DonP
Member
I found this column in the local Star (Illinois) papers.
Imagine a journalist that actually did some research!
At the same time he found out that the people espousing the Illinois AWB had no idea what they are talking about. But that doesn't stop them from advocating for the ban.
You can read the whole thing here:
http://www.starnewspapers.com/star/spedit/bowers/x21-bow.htm
Here's the introduction ...
(clip)
The myth of the easy machine gun
Sunday, May 21, 2006
A ban on assault rifles, pushed by the mayor of Chicago and our governor, is moldering in the state House Rules Committee. Lawmakers can take no action until they reconvene in October. And even then, there's little chance supporters can pick up the three additional votes they need to send the bill to the Senate.
But like the villain at the end of a movie, the assault rifle ban never dies. It's just wounded, waiting to come back when you're not looking. So I thought I would look into the validity of its major argument. That is, this notion that it's easy to convert a semi-automatic rifle (legal) into a fully automatic rifle (illegal), also known as a machine gun (illegal).
I've been following the debate. One point always seems to go unexplained. Once some concerned police chief declares that semi-automatic rifles are dangerously easy to convert, the discussion leaps elsewhere. No details of the conversion task are forthcoming.
So I called a spokesman for Gov. Blagojevich in Chicago. Could you explain, I asked. How do you do this job anyway? Do you need a screwdriver? A power drill? How long does it take? Could the governor's office be a little more explicit about the mechanics of the threat?
I gave the helpful spokesman a day to do a little research, then called back. He told me had learned the root of the problem is the "conversion kit," something that allows you to replace a certain part in the rifle and make it a machine gun.
I see. Do you know the name of this part? He didn't. In fact, as he readily acknowledged, he knew almost nothing about guns at all. Not that there's anything wrong with that. He did tell me: "It's very easy if you follow the instructions."
The spokesman added that the conversion kits are illegal in Illinois. Well, then, where do you get one? They are probably available at gun dealers in states with looser gun laws, he suggested.
I thanked the good fellow and went on a search for a "machine gun conversion kit." I looked all through Shotgun News, the bible for gun buyers and sellers. Didn't see a single conversion kit. If you can't find a gun item in Shotgun News, you can't find it anywhere.
But this fat magazine is packed with ads, many set in small type. It's possible the kit was there and I failed to recognize it. So I moved on to Google. Alas, still no conversion kit. But wait — there is a booklet called "The Ultimate SKS Full Auto Plans" by M&M Engineering. Aha! I thought, purely academically. Now I'm good to go.
But, not quite. The booklet costs $10. It's 32 small pages. The illustrations are fuzzy, the instructions are vague and the necessary tasks appear to require machine tools, which, in case you did not know, are not cheap. A nicely equipped 16x40-inch lathe from Grizzly Industrial in Springfield, Mo., costs $6,400.
For me to make sense of this booklet and produce a reliable machine gun would be about as likely as my persuading one of the Bush twins to spend next weekend with me.
Nevertheless, let me give you an idea of what is involved, so that you can be informed the next time that a gun-banner tries to frighten you.
First off, you have to buy a rifle. I chose the M&M Engineering booklet specific to the SKS, which I understand to be the Chinese version of the AK-47. The SKS is reliable, abundant and cheap, at $175 or less. So it sounds like just the thing for a city thug, doesn't it?
Now you are ready to transform your SKS into a street sweeper. Stay with me: So far you have done nothing illegal. Except for some parts of the country, such as the city of Chicago, the SKS is legal in its semi-automatic version. What's illegal is the fully automatic version of the gun: a machine gun.
(continued)
(clip)
Good read and an honest assessment of this kind of foolishness the gun banners stand for.
Here's his e-mail address if you feel like writing, I already did.
Send email to [email protected]
Imagine a journalist that actually did some research!
At the same time he found out that the people espousing the Illinois AWB had no idea what they are talking about. But that doesn't stop them from advocating for the ban.
You can read the whole thing here:
http://www.starnewspapers.com/star/spedit/bowers/x21-bow.htm
Here's the introduction ...
(clip)
The myth of the easy machine gun
Sunday, May 21, 2006
A ban on assault rifles, pushed by the mayor of Chicago and our governor, is moldering in the state House Rules Committee. Lawmakers can take no action until they reconvene in October. And even then, there's little chance supporters can pick up the three additional votes they need to send the bill to the Senate.
But like the villain at the end of a movie, the assault rifle ban never dies. It's just wounded, waiting to come back when you're not looking. So I thought I would look into the validity of its major argument. That is, this notion that it's easy to convert a semi-automatic rifle (legal) into a fully automatic rifle (illegal), also known as a machine gun (illegal).
I've been following the debate. One point always seems to go unexplained. Once some concerned police chief declares that semi-automatic rifles are dangerously easy to convert, the discussion leaps elsewhere. No details of the conversion task are forthcoming.
So I called a spokesman for Gov. Blagojevich in Chicago. Could you explain, I asked. How do you do this job anyway? Do you need a screwdriver? A power drill? How long does it take? Could the governor's office be a little more explicit about the mechanics of the threat?
I gave the helpful spokesman a day to do a little research, then called back. He told me had learned the root of the problem is the "conversion kit," something that allows you to replace a certain part in the rifle and make it a machine gun.
I see. Do you know the name of this part? He didn't. In fact, as he readily acknowledged, he knew almost nothing about guns at all. Not that there's anything wrong with that. He did tell me: "It's very easy if you follow the instructions."
The spokesman added that the conversion kits are illegal in Illinois. Well, then, where do you get one? They are probably available at gun dealers in states with looser gun laws, he suggested.
I thanked the good fellow and went on a search for a "machine gun conversion kit." I looked all through Shotgun News, the bible for gun buyers and sellers. Didn't see a single conversion kit. If you can't find a gun item in Shotgun News, you can't find it anywhere.
But this fat magazine is packed with ads, many set in small type. It's possible the kit was there and I failed to recognize it. So I moved on to Google. Alas, still no conversion kit. But wait — there is a booklet called "The Ultimate SKS Full Auto Plans" by M&M Engineering. Aha! I thought, purely academically. Now I'm good to go.
But, not quite. The booklet costs $10. It's 32 small pages. The illustrations are fuzzy, the instructions are vague and the necessary tasks appear to require machine tools, which, in case you did not know, are not cheap. A nicely equipped 16x40-inch lathe from Grizzly Industrial in Springfield, Mo., costs $6,400.
For me to make sense of this booklet and produce a reliable machine gun would be about as likely as my persuading one of the Bush twins to spend next weekend with me.
Nevertheless, let me give you an idea of what is involved, so that you can be informed the next time that a gun-banner tries to frighten you.
First off, you have to buy a rifle. I chose the M&M Engineering booklet specific to the SKS, which I understand to be the Chinese version of the AK-47. The SKS is reliable, abundant and cheap, at $175 or less. So it sounds like just the thing for a city thug, doesn't it?
Now you are ready to transform your SKS into a street sweeper. Stay with me: So far you have done nothing illegal. Except for some parts of the country, such as the city of Chicago, the SKS is legal in its semi-automatic version. What's illegal is the fully automatic version of the gun: a machine gun.
(continued)
(clip)
Good read and an honest assessment of this kind of foolishness the gun banners stand for.
Here's his e-mail address if you feel like writing, I already did.
Send email to [email protected]
