Tag Archives: gun laws

An ‘assault weapon’ by any other name…

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In 1989 California lawmakers puked up one of the first assault weapons bans in U.S. history and in subsequent years added tweaked it and added such blanket restrictions as prohibitions on .50BMG (because there are so many crimes done with these…). While the California Department of Justice has tried really hard to ban anything that is AR-15ish or AK-47like, all enterprising gun owners have had to do is use devices such as ‘bullet buttons’ and low-capacity magazines to be able to own one today.

Still, between 1989 and 2001, the state allowed the registration by civilians of grandfathered guns. Well through Guns.com I did a public records request to CA DOJ and obtained their list of registered guns, all 145,253 of them. A detailed analysis found some really interesting things.

Here’s a snapshot of the top 25 manufacturers for example:

 

  •     28,259 Colt Mfg, almost all Sporters and AR-15 type rifles
  •     16,665 Chinese Norinco/Polytech/Clayco rifles, primarily AK and SKS pattern guns in 7.62mm
  •     14,797 Bushmasters, almost exclusively XM-15 series rifles
  •     9,158 Heckler & Koch firearms, with Model HK 91, 93 and 94 rifles accounting for the majority
  •     4,529 Springfield Armory rifles, primarily M1/M1A 7.62mm guns
  •     4,528 IMI guns including 179 Galil rifles and 4301 UZIs of multiple types in 9mm and .45
  •     4,199 Armalites including 291 AR-10s and 1046 AR-180s
  •     3,124 Eagle AR-pattern firearms
  •     2,924 Intratec branded guns, all variants of the TEC-9/AB-10 and TEC-22 pistol
  •     2,732 Ruger firearms, mostly Mini-14 and Mini-30 rifles
  •     2,199 FN/Browning/FNH with mainly FAL and FNC type rifles listed
  •     2,189 SWD guns mostly Cobray and M10/11/12 MAC-style pistols
  •     1,876 Arsenal made AK-pattern rifles in 7.62mm
  •     1,461 DPMs, all AR-15 variants
  •     1,457 Austrian Steyrs, almost all AUG-series 5.56mm rifles
  •     1,303 Korean Daewoo firearms in several variants, almost all 5.56mm rifles but also 16 DR300s in 7.62 and 5 DP51 pistols
  •     1,170 Franchi shotguns in the uber-scary SPAS 12 and LAW12 varieties
  •     1,132 CAI/Century guns, primarily 7.62mm rifles
  •     1,082 Hungarian FEG guns, mostly SA85 AK-style rifles
  •     914 Auto Ordnance, typically all Thompson 1927 style carbines
  •     770 Imbel L1A1 type rifles in 7.62mm
  •     693 DSA rifles, all SA58 models
  •     526 Enterprise Arms 7.62mm rifles
  •     496 Berettas including some 122 AR-70s and 60 rare BM-59s
  •     445 SIGs, including 122 P-series pistols and 139 SG550 5.56mm rifles
  •     392 Benellis, split roughly between their M1 and M3 tactical shotguns

The rest of the 3,000~ word report over at Guns.com along with a photo gallery of some of the more interesting guns here.

weaver arms nighthawk

 

CMP may get into the 1911 business

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remingtn 1911 with knuckleduster1918
An add-on to the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act that passed committee includes a plan to transfer the U.S. Army’s remaining stock of .45 ACP 1911A1 pistols to the Civilian Marksmanship Program.

Added as an amendment by Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Alabama, while the NDAA was in debate in the House Armed Service Committee, it could see potentially the largest remaining stock of military surplus World War II-era handguns in government hands sold to the public.

The lawmaker disclosed that the military currently spends about $2 per year to store 100,000 Model 1911s that are surplus to the Army’s needs. While 8,300 have been sold or disposed of in recent years – largely through the controversial Department of Defense’s 1033 Program, which offers eligible law enforcement agencies up to one pistol per full-time officer – the guns still on hand have in many cases been stored since the 1980s when they were withdrawn from service in favor of the then-new Beretta 92F (M9).

