California rampage puts spotlight on homemade 'ghost guns'

That 80% lower stuff reminds me of bump stocks - an obvious end-run around federal gun laws that was never going to last forever.

Regulating truly DIY guns is never going to be enforceable, but again, I think we'll see legislation against the 80% stuff pretty soon. The risky part is if it's extended to affect something like rifle kits.

I think you'll see knee jerk state bans, California, New Jersey, the like, but not a nation wide ban. Wish I'd bought one of those Ghost Gunner computer controlled mini lathes.

If it was a "ghost gun" from a 80% receiver, how was it ID'd as a Bushmaster?

One report claims "Officers recovered one semi-automatic rifle and two handguns." The handguns were not registered in california. Not surprising, since Bureau of Justice Statistics surveys of firearms use by offenders find only 12 % of prison inmates who carried or used guns bought them from legal sources.

Sounds like CBS is using "handguns not registered in California" to connect a recovered AR-15 Bushmaster to the anti ghost guns crusade against 80% lower home builds. Color me cynical.

armoredman said:

I think you'll see knee jerk state bans, California, New Jersey, the like, but not a nation wide ban. Wish I'd bought one of those Ghost Gunner computer controlled mini lathes.

Click to expand...

You can still get them as far as I know. Ghost Gunner II is taking preorders right now. Not for me, but I appreciate them as a political statement and if I had money coming out of my ears I would be giving them away like Oprah gives away cars. And you get a ghost gunner, and you get a ghost gunner, and you get a ghost gunner...ghost gunners for everyone!

If it's a Bushmaster how can it be a 80% unregistered no serial number ghost gun?

And if the local cops had followed thru on legally disarming the him - oh well, that's a continuing saga of institutional failure. Back on topic - the linked article is just a hit piece exploiting the situation by claiming nebulous charges of "crims gonna make guns if they can't get them!" Well, we are talking about using some higher order machines which aren't cheap, cost more than the firearm, and require long term commitment to build, ie a couple of days to work on them. That makes them a "waiting period" in their own right. Why bother when for half the price you can just buy one from the local illegal purveyor of stolen guns and moved directly to Go - instead of futzing around and potentially ruining a lower trying to make one. Really, if you have the skills to do that well, you have a regular job. You aren't likely to be some gangbanger.

Article then goes on to make unsubstantiated claims that there are lots of these out there - but we can't know how many cause "no serial numbers." In point of fact, the ATF can't even tell you exactly how many guns were actually made on an annual basis, nor will they release exact statistics of what is sold - because many of the records on FFL books are paper, not computer. They do mention a case from last year - one case. One.

This shooting had other issues, the whole article is just a hit piece written to support disarmament, and considering it's CA what should we expect, anyway? They are going to try to kill off 80% lowers there regardless, and twist any possible angle as the reason why. It remains to be seen how it will stand up to the legal challenges involved. Accepting defeat up front right off the bat isn't productive.

WRT the Bushmaster thing, I think it's either

A., the rifle was an 80% lower with a bunch of Bushmaster labeled parts on it

or more likely

B. The media has no clue about guns and just refers to every AR as a Bushmaster.

"Never attribute to malice that which is easily explained by stupidity."

Mosin Bubba said:

WRT the Bushmaster thing, I think it's

more likely

B. The media has no clue about guns and just refers to every AR as a Bushmaster.

"Never attribute to malice what is easily explained by stupidity."

Click to expand...

A CNN "expert" described the gun used in the Texas church shooting as a "Bushmaster Ruger Mini-14". The media really does not have a clue.

$1700 for a machine that is limited in its use. No thanks. That could buy an old conventional mill that can do the 80% plus much more. And may have $ left over for tooling.

While making a ghost gun is legal, selling one is not.

Click to expand...

Sheesh, this is unsurprisingly wrong. Selling one is perfectly legal (federally). Making them for the purposes of selling is not.

C'mon guys.... this isn't rocket science.

2 rifles. 1 could have been a bushmaster or a bushmaster upper.

Some of you come across as if the whole article should be dismissed as fake news because of poor wording that a minute amount of critial thinking skills can figure out. You're better than that, right?

There's been at least 4, maybe 5, ghost gun killings in CA alone in the past few years. (Just double checked wiki, they cite 4 with references)

Thinking stolen or build your own untraceable guns are half the price of new guns is also naïve, or blind to the 100s of posts claiming it's cheaper buy new than build your own.

There are different levels of criminals. To not recognize that is naïve at best.


Some will have friends that can easily get stolen guns. Some will steal them themselves.

Some will have otherwise law abiding friends that see it as a victimless crime and are willing to help stick it to the man and can finish an 80% for them at work or home (there's a lot of small machine shops in SoCA that have been around for 50 yrs with the aerospace industry and racing teams around. DFAR regulations actually promote small and minority own businesses as suppliers for defense related contracs).

Others maybe be handy people and do it themselves in their own garage. You can do a crude one with a cheap $60+ drill press from harbor freight or less crude with an $80 router.


I thought about building one myself just as tinkering project with no timeline in mind. Just a fun garage project.

CA requiring to have S/N put on them to a standard that just may prove to be more difficult, possibly impossible with some receivers, than actually finishing an 80% is really a turn off for me. I want to tinker with stuff... not bog down in bureaucracy.

I agree though...the whole ghost gun fear mongering is just keeping with the proven tactic of keeping honest people honest thru bureaucracy and fees while doing nothing to make the streets safer 'for the children'.

But it sells well to a large voting base.

Mosin Bubba said:

That 80% lower stuff reminds me of bump stocks - an obvious end-run around federal gun laws that was never going to last forever.

