What is with the conversion manuals?

B

Bonstrosity

New member
I was just surfing around on different internet sites and these conversion manuals boggled my mind. How are these even legal to sell or even own? Or are they legal as long as you don't actually follow them or make parts? Are these like red flags that once someone buys this book an officer will show up 6 weeks later to investigate your firearm collection. Maybe I have the wrong idea but maybe someone can clear it up for me.
 
Right. It's not illegal to own, but it is to follow the directions.

However, it would be a good idea not to have any of the materials that such books require. It would still be possible to get in trouble for "constructive posession" if you did.
 
Freedom of the press meets gun control. With few exceptions, it is not illegal to publish books about doing something illegal, but actually doing it is another story.

I don't know if that applies to publishing "how to" books on making WMD's; when homeland security tried to stop some of that stuff, groups like the ACLU went berserk. One book we are free to buy and read reportedly tells in detail how to make [a biological agent] and how to spread it. In comparison, making a machinegun is a harmless pastime, yet many folks want to ban books on making guns but see no problems with books on making much more dangerous weapons.

Jim
 
"it is not illegal to publish books about doing something illegal, but actually doing it is another story."

Didnt paladin press get tagged bad for publishing the 'hitman" series of books?

SW
 
The guy who wrote the book was asked to have it taken out of print because someone followed the instructions and almost got away with murder so he asked them to pull it out of print.
 
I heard most of those full-auto manuals are bunk and besides who wants to have a full-auto weapon? Only n00bz want that, omg! They use up ammo and money, both I love but not always in that respective order. Though it would be interesting to see how one would make a WASR-10 full auto. Just out of curiousity sake.
 
so he asked them to pull it out of print.
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Well the family of the victim of the loony who followed the book to a 'T' to commit the murder SUED Paladin Press for millions of dollars under a hazy theory probably in violation of the 1A. In light of potential liability, he *agreed* to pull the book as part of the settlement, rather than risk trial/appeals, IIRC.
 
Still is kind of shifty. In fact, in the book he mentions his interview with a cop about silencers and such and points out the cops stupid reaction about how badly they'd burn you for a silencer when you are already on your way to commit murder. Kind of the same thing here, he was going to kill somebody with or without that book, the book was just used as a guide. You can't blame a book for someone's already unstable mind. Otherwise we would ban Nietzche, Marx, Pierce (the Neo-Nazi guy), Hitler, Mao, etc. literature from ever seeing the light of day in America. How many people were killed by Hitler's ideas? Millions, yet his books is available in countless forms in any major book store, library, school, etc. I hate when people try to blame the first two amendments on society ills.
 
If you have any sort of metalworking equipment in your garage / basement (as any good american should), it would be a really bad idea to have those books on your shelf.

Drillpress / lathe + "how-to" machine-gun book = circumstantial evidence for a "conspiracy to produce illegal weapons" charge.

With those two sorts of evidence in the same place there are a lot of agents that would be drooling over the opportunity to send you up the river.
 
Conversion manuals are the lazy mans way to illegality. (Of course thats why the people that actually build from them get caught.) Remember there was a Ivy League student in the 1980's that wrote a paper for his Physics Final that showed how to build a workable A-Bomb. His theory was the only problematic piece of the puzzle was obtaining a critical mass of fissible material. His professor turned the paper over to the Fed's and bingo! The paper was confiscated and declared Top Secret. The student was questioned and threatend from here to there. His sources? The University library, including Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book. Los Alamos said he was dead on. The kid wrote a book detailing this travesty.

Lesson learned? The First Amendment must be repealed at all costs. Everything we can see must be pre-vetted by those founts of knowledge and superiority in Govt.
 
It's really hard to find weapons grade plutonium/uranium. And any that is findable is guarded by at least 50 grunts bearing down on anything within a mile of it. That's just the guys who are visible. Better to just build a fire bomb if you wanna cause some havoc. Hell, I'd go for a power plant instead. Easier, less security and the terror would be widespread. Oops, better watch out of the Department of Homeland Security is going to be knocking on my door.....I'm terrified....really! The hell with the government on issues like this.

What about those people who have degrees in Toxicology? They can build immense poisons and have access to diseases, bacteria, drugs, etc. that can create deadly events. Why not monitor them like crazy?
 
I knew it was sarcasm but sadly, there are people in office who see it as an actual need to bring more Federalistic Bureaucracy into our lives.

I've always felt the people to watch are the guys who truck Sulphuric Acid, Liquid Nitrogen, and other various Hazmat chemicals. Imagine if they were hijacked or if they were bribed to give up their stuff......not a pretty sight, is it? Think of the damage that tanker could do.
 
Is it true you can get busted for haveing the book with the gun? exaple: lets say I had a ruger 10/22 and got a book on how to convert a ruger 10/22 to full auto.
 
Likely "out of print" these days, but one used to be able to order from the Government Printing Office no less, all manner of Military Manuals, one of which was entitled the Improvised Munitions Handbook or Manual.

This publication offered fairly detailed instructions on all manner of "mischevous" devices and their production or manufacture. Later on Paladin Press offered what was essentially the same material, entitled The Anachist's Cookbook. As I recall, they charged $10 for it, which was a lot more than one paid The Government Printing Office.

Free enterprise at work.
 
"The Anarchist's Cookbook" that I saw way back when was deffinately not compiled from field manuals. It's a poorly-illustrated book of booby traps and dope-freak parphenalia put together by a bunch of hippies who have obviously never dealt with live ordinance. Most of the junk in it would never work, and the few things that would function would be more dangerous to whoever would try to build them than the intended target.

If you want real information, go to the field manuals. If you want third-degree burns and nonfunctional devices that are very illegal despite their lack of functionality, go with the anarchists cookbook.
 
Big Mac
Senior Member

Join Date: 07-14-2006
Posts: 195

I heard most of those full-auto manuals are bunk and besides who wants to have a full-auto weapon? Only n00bz want that, omg! They use up ammo and money, both I love but not always in that respective order. Though it would be interesting to see how one would make a WASR-10 full auto. Just out of curiousity sake.
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__________________________

well, its not exactly full auto but.....
www.lifelibertyetc.com

I leafed through one of those manuals just for fun..the one about making liquid explosives and I wonder how it is they plan to detect it if you don't voluntarily give up your toothpaste. Liquids in plastic containers for your in flight (covert) enjoyment don't show up on that metal detector machine so how can they tell you are hiding it in your inside coat pocket? What if they drink it before hand and then add the other ingredient later? Who cares if they poison themselves doing it this way? They are willing to die anyways.
 
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