More in my column at Guns.com

A chat with a controversial sheriff

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So I write a lot of shit. I do fiction (zombie, military sci-fi books and short stories), non-fiction (firearms and history pieces and books), intelligence analysis, and other papers, articles ad nausea. Well I also write a lot of gun politics/legislation/litigation stuff as well– mainly for Guns.com where I have published, according to WordPress, some 1,042 articles since 2012 .

I typically don’t reblog my Guns.com articles over here as I try to stay non-political on LSOZI but decided to make an exception with a story I covered this week.

You see, in Milwaukee there was a horrible double murder after a tragic accident last weekend. In a nutshell, the a 40-year old man, Archie Brown Jr, with his 15-year old nephew in the car accidentally hit a child with his car at a birthday party. When he stopped to tend for the stricken youth, he and his nephew were shot at close range by a party goer and killed. Three people dead. Just like that.

Then the mayor and police chief of Milwaukee jumped in the issue with both feet and decried how lax gun laws in Wisconsin led to this, to which Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke–  a champion of gun rights– took exception.

In the meantime, when the long arm of the law caught up with the birthday party assassin who was hiding out (ironically) in Chicago which has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, he self-terminated. This guy has been in and out of jail since he was 17, was a felon (bank robbery, sexual assault) on parole and prohibited from possessing guns. I guess he didn’t want to go back to Boscobel for the rest of his life and live in a 12×7 with a stainless steel toilet.

So I caught up with Sheriff Clarke and talked to him for 20 minutes or so to get his take on the fall out, and I thought he was very candid.

The article is here.

And if you live in Wisconsin you can donate at your local Associated Bank to the Archie Brown Jr Memorial Fund to help cover funeral expenses.

Want to own a gun in Puerto Rico?

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While writing a piece on a federal indictment of a police detective lieutenant in Puerto Rico for Guns.com, I took some time out and read the 20-pages of gun laws in the Commonwealth as well as talked to some folks back and forth down there.

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Here’s what I found out:

The island territory requires those who want to legally own a firearm first obtain a weapons license or “Licencias de armas,” which costs $125 and has to be renewed every five years. This permit allows the holder to possess a maximum of two firearms, which have to be registered with the police, for which they can only purchase ammo in the same calibers as their declared firearms. Ammunition purchases are limited to just 50 rounds per calendar year per firearm.

Then of course you still need to buy a hunting permit if you want to use your guns for sporting purposes.

Those who want a concealed carry permit must already have a weapons license, become a member of a gun club recognized by the police, obtain an additional $25 Target-shooting permit (“Permisos de tiro al blanco”), which allows the possessor to purchase larger amounts of ammunition and then file an application to appear before a judge to argue their case for a CCW. This typically requires using a lawyer to expedite the process and obtain additional training.

The process costs upwards of $1,000 and the number of permits issued are so low as to classify Puerto Rico as a “No Issue” jurisdiction when compared to such notoriously strict “May Issue” handgun permit states as New Jersey and Hawaii.

However, the Commonwealth also suffers from a crime rate that is seven times higher than that found in the rest of the U.S. despite strict control over legal firearms.

The elusiveness of legal permits on the island has led to a burgeoning black market in illegally procured permits.

Hence the indictment for bogus permits…

NeoStead 2000: South African Scattergun

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South Africa has had a long history of armed conflict and, as such, has an equally long history of innovative local weapons design—so innovative in fact, they’re solution based designs have been copied by manufacturers internationally. With limited budgets South African arms makers have a reputation of doing ‘more with less’ and a good example of this (and one we can see elements of Kel-tec’s latest combat shotgun, the KSG) is the NeoStead 2000.

Read more in my column at GUNS.com

neostead

Gun Control Overseas

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Think gun control is bad here? Let’s look at other countries and see how it is there for comparison.

The United Kingdom

Its popular misconception that firearms are illegal in the UK. This isn’t actually correct. It’s close mind you, but not totally true. You can own certain types of firearms and even suppressors if you go through enough red tape. According to figures from the Guardian, in 2011 no less than 1.8 million legally held guns were on record just in England and Wales alone. Granted this is still only about 3300 guns per 100,000 populations, but it’s something.
However, what these firearms are and how they are obtained may shock you.
More at my column at Firearms Talk.com

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