Make that “anyone with an ounce of sense HATES this”.
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These things have been around for a while. Yeah, they’re just small plastic thingies that replace the back plate of the slide. I’ve never seen one of these things in person, but I assume installation is just replacing the back plate, which takes all of one minute and requires no tools.
Legally, in China: these are probably just pieces of plastic in China, not regulated, or else the regulators don’t care. Legally, in the USA: the thing itself is a machine gun. It could be created and possessed by a SOT, with the right paperwork. Post May 1986, no such things can be made that could be transferred for private ownership. Violation is a serious Federal felony, plus likely state felonies as well. Note that this applies to the thing itself, even if it’s not attached to a gun, even if the person doesn’t have a gun.
Practically: someone with some practice, and a full-sized Glock 9mm, and the 30-round mag, could use these effectively to deliver bursts. Practically, on any other Glocks, like the 26 etc, with standard sized mags, and without practice, this thing will result in bullets spraying wildly and an empty mag. If I had to choose between being assaulted by a random criminal with a Glock, and the same guy with a full-auto Glock, I would strongly prefer the guy with a full auto Glock, because he would be out of ammo and hit nothing within one second, and then it would be my turn to deliver controlled, aimed shots.
Failed Internet ad monitoring: about a year ago, Youtube kept on showing me ads for “solvent traps”, which are these little screw things that would allow one to screw an oil filter to the screw end of a barrel. These little screw things sold for a few dollars and are made in China. They are also likely to be considered unregistered suppressors by the BATF and are basically the same felony as a machine gun, although unlike a machine gun, it would be possible to do proper paperwork (depending on state law) and possess one. Every knowledgeable gun owner who sees these things (solvent trap adapters, Glock “airsoft” full auto switches, whatever) knows they are one credit card checkout away from an online felony.
As others have pointed out, many other semi-auto guns can be converted pretty easily to full auto, but it seems like the Glock design is the easiest to do in a practical way. The only way to really stop people from having any practical chance of gettnig a full-auto gun is to limit guns to things without any gas or recoil mechanisms, ie, bolt action and break actions only. But as I said above, if criminals actually put these on their guns, they will make their shooting far less effective, and also tack on a federal decade to whatever else they’re doing, so in some ways this whole thing is a trap for the stupid rather than a risk to the normal.
The workers that do ad content approval just don’t know about these things. Which is perfectly understandable.
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Everyone who is making the argument that these workarounds (or any full auto firearm in the hands of random people) are nothingburgers because they aren’t accurate is completely missing the point. The danger of these modified weapons is speed and spray. They aren’t prohibited because of their accuracy; they are prohibited because of the indiscriminate damage they can cause in a crowd where the shooter doesn’t care who they hit, as long as they hit as many people as possible before they can be taken down.
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Hey I’m not saying they are nothingburgers. Please prosecute them! Please! But even shooting in a crowd, someone without experience with these things is going to do less damage on full auto than on semi auto, because after the second or third shots, they’re all going to be going up into the sky. Same reason the military took full auto off the M4, and doesn’t provide any full-auto handguns. The future of full-auto in the military is using tiny low-recoil bullets in specially designed guns, like the H&K MP7. But even that requires some training.
I’m not making any argument that these are ok, only that these are much less scary in real life than they sound, and that I’ll be happy if criminal shooters get an extra federal decade due to these. I’m happy when criminals fail themselves.
It’s also not about prosecuting them after they kill and maim a bunch of people. It’s about preventing them from doing so in the first place. There is no legitimate purpose for private ownership of full-auto firearms; anyone caught with one of these workarounds should be prosecuted before they go on a rampage.
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I never said it can only be prosecuted after a criminal act takes place. I said the exact opposite: simple possession is a serious crime, all by itself. It’s somewhat like possession of child porn, it’s inherently a serious crime, no matter the circumstances or intent.
