How easy is it to build an "assault rifle"...

Ridiculous.

1. Before you could ban an assault rifle, you would have to define what an assault rifle is and you can't do that without banning every other semi auto rifle. The term is just a leftist figment of their imagination.

2. The primer does not propel the bullet. It ignites the gunpowder that propels the bullet.

3. Rounds for the illusionary (Assault Rifle) are the same rounds for a host of weapons in 223 and 556. You going to ban ammunition for those as well?

3. You will never stop mass shootings by banning the illusionary assault weapon. I have a semi auto 12 gage with a 25 round magazine thats much deadlier than any AR 15.

4. I have yet to see a single lefty on any forum that can even describe what this illusionary Assault Weapon is.

 

Most of the people I know who shoot regularly load their own ammo. Primers are very, very easy to get and the equipment isn't actually all that expensive. Pays for itself rather quickly. And getting the right amount of gunpowder isn't difficult. Most don't go as far as swaging their own bullets, but that, likewise, isn't very difficult. Plus, even if bullets weren't fairly simple to manufacture at home, there's no such thing as ammo that is specific to assault rifles. Any round you can think of is also used in bolt action rifles. But I think you have a point about the guns themselves.

 

I met a man who claims that he built a gattling gun using some purchased pistol barrels.

 

i am sure that with the proper tools a skilled machinist could make a semi, or even full automatic weapon. how many of these 18 year old killers have such skills and tools?

@Golem may want to ban all guns, but most sensible people would just like a little help from "responsible gun owners" keeping them away from toddlers, psychos, and gangsters.

 

The amount of misinformation and ignorance in this post is astounding.

Anyone with basic metalworking skills can build a functioning firearm.

I don't even know where to begin dismantling this post but I'll start with this laughable example..

The primer is the part that propels the bullet.... lol

 

For those who say that it is easy to build your gun, why are you concerned if the sale of new guns are banned. Yep, I would ban the sale of new guns with very few exceptions

 

The AR-15 Civilian Style. It's not the firearm, it's not even the speed of fire or even capacity, etc. It's the payload it carries and specifically what it was designed to do that makes it so lethal. High velocity round (lots of gp) and the 'bullet' is designed to tumble on impact creating massive trauma.

I personally am stanch pro 2A and have seen what anti smoking laws have become though zealotry. On that note, peace out.

 

I'm sorry, but your tunnel vision is getting worse.
Every rational person wants school and mass shootings to stop and sees them as tragic. But only some of us think that making it difficult to get a weapon will cure the rage of the mentally deranged people who want to kill people to express their anger- and that mental state is the real enemy; control that and shooting deaths end. Control guns, and the state of rage in such people only choose alternate weapons. You're smart enough to realize laws don't control how violent people think. At least, I think you are that smart; I wonder why that isn't guiding your thinking.

You state you now nothing of building weapons, but you are not hesitant to tell us how difficult it is. I on the other hand, have some basic machine tools in my business, and have build guns.
Machining something complex (and the AR-15 is a complex design) requires quite a bit of skill, and I'm not really a good machinist, nor do we have CNC machines that are computer driven, so our machine work is done manually, highly skill dependent. But how difficult it is depends on the design. The simplest of guns can be built with hardware-store parts. Not even gun parts, just everyday stuff. A bolt action is easier than a repeating action, but that can be misleading, because a bolt action is also capable of a high rate of fire. In competition, a good bolt-action shooter can put more than 30 shots in an 18" target at two hundred yards in one minute. And ammunition? You seem unaware of the resourcefulness of the human species. Everything sold commercially was first produced individually.

Sophistication of design makes things versatile; and the reason the AR is so popular is just that. It's modular and can be customized in dozens of ways to the user's purpose. For example I built up a back-packing rifle using the AR core; something that could be carried reasonable on an extended back-country hiking trip. Made it light; it weighs under 5 lbs. It's a multi-caliber rifle, that can be switched in the field between .the typical 5.56 AR cartridge, a .30 AAC cartridge and a .22 long rifle cartridge. It breaks down to fit into a 16" tall back-pack. Including scope, magazines and basic ammo that pack weigh only 13 pounds. However, the build uses almost nothing but off the shelf parts, although many were modified to reduce weight. What if there were no such parts?

