"Illegal guns"

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The Bushmaster

The Bushmaster

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I wonder if we could get away from that term. I have never ran across an "illegal" gun. Illegal owners, but never a gun.

I just flat out hate that term...!!!:fire:
 
Actually, there are guns that are illegal. For anyone, period. Example would be a gun wih the serial number ground off.
 
I'm in total agreement! Firearms do not have the cognitive abilities to choose
what's legal and against the law. They are just the tools that those who use
them decide how to use. Illegal guns is Mayor Bloomberg's pet phrase and others
in the anti-gun lobby love to use it as well. This sort of talk gets under my skin
too. It is part of the humanist philosophy that changing man's environment and
taking away all firearms will magically take all of the evil out of man's actions.
 
I have known of people with unregistered post-86 machine guns (or even unregistered pre-86 MGs). Both a case of an illegal gun AND an illegal owner.
 
There are firearms that are illegal under current law (though technically none should be if the Constitution were adhered to).

Unfortunately, Bloomberg and his ilk uses that term to label firearms they WISH were illegal.
 
A person can't really be "illegal," either. They can be a felon, a criminal, or a law breaker. Illegal is sometimes used to refer to illegal immigrants, but that's still referring to the act as being illegal.

As stated, there are illegal guns. They're just not the only ones Loonberg is going after.
 
About 30 years ago quite a number of Sten gun "Kits" came on the market, in excellent condition all one needed was a piece of good quality seamless tubing, (Stainless Steel muffler pipe was an excellent choice) a set of stick on templates to make the proper cuts and a bit of welding and metal cutting experience to create a working STEN submachinegun.
Quite a few were fabricated, most of them illegally, and most of them ended up God only knows where...
 
I have seen illegal guns over the years ,mostly they were sawed off shotguns carried by farmers in Rice Fields. When asked about I was told it was a tool and they could do as they pleased with them.
 
Not used by the military was the reasoning used in the Miller decision. That said, you can have a SBS if you pay for the $200 tax stamp. I suppose in some States they're illegal regardless.

Funny, the SCOTUS ruled that guns not used by the military were illegal, yet now the government wants to make guns that just "look" like what the military uses illegal. How far we've fallen.
 
Are all sawed off shotguns illegal? If so why?
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No, not all SBSs are illegal. Long story short the National Firearms Act of 1934 makes short barreled shotguns (among other things like machine guns, suppressors, and SBRs) illegal unless they have been registered with the AFT with the accompanying $200 transfer tax paid. It is entirely possible to have two SBSs sitting infront of you, one registered and one not, and have one illegal weapon and one legal weapon.

Pretty much everything in the NFA is still allowed to be registered to be transferable to private individuals except for machine guns made after 1986, which is why you see the term "transferable machine gun" and why the prices on those guns are crazy.
 
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Illegal guns, and gun violence. Two terms that are meaningless, and used inappropriately.
 
OK is the act of sawing off a shotgun barrel illegal? For instance you can go buy an 18" bbl for your Mossberg 500, but can you legally cut 10" off your 28" stock bbl? Ive always been curious about this...
 
thriller said:
OK is the act of sawing off a shotgun barrel illegal? For instance you can go buy an 18" bbl for your Mossberg 500, but can you legally cut 10" off your 28" stock bbl? Ive always been curious about this...
Click to expand...

You can saw till you're heart's content AND it stays 18" or longer (16" for rifles plus some other choice measurements). Nothing against the law about gun smithing, it's the end result that the law cares about.
 
As long as it meets the minimum barrel length and overall length you can saw away. I'd err on the side of caution and leave a little extra.
 
OK is the act of sawing off a shotgun barrel illegal? For instance you can go buy an 18" bbl for your Mossberg 500, but can you legally cut 10" off your 28" stock bbl? Ive always been curious about this...
Click to expand...

Just to clarify and expand on what has been said above, no, there is nothing illegal about cutting down a shotgun (or rifle barrel). If that barrel is attached to the rest of the firearm, you need to maintain the minimum barrel length (16" for rifle, 18" for shotgun) and overall length (26" for either), unless & until you receive your approved form 4 to manufacture an NFA weapon. If the barrel is not attached to a firearm, you can technically possess a short barrel legally, but it's a rather gray area if you have a firearm to which it can be affixed, which a zealous ATF agent may choose to prosecute.

If the weapon is already a registered short barreled rifle or shotgun, you can hack it to any length you please.
 
MAIG is against illegal guns, defined as all guns owned or possessed by anyone except police and military.

Jim
 
Well I'm not police, and I'm not military any longer, so I guess all the guns I have are illegal. Bloomie better not try to come and take them. I don't consider them illegal, and the state of New Mexico sure doesn't consider them illegal, and the federal government, at least as I write this, does not consider them illegal. Yet. Bloomie has his own axe to grind and his own definitions.
 
I think some of y'all are being too literal. Everybody knows what is meant by "illegal gun," "illegal drugs," etc... it is something that is against the law for the owner to possess. Of course it is in fact the act of possession, not the mere existence of the item itself, that the politicians prohibit; but calling the item "illegal" is shorthand that everybody understands.

I don't think MAIG refers to all guns in private hands as "illegal." They may want to make them illegal to possess, but that is not what their name implies. They are a group posing as just trying to enforce the current laws on guns, but of course their main goal is to get more such laws passed.
 
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