ATF seizes lots of CZ machine guns

[ConfuseUs]

I was zipping over the legal notices in the Money and Investing section of the Wall Street Journal for 03/15/07 and noticed a lot of CZ machine guns were seized on 02/12/07. Each CZ machine gun was valued at $199, which is what caught my eye: Machine guns just aren't THAT cheap! These machine guns were seized in every state except Hawaii. Oddly enough, none were seized in DC. I counted the total number of CZ machine guns seized and it totalled about 356, give or take a couple. So, a few questions are in order:

1) Why are so many CZ machine guns being seized?

2) Were they smuggled into the country?

3) Was there a huge sting operation? (I personally think so.)

4) Who had them and why?

I don't know if there's a thread related to this already, but it is an interesting thing to find in the paper.

 

[Trebor]

The $199 per gun would not be out of line if your talking about their value as a piece of machinery not considering the market scarcity for NFA registered guns. It could also be a typo for $1,999

There's always the chance these aren't actually "machine guns" at all, but say semi-auto AK's or some such with the wrong hole in the receivers. I believe there were some recently imported Draganov rifles that the ATF classified as MG's because the receivers were not properly manufactured for semi-auto only.

 

[dave_pro2a]

Airsoft mistake

 

[ConfuseUs]

Yeah, I guess that a bunch of receivers that had the wrong hole would get gathered up. It was a weird thing to see though. I guess the next question is whether or not they nabbed them at the dealer level before anybody bought them? And was it Customs who goofed or did ATF decide to play the "what we said before is not what we think now, therefore we didn't say it before, so you are up the creek." game. (like they did with the Akins Accelerator).

 

[Selfdfenz]

Interesting

I can't find any info on this topic by Google. Cked the BATFE website and it drew a blank also but that means nothing. Could be a day or days before they post anything or they may never post anything.

I agree probably not complete firearms but more likely something in the way illegal receivers.

S-

 

[Lucky]

Doesn't the Skorpion fire from an open bolt? If they went around to every person who owned a semii-auto and offered them a cheap part to convert it to full, and then arrested them, that could explain it? Like you said, a sting?

 

[Waitone]

Lemme see here. We have a governmental organization which has a hard time with definitions (and analysis procedures, another thread) passing information along to the public through a medium which is legendary for getting it wrong and we wonder what really happened?

 

[Trebor]

The "wrong" receiver issue was very recently with eithe the ROMAK or the Draganov rifles. I can't remember which right now. These did reach customers and the customers were contacted by their dealers or the ATF to return the rifles. I don't have one of the rifles, so I'm not up on the details.

Similiar stuff has happened in the past involving MG "parts kits" that were improperly demilled. If the ATF considers your FAL parts kit to be improperly saw cut instead of torch cut, they'll count that as a "recovered MG" in their stats after you turn it in.

 

[romma]

Imagine a full auto for $199... Stupid NFA!

 

[Gene_WI]

These where parts kits.

 

[DMK]

Similiar stuff has happened in the past involving MG "parts kits" that were improperly demilled. If the ATF considers your FAL parts kit to be improperly saw cut instead of torch cut, they'll count that as a "recovered MG" in their stats after you turn it in.

Almost certainly, the ATF went around and confiscated demilled subgun "parts kits", suddenly claiming them to be "machine guns".

Weren't there a bunch of Skorpion kits for sale over the last spring and summer? I remember seeing them and wondering how hard it would be to build one.

 

[gezzer]

Demilled improperly then sold after import. I believe they just wanted the receiver leftovers. This is not the first time it has happened.

Century arms just recalled their drugonov copy as ATF ruled it a machinegun. I sold one to a customer and as of Monday last week Century sent a pick-up slip for the gun to the customer. They are replacing the receiver and told him a 2 week turnaround.

Note the ATF allowed them to do this instead of just confiscating all the guns.
The reason given is the holes for the auto sears had just been welded up on the receivers and ATF rule is once a MG always an MG.

 

[saltydog]

The "wrong" receiver issue was very recently with either the ROMAK or the Draganov rifles.

It was the Romak/PSL rifles Century Arms were selling. Seems they actually had a 3rd axis pin hole that they welded up on the receivers. I guess BATFE frowns upon those kind of issues from importers.

 

[Ian]

Almost certainly parts kits. I know that the goons just recently retroactively declared the trunnions in previously legal CZ-26 SMG parts kits to be machine guns, and they are taking customer records from distributors to track down all the kits that have been sold.