These are a great way for a criminal to self-fail. Full-auto is auto-fail. I made it very clear in my first post, simply possessing one of these, even without attaching it to a gun or owning a gun, is a federal decade, and I clearly said, this should be prosecuted all by itself.
And it often is. And if it’s prosecuted under federal law, unlike state law, there are strict sentencing guidelines and they have to serve 85% of the sentence. Meaning that if some idiot has one of these, gets pulled over for rolling through a stop sign, and this thing is found and prosecuted, he is taken out of circulation for 8.5 years, even if he doesn’t have a gun! That’s the point I’m trying to make here, these things are a trap for the criminally stupid, and I fully support the criminally stupid suffering for their criminal stupidity.
Not in my neighborhood. I’m in center city; maybe that’s truer in one or two story building neighborhoods.
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Actually it is true everywhere. Unaimed fire has some danger (every year there are injuries from falling bullets on July 4th) but it’s a lot less dangerous than aimed shots. Contrast the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, which was aimed fire from a Glock, and this poorly aimed mass shooting recently in Chicago, seven wounded and no deaths. Bullets spraying into the sky have a non-zero risk, and they certainly are terrifying to be near, but it’s far different from carefully aimed fire.
In fact the whole reason the US military switched from full auto to burst-limited is because spraying bullets is so ineffective, even when they are going approximately in the right direction. During the Vietnam War there were 50,000 shots for every kill, to give you an idea of how ineffective unaimed full auto fire is and why the DOD stopped it.
Again, everyone who possesses one of these things, even without a gun and without any further intent, should, in my opinion, go to federal prison. The legality of it is a separate issue from the real danger of it.
Is less dangerous than the greatest mass shooting really our highest aspiration?
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Not to mention there’s not much the police can do to help you if you’re murdered - no matter how much funding they have or don’t have. We don’t have “Minority Report” style policing… yet.
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Gun wankery thread; ew.
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I recently found out that in Texas you need a license to fish in many rivers, and I’d just love to hear the mental gymnastics that make a fishing license necessary, but not a firearms license.
Obviously it depends on the gun, but for most rifle sized weapons, it’s easy to keep the barrel somewhat on target. You’re not going to be getting sub-moa groups, but for killing a bunch of people quickly it works.
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You need a lightweight oil and a fine lint-free cloth.
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I’ve heard the argument, and it boils down to the 2nd amendment. That’s it. And they ignore clause that reads “well regulated militia,” because they know in their hearts they are that militia, they regulate themselves, and if you try to take away their guns they will shoot you. Since the Constitution is silent on the whole “right to fish,” they argue, there is no real restriction on fishing legislation, but guns are special to them, and not just as bedpartners.
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I guess the (erroneous) belief is that cops arrest and jail people for minor crimes which prevents them from committing more serious crimes (like murder) later? There’s a number of popular misunderstandings about both the impact of incarceration on criminality and the nature of serious violent crime that seem to feed into that delusion.
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What sort of “not really a machine gun” did Stephen Paddock use?
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Bump stocks - spring loaded rifle stocks that cause the rifle to bounce forward on to your trigger finger with each shot, making it fire cyclically, but not by any mechanism within the gun’s trigger mechanism.
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As @skeptic said, a bump stock. It wasn’t considered a machine gun because it still shot only one shot with the mechanical pull of the trigger. It just made it easier to do so rapidly. The ATF officially classified it as “not a machine gun” in 2010. This is unlike autosears which gave the firearm full auto capability with the mechanical pull of the trigger.
Trump signed an executive order having them re-classified as machine guns. Per wikipedia " The ban went into effect on March 26, 2019, by which owners of bump stocks were required to destroy them or surrender them to ATF, punishable by 10 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine."
As a side note, it is still possible to bump fire semiautomatic firearms without the use of a bump stock. It is a technique, though it usually requires firing from the hip or other method where the firearm isn’t shouldered. Though since not fired from the shoulder, it is even less accurate and safe.
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So a fishing/hunting license pays for game wardens and environmental maintenance. A gun license could cover the cost of medical care for people shot.