Bolt-action super-long range target rifle, designed for 1 and 2 mile competition. Used one off-shelf part, a barrel. Caliber .50, BMG. All other parts made from scratch. I have a friend whose company builds- air rifles. No gun parts off the rack. Not bb-guns; you can take down an elk with his rifles. No registration; they are not firearms. Easy to make your own bullets. I could build those from scratch too.

As important as anything in your rush to label guns and ordinary law-abiding citizens at the primary cause violence, is the fact that there are more guns than people in the USA. All guns purchased prior to the laws requiring federal registration are untraceable. That includes items like the Colt .45 ACPs out there in huge numbers, and many more in wide use today. Laws ONLY affect law abiding people, who are not the threat- but they don't protect law-abiding people. Criminal guns are commonly stolen guns, but our laws treat the theft of a gun on the same scale as the theft of a pair of sneakers. Petty theft, not actively investigated, and if the perp is actually caught, he gets off with a fine in many states. The anti-gun movement is more like whack-a-mole than something that might ever be effective.

Set your animosity toward guns aside long enough to understand the basic driving element behind violence- is always the state of mind of a very angry person, or one lacking any moral conscious.
That is the common denominator, the thing always present in almost all kinds of malicious violence. We don't track that, despite it usually becoming increasingly visible as it worsens. It can't be reported by doctors who see the problem, because of medical privacy. It shows up in police reports, because most of these people have had interactions with the law, often several times before; but is almost always filed away and ignored. The Parkland Florida school shooter, Nicholas Cruz, was actually reported as a person planning a school shooting to the local sheriff and twice to the FBI... who ignored it. The Uvalde shooter was using the media name "School shooter" for some time in advance of his crime, bragging on it. These people aren't invisible; they are making their growing state of hostility known- and that makes them much more visible than "ghost guns". But they are ignored; then the weapon they choose is labeled as the cause of their violence. Are you smart enough to figure out what's wrong with that conclusion?

 

I did some research into AR-15 "ghost guns" as they are called. Basically they are kits of parts except for the lower receiver. The lower receiver can't be purchased legally as a part. What can be purchased legally as a part is the casting or whatever it is of a lower receiver giving the gun builder a starting point for finishing the lower receiver. Making your own lower receiver is perfectly legal and these castings are available for legal purchase.

The purpose of building a "ghost gun" is not to save time and money. In fact it turns out to be more expensive and requires some skill, tools and work to create a working finished rifle. The purpose is to protect privacy. Many gun owners don't want government involved in their gun ownership so these products are a way of taking a rifle out the system and keeping it out of the eyes of government. There are hand gun kits as well.

I thought about buying one and finishing it as an experiment but they are expensive and I don't have a use for an AR 15. My bolt action .223 rifle is better for killing varmints on the farm. Same ammo, better accuracy. My .40 cal pistol is more practical for close quarters self defense. I think a semi auto M4 is cool and certainly effective for a soldier or LEO. I would enjoy target shooting with one. But I don't need it and don't intend to own one. If you want one go get one.

 

An assault rifle is a semi automatic or automatic rifle that can fire many rounds between reloadings. Your shotgun is an assault weapon but unsuitable for long range use.

 

My story has virtually nothing to do with this, but I still think it is interesting.

I am 84. My mother and brother bought me my first gun when I turned 13. It was a single shot Stevens Twenty Two. I loved to tinker and I removed the extractor and ended up breaking it. I took an 16p nail and filed it down to make a replacement extractor. My home made extractor worked fine. I still have that old 22 and that extractor still works fine after seventy years.

 

So an assault rifle is determined by its magazine capacity?
So if I only have a 5 round magazine its no longer an assault rifle?
Is a pistol with a 20 round magazine now an assault pistol?

 

Brand name guns are so plentiful, cheap and easy to obtain that making them from scratch is not necessary in most of the world. When that is not the case 10 year olds have been used to manufacture military weapons in places like Pakistan, The Philippines and now the UK.

"After the hearing, NCA deputy director for investigations Chris Farrimond said: "It is the first time that a fully-functioning firearms factory creating firearms from scratch has been discovered, to our knowledge, in the UK.

"It was producing handguns, copies of a Browning pistol, from absolute scratch - from the nuts and bolts and producing fully functioning lethal firearms at the other end of it, with the bullets to go with it."


IMAGE SOURCE,
NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY

Image caption,
The unit made copies of a Browning pistol and bullets


IMAGE SOURCE,
NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY

Image caption,
Small parts were being delivered to the unit

The NCA raided the factory unit last August on the Diplocks estate where the business had been advertised as a gearbox repair firm.

