How to destroy an AR-15

An ex-Marine friend of mine who did tours in Afghanistan recently stripped and melted down his hunk of aluminum into a large hunk of metal that will never be used to kill people again.

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His personal one, or the one from the military?

I smell semantics on the horizon.

Yep, semantics.

I hope you and your loved ones are never the subject or target of gun violence, though if you insist on being so condescending, well good luck out there.

Too Many Gun Owners This Year:

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menacing with a weapon is gun violence.

Military grade weapons do not belong in civilian or civilian law enforcements hands. The civil arms race has to end.

I see them, AR-15s specifically, as destructive devices derived from the frame of a more common firearm.

D’oh! I has teh stupid.

Hope he did it right. Not that I’d know, but molten aluminum dropped on concrete can cause lots of spalling. And screaming. And cursing. Again, not that I’d know.

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I wonder if there’s an induction furnace that’s large enough could melt these things straight down. I swear I’ve watched too many videos on Youtube from metal casters.

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Good question, I actually don’t know. I’ll have to ask. He’d had it since his tours so possibly military sourced.

I wonder if there’s an induction furnace that’s large enough could melt these things straight down.

I suspect some sort of water bath with the right salts and a little bit of current would do the trick for short money in terms of rendering them no longer a public health hazard.

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I’m sure it’s possible with an AK47

It’s like you stopped reading or ignored the next two sentences that expanded on/explained the sentence you quoted and it relates specifically to the topic at hand.

Notice in the articles EXAMPLE, they are destroying the RECEIVER, not the whole gun, not cutting the barrel or the stock etc. Indeed if one had an illegal machine gun, destroying the receiver is all that is needed to make it “legal”. Every other part is “fine”.

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I would sincerely like to know, and feel free to PM if you feel it is more appropriate.

One can’t “take home” their rifles (anecdotally I hear snipers can take their customized stocks), and loss or destruction of rifles is frowned upon (I know people severely punished for one person in their units losing a fire arm.) Of course things go “missing” all the time. Never buy military scopes, sights or night vision off of ebay, because you may get a visit later from the military to retrieve said stolen goods. Don’t worry, I am not a NARC, but I am curious.

Of course if it was a personal weapon then play on, player.

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Not fine by me. Take your semi-automatics and melt them down too, including your automatic pistols, Pistolero.

The wild west is tamed. Long since, even The Shadow knows.

It’s like you stopped reading or ignored the next two sentences that expanded on /explained the sentence you quoted as it relates specifically at the topic at hand.

I want them gone. I’m not making nor respecting a strictly technical argument, nor is that a price of admission for conversation.

People stopped communicating, because guns that kill lots of people, or leave people thinking you could if they push you, are not a tool of egalitarianism. They’re a tool of egoism.

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Semi-automatic rifles are not military grade. An AR-15 is pretty much useless to the militaries of the world, except for perhaps military police. I think people get upset because it’s a black metal rifle with a composite stock. If it were grandpa’s walnut stock deer rifle people seem more comfortable with that, even though his deer rifle is not bolt action and hence a type of semi-automatic rifle. oops!

There is a regulatory definition for a Destructive Device. I don’t think we’re going to change that definition as it has some specific implications.

Most popular firearm for crime AND suicide is a 38 special revolver (cousin to the 357 magnum). A popular fire arm that nearly every police force in the US has abandoned for being obsolete and of limited stopping power. This obsolete firearm is #1 making up 17% of the crimes committed (at least of the crimes where the firearm can be identified)

If you want to lower the tremendous number of murders and suicides in the US, you’ll need a holistic approach that doesn’t simply go after a single model of firearm. Especially given that you and many others have incorrectly identified what firearm is the biggest threat to our communities.

As for what the police need. They need an attitude adjustment. They need to focus on identification of perpetrators, cordoning off areas for public safety, pulling back for officer safety, non-lethal methods, and a great deal more patience. If a perp gets away, having him identified makes a controlled capture that much easier to plan. Unplanned, in the heat of the moment knee jerk response is how officers fill a black teenage’s back full of holes. It’s not an easy job, but extremely poor process and poor department transparency is how we have a scarily ineffective police force where most civilians question the wisdom in arming police officers at all.

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the exact implications I believe a semiautomatic rifle or fire arm should be classified under. My phrasing was not an accident in the least.

I don’t think we’re going to change that definition as it has some specific implications.

You’re free to not think that for us, it’s very hiumble of you. Me and what appears to be most of the next generation may well disagree with you in a very civil way.

It was my way of saying “it’s complicated”. If you’d like I can show you why it’s complicated. If you are more interested in expressing your personal feelings than having a multi-way discussion of a complex topic, then please don’t let me get in your way.

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What if we just jammed a giant wad of thermite into the receiver and lit it up?

You mean this?:

I hope you and your loved ones are never the subject or target of gun violence, though if you insist on being so condescending, well good luck out there.

It’s tangential to the subject. I agree with your first sentence and little reason to comment. I don’t see how one could consider his comment condescending, but what ever. I thought about saying that as well, but figured to just let you feel the way you feel.

OK, but that too is peripheral to his comment to my comment. I commented on the best way to go about destroying an AR, that doesn’t match the ATF guidelines for destroying a machine gun, because they don’t need to be. He pointed out that in destroying a “gun” both legally and practically, it is just the receiver that needs cut up. And from a legal point of view, the rest of he parts are just parts. Indeed even when they destroy machine guns they typically saved the parts for parts kits.

Finally, as someone with the view of wanting vast categories “gone”, I supposed I can see that any sort of effort to classify or clarify as “semantics”. But when various laws of different states and federal laws define such and such as legal, then it is more than just “semantics”. When crafting future laws, there will need to be clear definitions as well. These are not semantics.

The M-16 and the AR-15 are nearly identical, enough for someone to claim it is just “semantics” saying the are different. Yet the regulations for the two are vastly different. And in the context of the original article, one WILL need to follow the AFT guidelines for destroying an M-16, whereas one can take less drastic measures to destroy an AR-15 and still render it useless.

I also caution on how to do it properly in order to not accidentally break the law in one’s zeal at destruction. Because one may argue the fact a barrel is an inch longer than another it is still a Short Barreled Rifle and to say differently is semantics. But from a legal stand point, there is a defined measurement that says whether a rifle is a legal length, or an unregistered Short Barreled Rifle.

TL;DR, efforts to inform and educate are not necessarily arguments of semantics.

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That would be… interesting. I’m not sure. Damn, now I gotta go try this.