Alphecca: AR Receivers a Loophole in California

April 10, 2006

AR Receivers a Loophole in California

What's a gun-grabbing lawmaker to do? An apparent loophole in California's "assault weapons" ban allows parts for some "assault weapons" to be purchased which, like components of common fertilizer that could be used to make a bomb, could possibly be assembled into a rifle banned by the state because it would look scary. From The Record (CA):

Gun components that can be used to build assault weapons have flooded into California under a loophole in state law. The glitch has delighted some gun owners, who hope to register the weapons before any state legislation is passed barring their possession.

Frames of more than 30,000 AR- and AK-series guns have entered California, according to estimates from some gun advocates, and can be purchased from many weapons dealers in the state and online.

Assault weapons were banned across the country in 1994 and continue to be illegal in California, even though the federal ban expired in 2004. State legislation passed in 2000 expanded the definition of banned assault weapons to include any semiautomatic rifle that can accept a detachable magazine if it has a pistol grip, flash suppressor or grenade launcher; and any semiautomatic pistol that can accept a detachable magazine if it also can accept a flash suppressor, forward hand grip or silencer. But nothing banned assault-weapon receivers - essentially the frame of a gun.

That created a gray area that many gun owners say is confusing. Gun owners who purchase off-list receivers - so called because they are not on the list of guns banned by the state - are not in violation of the law as long as they don't add the illegal components to the guns, said Randy Rossi, director of the Firearms Division of the attorney general's office. But they could be prosecuted by local courts that consider the weapons to be in violation of the ban, Rossi said.

You know folks, I've read that some Islamic types in the middle-east use duct-tape to strap bombs onto themselves. Yet through a loophole, duct-tape is widely available in that region. [Cellphones are often used to set off bombs remotely, shouldn't they be banned? --ed.]

A receiver is a receiver. An AR receiver is nothing more than what the person building a firearms makes of (or rather with) it. Semi-automatic rifles operate very simply. Pull the trigger, a bullet is fired and another loaded. You have to pull the trigger again to get that next bullet out. Apparently though, it isn't really the receiver that makes a gun an "assault weapon"; it's the pistol grip! From the article:

"It's really their killing potential," Alison Merrilees, legal counsel for the Firearms Division of the attorney general's office, said in explaining why assault weapons were banned. "The pistol grip allows them to be sprayed randomly. You can kill lots of people without having to reload."

A pistol grip gives a weapon more support and better positioning.

Uh huh. "Sprayed". If some mutant bent on shooting up the street has a gun without a pistol grip, I guess he's shit-out-of-luck. Inertia will make his rifle inoperable... Maybe he could only manage a few splatters instead of the full "spray". By the way, I don't actually think I've seen those AKs and ARs where the magazine is inserted into the grip. I've really got to get out more.

Arguments like Merrilees' show exactly why these "assault weapons" bans are so ridiculous. They are roundabout ways of trying to eventually ban all legal gun ownership. It's not the receiver or the flash suppressor or the pistol grip, it's the bad guy misusing the gun; it's the criminal. Control them and you stop the problem and law abiding citizens can go about their business with whatever firearms they want for hunting, sporting, or personal defense.

Incidentally, since we all want gun shots to hit their intended target (deer, bear, paper target, mutant) and if a pistol grip helps control the placement of the shots, then true gun control would mandate that all rifles should have pistol grips.

Posted by Jeff Soyer at April 10, 2006 07:49 AM

Comments

And what are the odds that the author of this article has ever TOUCHED a gun, much less an AR or AK?????

Liberals keep passing stupid gun laws because they know nothing about guns. If they knew anything about them, they'd stop being so afraid of them, Which is itself a terrifying thought for liberals.

Posted by: Eric at April 10, 2006 08:09 AM

They don't need to know anything about guns. They know all they need to know. They know that they are our betters and by God, we had better mind!

Gun control is just about control.

Posted by: straightarrow at April 10, 2006 10:56 AM

Since when does a pistol grip allow you to "kill lots of people without having to reload?"