Duncan MacGregor, a civil engineer based in the neighbouring unit who knew Kinman, described his shock when he found out about the gun-manufacturing operation.

He said Kinman would show him items he had made he assumed were for a valve, but he later realised were gun components.

When he discovered Kinman had been manufacturing guns, he said: "First of all I was really stunned, but then when I thought back... I thought yes, the whole thing fits together."


IMAGE SOURCE,
NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY

Image caption,
The gun factory was discovered at a workshop on the Diplocks industrial estate
BBC, Men jailed over UK's 'first' gun factory in Hailsham unit, Published, 8 May 2019.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-48202765

 

Delete

 

The AR 15 is a direct derivative of the M-16. Both shoot 556 ammo but a lot of ARs shoot 223.

It was designed to wound because it takes the wounded and those who evacuate the wounded (other soldiers) off the battlefield.
As for tumbling rounds, I shot expert with an M-16 in the Army at 300 meter targets which could not be accomplished with tumbling rounds

The bullet, except at long ranges past about 400m, TURNS OVER when it changes medium from air to tissue ( it does not continue to tumble inside the target). This turning over and continuing base First is a significant wounding mechanism of all military type rifle bullets, including .30-‘06, .303 British, 8mm Mauser, 7.62 NATO. It is nothing new.

 

So YES they are designed to kill.

 

The kid in Uvalde wasn't even able to finish High School. It's doubtful he had the metalworking skills to build an assault weapon like the one he used and over 1600 rounds of ammunition.

Do you know of ANY mass shooter who had these metalworking skills you mention?

 

Not at all. They are designed to discourage home invasion and prevent the home owner from being killed or injured. I ideally, no one gets killed.

 

You know the AR-15 is very good for hunting. Due in part to its light weight. My son in law has one that he uses for deer hunting. He is a very small guy so having a capable weapon that is very lightweight is a big advantage.

 

See "Irrelevant Argument 2" at http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/how-to-ban-guns-without-firing-a-single-shot.600040/

Yes! I can unequivocally say that it's more difficult to make an assault rifle like the one used in Uvalde, than it is to build one. Not just difficult, but expensive. That's the POWER of research. You should try it one day.

I'm not sure if you have anything new to contribute to this topic. Everything you say appears to already have been addressed and debunked by the OP. So I'll just browse your poste quickly and see if I can find something worthwhile.

You seem unaware of the lack of resourcefulness of mass shooters who just go out to a store to buy an assault weapon.

Bottom line, I don't care if you decide to break the law (in the scenario I posted, assault weapons and parts would be outlawed) and try to build an assault rifle. But I am SURE the majority of mass shooters wouldn't bother. More likely they'll try to use a car or a knife or... any other device that is less likely to kill as many people, will take longer, and will make it more likely they'll get caught. Or at least stopped if there are 19 cops standing in the hallway. Which is the main objective of banning the sale of assault weapons, ammunition and parts..

I see. So your solution is to violate the 4th Amendment right of every teenager in this country who has ever shown hostility. That should definitely keep prisons busy....

 

I have no idea what your point is. Looks like you haven't read the OP.

 

So YES they are designed to kill, sorry.

 

is not a .223 cal just another measure of the same 5.56 mm?

 

And yours is to violate the 2nd amendment rights of every citizen whether they have a record of hostility or not.

The ability to reason, to separate your logic and your emotions is something wise men respect. Perhaps you should study that for a while. Research it. Talk to people who aren't in the same bog you are.
You may do your "research", but it's clear that it's a search for what you want to hear and ignores the facts that you don't. Doesn't qualify.

And if you think the average school shooter couldn't build an AR (which is not technically an assault rife, just cosmetically similar) you are right. However, they would have no problem making gasoline firebombs to throw in classrooms, but I suspect you would feel much better about that because the kids killed wouldn't be getting shot. You never get around to the common denominator of violence- the mindset of the violent person. You defend that at the cost of the lives they take.... and no doubt feel righteous about it.

I'm not trying to be your adversary- I'm opposing the lack of reason in your position.

 

They are designed propel a projectile accurately at high speed. You will find nothing in the design specifications which says a thing about killing. My intended use is intended to save my wife's and my life.

If they are designed to kill, they rank among the most unsuccessful tools ever built.