Regulating truly DIY guns is never going to be enforceable, but again, I think we'll see legislation against the 80% stuff pretty soon. The risky part is if it's extended to affect something like rifle kits.

Click to expand...

I don't agree. First of all 80% means nothing outside of marketing--there is no quantitative guideline in any ATF rulings. There is always going to be a line between what is a piece of metal and what is a firearm receiver. I don't expect any qualitative changes without a change in law--at most some movement on the margins.

Mike

Mosin Bubba said:

B. The media has no clue about guns and just refers to every AR as a Bushmaster.

Click to expand...

Probably this. When the Newtown shooting happened, media outlets were going back and forth on whether it was a shotgun or AR found in the trunk on scene. Quiet a difference between the two that even most novices could differentiate. Just shows the media is dumber than the most green of firearm novices.

The left continues to believe it can legislate an inanimate object out of existence and because of their good intentions, remove evil from society. I suppose its worked well so far ...

There was a thread started in July of this yea by a member named Tark who possess the skills and equipment to make a gun from scratch.

Anybody can make a gun from scratch.

Obviously this is one of the points here. How can you effectively ban something that literally anybody can make themselves ?

Only superficially related to the topic but.............. I remember reading a long running thread years ago on a gun forum; possibly this one. Written by a guy in Argentina who discussed what it was like to live in a place that suffered a total breakdown of their economy/society. A real SHTF scenario. One of the things that I found interesting is that it was illegal to own a gun. But, a large number of people owned guns. Since it was illegal for them to own a gun, they figured what the heck and most of them had submachine guns. After all, if you are going to get punished for breaking the law, you might as well go all out.

Just an article to scare people. I doubt if "ghost guns" are even a statistically noticeable segment of the firearms world.

Where are the articles about the thousands of prohibited persons who acquire guns illegally and use them to rob others, do drive by shootings, and gang bangs? I guess they're a protected class.

Hobby machinist here. I've made a 1911 frame from 'billet', and an AR upper and lower from raw, 0% forgings, because both were fun challenges. I've also done 80% AR lowers, because as the various panics and gluts have come and gone I've bought 80% anodized lowers for $19.99. Since I have a fairly well equipped machine shop, finishing an 80% is not a challenge, and $20 plus an hour in the shop makes for a pretty frugal AR lower.

Anyway, to address the question of whether clamping down on home made guns will reduce criminal misuse - I doubt it. Guns just aren't hard to make. Sure, someone who knows bupkis about metalworking is going to find it hard. Similarly, I'm not a chemist, and if I tried to cook meth I'd end end up blowing myself to bits - but there are apparently lots of not-nobel-prize-level amateur chemists out there that succeed at making it. Machining is no different.

Anyone who thinks illicit manufacture of guns can be stopped should read this blog for a while:

https://homemadeguns.wordpress.com/

There are plenty of crude zip guns, but then there are also lots of posts like this:

https://homemadeguns.wordpress.com/2017/10/22/clandestine-smg-production-in-sao-paulo/

As mentioned above, if you're going to make illegal guns, a fixed firing pin open bolt subgun is as simple as they get. Setting up a shop to make those isn't any more difficult than setting up a marijuana grow house. Outlawing hobby gunsmithing is not going to stop crooks from making illicit guns.

Sam1911 said:

Sheesh, this is unsurprisingly wrong. Selling one is perfectly legal (federally). Making them for the purposes of selling is not.

Click to expand...

So how exactly does a prosecutor prove that I made one to sell it? That seems to be an intent thing that has to be proved. Maybe a shop set up to do nothing but 80% lowers and nothing else. I've had a situation where I was "gifted" a lot of money thru the will of a relative. My attorney reassured me that it was a "gift" and no taxes were applicable. And there's the trade, not technically a sale. Also there's the cash transaction. No record of any sale and pretty hard to establish that money was involved.

These truly are ghost guns and any attempt to regulate them will fail miserably. How do you regulate something that was built in someones garage?

Moisin Bubba wrote:
I think we'll see legislation against the 80% stuff pretty soon.

Click to expand...

Maybe.

But we don't need to. The ATF could probably tighten up on 80% receivers by refining the regulations under which they make the determination that something is or is not substantially complete.

CoalTrain49 wrote:
So how exactly does a prosecutor prove that I made one to sell it?

Click to expand...

You make one and you still have it, then you probably didn't make it to sell it.

You make five and you sell four of them them then it wouldn't be difficult to convince a jury your subsequent acts establish your intent at the time you were making and selling the four.

CoalTrain49 wrote:
I've had a situation where I was "gifted" a lot of money thru the will of a relative. My attorney reassured me that it was a "gift" and no taxes were applicable.

Click to expand...

That is correct, an inheritance received from an estate is not taxable to you. If the estate itself was taxable, the taxes were assessed against the estate.

And there's the trade, not technically a sale. Also there's the cash transaction. No record of any sale and pretty hard to establish that money was involved.

Click to expand...

Barter transactions are equivalent to a sale for Federal Income Tax purposes. See 26 USC 61.

Also, cash transactions are still sales. The fact you don't report them doesn't change that; it just means you're not compliant with the law.

CoalTrain, I'll just add something that I think is always wise to keep in mind:

The prosecutor doesn't have to prove -- in the sense of a mathematical or scientific "proof" -- that someone made a gun to sell. He simply has to convince a jury that they did.

It's not that, "hey, they can't go inside my head and drag out my thoughts and prove what I intended." That doesn't matter. They simply have to present enough corroborating evidence that the jury is swayed to believe the case against you.