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How to Make Your Own Legally Unregistered Firearms
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 9:55 pm
by Joe Guy
Law enforcement struggling to combat unregulated, DIY "ghost guns"
Carter Evans
LOS ANGELES -- A handgun that looks and fires just like a Glock 9mm has no serial number, is completely untraceable and 100 percent legal. It's known as a "ghost gun," and we bought one online with no background check or waiting period.
It's not technically a firearm, because the part that would be registered -- the lower receiver -- still needs work. But a do-it-yourself kit came with all the necessary parts, even the drill bits and a plastic template showing exactly where to drill the holes.
"It's not going to take a tremendous amount of gunsmithing skills," said Scott Reitz, a retired Los Angeles Police Department SWAT officer.
Reitz agreed to supervise while we built the gun. Following an instructional YouTube video, it took less than three hours to build. After a safety check and test-firing, Reitz put the gun through its paces.
Countless websites offer so-called ghost gun kits for everything from handguns to AR-15s and AK-47s.
"They're trying to appeal to a certain segment of the population," said Dave Hamilton, senior special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). "Felons who can't go to a gun store and legally purchase a firearm, or people who just don't want the government knowing what type of firearms they have."
Hamilton showed us several different ghost guns. Many had come off the streets. They recently confiscated 46 in a raid at a single home.
"There's nothing the ATF can do," said Ginger Colbrun, with the ATF's Southern California Public Information Office. "These firearms are with gang members, these firearms are being are being found at various crime scenes all over the country."
Police say unregistered, homemade guns were used last November when Kevin Neal killed five people in a Northern California shooting spree, and in 2013, when John Zawahri shot and killed five in Santa Monica
"ATF can't go shut down the people who are selling these parts because these parts are not regulated," said Colbrun.
There's no limit on the number of ghost guns one person can own.
"It's really up to those companies to be responsible," Colbrun said. "They're the ones that are going to have to live with themselves."
A 50-year-old gun law makes homemade guns legal to own, and the only way to regulate the firearms is for Congress to take legislative action.
© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Re: How to Make Your Own Legally Unregistered Firearms
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:01 pm
by dales
BOO!
Re: How to Make Your Own Legally Unregistered Firearms
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:39 pm
by Burning Petard
No federal rules on gun ownership, except as dangerous devices--such as Tanks, machine guns, sawed off shotguns. You can own a .50 cal BMG semi-auto Barrett rifle, but not a single shot, muzzle loading, 80mm mortar. All the regulations are based on the 'interstate commerce clause' regulating transfer of ownership. (That is federal, there are many local and state rules about ownership)
This problem of a homemade gun has been around for a long time. I remember the 'zip gun' that consisted of nails for a firing pin and to hold things together with a car radio antenna section as barrel, rubber band driving the firing pin, all mounted on a block of wood. There were blue-prints and specifications freely available for making your own Colt .45 auto pistol, using readily available springs and steel stock--but you had to have access to a bridgeport milling machine. (now those are obsolete and cheap, but it takes some skill to run them.) These home-made guns were part of the scare stories about the growing propinquity of 3D printers. Quickly many realized the structural material that worked in those printers was not capable of handling ballistic stress beyond one shot.
But these ghost guns are much more functional. The technical limits to firearms completely off the government watch still depends on ammo. The problems right now is the BATF regulators' definition of the parts that define a gun. The thing on the wall in a gun store is clearly a gun. The iron ore on a barge on the way to a foundry is not. Trying to legally pin down where one becomes the other is hard, given human ingenuity.
The most dangerous weapon is still the jelly ware behind a pair of human eyes and between human ears.
snailgate
Re: How to Make Your Own Legally Unregistered Firearms
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:59 pm
by rubato
3D printing has evolved a great deal and the materials avail. have much better physical properties than the originals who mostly used organic plastic materials. The essential property is that it will rapidly undergo a liquid to solid phase (powder to solid might work as well) change when it leaves the print nozzle. I haven't seen a specific example which can make a gun but I would not be surprised that it exists; they can print metal objects now:
https://newatlas.com/desktop-metal-3d-printing/50654/
This project is underway printing a metal (steel) bridge over a canal in Amsterdam.
https://www.archdaily.com/883476/work-i ... tal-bridge
yrs,
rubato
How to Make Your Own Legally Unregistered Firearms
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 11:04 pm
by RayThom