Are these magic pistol grips? Do they contain tiny ammunition elves that replenish your magazine as you fire?

Posted by: Greg at April 10, 2006 12:36 PM

I think all the sane people in this country should take crowbars to the San Andreas Fault, and pop California out into the ocean away from the rest of us...

Posted by: BobG at April 10, 2006 02:04 PM

The libs are so outta control here I have to agree with BobG. I'll even pry from the Western side of the fault line.

Posted by: CAshane at April 10, 2006 02:29 PM

By the way, I don't actually think I've seen those AKs and ARs where the magazine is inserted into the grip. I've really got to get out more.

In all fairness, she didn't say that - she did manage to work in a complete non-sequitur regarding magazine size, though.

On the other hand, she did manage to say both that a pistol-grip allows someone to "spray randomly" and somehow "gives a weapon more support and better positioning"... in a way that doesn't affect accuracy, evidently.

(Plus, well, nobody can assemble one of those AR receivers into a gun without violating the California AWB, unless they permanently attach (weld? might epoxy be sufficient? maybe a rivet, if you could manage to not block the magazine function?) a magazine into the mag well, or not put on a pistol grip.

I know a few companies sell a "California legal" AR like that, either with a fixed magazine that loads by opening the receiver up, or a weird non-pistol grip.)

This is why I'm never, ever going to live in California. Well, one reason.

Posted by: Sigivald at April 10, 2006 03:28 PM

Sad thing is that readers who aren't knowledgeable in the least will eat this shit up. Unfortunately, in CA and elsewhere, the clueless contingent is growing.

Posted by: joated at April 11, 2006 07:56 AM

In CA you can have an AR receiver with a blind or fixed magazine and limited to 10-rounds (or one with no pistol grip) the FAB-10 is one example and the new Bushmaster Carbon-15 is another CA-Legal rifle. There's a whole list of what's legal and (mostly) what's not, at the CA-DOJ website. One part of the issue is that the screwy CA-DOJ definition of Assault Weapon is feature-based - grip, stock, flash-hider, bayo lug - marginal ephermea and what we know to be stupid crap, but it's how they evil "Look" is achieved. It is practically Hollywoodesque, that the look has to be "scripted."
Another part of the issue is that the stripped receivers are listed as "illegal" by manufacturer's name and model, and since there's been an upsurge in new manufacturers, some of the receivers are not now on "The List," and have been brought in legitimately - it's a quasi grey-area thing.
The people who managed to get them can build up an AR, and they believe that once identified as "Evil Black Guns" by the DOJ, they'll be forced to register them (as it happened in the past) and they'll be grandfathered-in, but at least they'll have their AR. They believe that the DOJ will treat them fairly and in accordance with The Law, as they believe that having complied with the letter of the law they are within their rights.
Personally I do not have a single ounce of trust or faith in the CA-DOJ and its satanic, anti-gun, Attorney General Lockyear who has played this deceitfully and ambiguously and politically the whole way. I do not trust them at all. I hope the guys witrh ARs do OK and come out of it fine, and that they have have good lawyers. I almost got in on a deal like that, but my utter lack of trust for the CA-DOJ is wholesale and much greater than my desire for an AR. I'd rather work to overturn the entirely bogus law than have frequent meetings with my lawyers and the DOJ.
It's a stupid gun-law as are most throughout the Nation - apparently I can own an M1-Carbine easily enough in CA, while someone in Maryland can't?

Posted by: -keith in silicon valley at April 11, 2006 06:51 PM

I've seen an even weirder California-legal configuration. An AK with the gas tube removed; rounds are chambered by a moveable foregrip which actuates the previously gas-actuated mechanism. That's right; a pump action AK.

Posted by: triticale at April 11, 2006 07:53 PM

We have too many liberal demacratic idiots i mean why dont they instead of banning gun ban crinimals from being able to sue their victims and we should throw the jackasses out of office

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April 10, 2006

AR Receivers a Loophole in California

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