NRA Board Member Tom King speaks out against home built firearms

[wolfwood]

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/i...42hWiNCMikZFHbzOjbB2SS7QJgJHlk1SvxYIJIbDvrzvQ


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.

 

[mikejonestkd]

Tom King is very well known here in NYS, and not as a friend of the 2A.

 

[American Man]

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.

 

[zukiphile]

“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".

 

[Aguila Blanca]

"Prohibited people" don't buy 80% receivers and build guns. "Prohibited people" buy stolen Glocks on dark street corners, late at night.

 

[rickyrick]

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.

 

[zukiphile]

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.

 

[TXAZ]

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.

 

[Pathfinder45]

So, then, it sounds like the NRA has been infiltrated by its enemies?

 

[FrankenMauser]

I don't trust any political group in NYS to be above the board.
They're all shady.

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.

 

[MTT TL]

"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.

 

[zukiphile]

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....018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls

 

[MTT TL]

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/showthread.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.

 

[zukiphile]

EDIT: I found the part of the article in that thread indicating ATF suspicion that an 80% lower was used in a 2013 shooting.

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?

 

[MTT TL]

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.

 

[zukiphile]

MTT TL, you are correct that the statement is literally false. I had allowed for an implied generalization rather than an absolute.

"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.

 

[rickyrick]

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.

 

[MTT TL]

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.

 

[Ben Dover]

Let's not get too frenzied just yet.

Stating that people should obey the law is not an anti-gun position.

 

[rickyrick]

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