobby does not believe in funding such studies. That fact alone is extremely suggestive.
- hga 13y agoNo, we don't believe in funding studies by people who believe that guns are/should be "dirty, deadly and banned" (http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/02/12/why-the-centers-for-disease-control-should-not-receive-gun-research-funding/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/02/12/why-the-cen...). If you're neutral on the subject, you shouldn't want junk science to be funded.
- mikeash 13y agoA rational approach would be to find less biased ways of carrying out the research, not simply banning it.
- hga 13y agoLess biased means not just a different institution, but a different culture, the "public health" culture appears to be totally biased and has published a string of self-refuting junk science papers in the most prestigious journals like the NEJM and JAMA. Who do you suggest?
- powertower 13y agoDoes anyone know how much these kits costs?
- bifrost 13y agoThe piece of sheetmetal likely costs $40-50, the parts kit a couple hundred.
- MichaelApproved 13y agoYes, there is some issue with untraceable weapons but the real problem with 3D guns isn't that they're untraceable, it's that they're undetectable. An attacker could use an all plastic weapon to get past metal detectors in a court house, airplane, and other secure areas.
- fein 13y agoAmmunition is still made of metal. A gun is kind of useless without the stuff that goes boom.
- djahng 13y agoPlease excuse my ignorance on this matter, but why are people so concerned about "untraceable" guns (i.e. guns without serial numbers)? IF a gun is used in a crime, how important is it that there's a serial number stamped on the receiver? As opposed to, say, ballistics showing that a particular gun was used in a crime because of the rifling marks found on the bullet fragments and the firing pin indentation on the shell casing? Sure a serial number will tell who the original purchaser of the firearm was, but that in itself does not necessarily prove that the original owner is the one who committed a crime.
- garbowza 13y agoBecause they can side-step background checks and be resold to anyone.
- bifrost 13y agoAnyone who's not a criminal can buy a gun, thats the law. Background checks may prevent criminals from buying guns, but they often do not because criminals don't buy guns from legal gun dealers or other legal gun owners. They either steal them or they buy them from an illegal dealer. The background check issue is a red herring according to the US-NIJ studies.
- djahng 13y agoWell private gun sale laws vary from state to state. For instance, in Oregon private transfers of firearms are perfectly legal without background checks or going through FFL dealers. So anyone can side-step a background check in a state like Oregon by asking someone else to purchase the gun legally and then give them cash for it. Does that mean we should expect more gun violence in states like Oregon?
- hga 13y agoBackground checks examine the person, not the gun! You may not know this if you've never bought a gun at a gun store, but they call in your identifying information, they say nothing to the Federal government about the gun or guns to be bought except if they include handguns as I recall. There are forms to be filled out that do include recording the serial number, but that came long before the national background check system (1968 vs. mid-90s).
- unimpressive 13y agoSpeaking of loopholes, I find it amusing that HN has found a way to post articles that are ostensibly "interesting to hackers" which allow them to get into heated mainstream political discussion. As it turns out, people who don't want to follow the rules, will find a way to not.
- bifrost 13y agoSo the part that makes this guy a derp - he built what could have been a fully legal weapon, except that he didn't install the magazine lock correctly. What is a magazine lock? Its a device that lets politicians pretend that they're "doing something" when in reality it just makes them look stupid. Mag locks serve no purpose in crime prevention because they don't have some sort of magic anti-criminal switch, they just annoy people trying to obey the law and criminals ignore the law so they don't bother.
- salgernon 13y agoI think they're probably more intended to keep the five year olds from shooting their sisters.
- hga 13y agoWhich, like "child proof caps" on medicine, they do a very poor job of, unless you're really rigorous in not letting them see how you get your self-defense guns out of the push button safe or whatever. Plus or minus that age you have to also start "gun proofing" them, teach them how to handle guns safely, not to do it unsupervised, avoid the lure of the forbidden fruit, etc. etc. My father started with all of us at age 3, when he'd start taking us out for the safer types of hunting (not quail, where you're moving around a lot, albeit that would have exhausted us way too quickly). Don't remember when he started explicitly teaching it, but he did it by example starting then.
- bifrost 13y agoMaglocks do exactly zero to prevent this. There are two things that prevent kids from shooting things/people they didn't intend to: 1. Parents 2. Training Ignoring the issue is just bad, we figured that out a long time ago with sex education, not teaching your kids about the things you may or may not have in your house is dangerous.
- bcl 13y agoNote that it is not legal to transfer a receiver built like this to anyone else. You cannot sell or give it away, it is yours forever. You are still subject to your local laws, and cannot built a fully automatic weapon. You can also do this with AR-15 receivers, there used to be a couple of places that would sell you an 80% aluminum casting and you would finish the machining yourself. If you don't want to go to the trouble you can always buy a stripped lower receiver from a dealer (this is the part that carries the serial # and is considered the gun by the BATFE) and assemble the rest yourself. I wrote an article on this back in 2000 - http://www.brianlane.com/build-an-ar-15-rifle.html http://www.brianlane.com/build-an-ar-15-rifle.html