Posted on 04/16/2009 8:59:20 PM PDT by redk
JUNEAU -- On the same day they rejected an attorney general designee who is a board member of the National Rifle Association, members of the state House on Thursday approved a bill exempting guns and ammunition manufactured and kept within Alaska from federal firearms regulation.
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
LOL
You may be correct
UP to now I would have said the only manufacutors in Alaska were a brewery or two and some pre-fab housing run by a NAtive outfit (nice places tho).
Mainly because Alaska is too far away, imports almost everything and has a small population base.
Oh, and welfare pays enuf that is about the same as $15/hr after taxes.
It will be most interesting to see what the BTAF has to say - I suspect they will still claim authority, no matter what local pols do or say.
Check out Lone Star Armory - a Texas company transplanted to Alaska. They sell various models of their TX-15, an AR-15 type rifle. Numerous AR parts are available through them as well.
His parting shot will tell it all:
As they frog-march his elitist arse outta the White House, he'll get that dopey grin on his face, flash a "peace" sign for the cameras and shout, "Ta Hell with Yale!!"
The whole Obama Presidency will be remembered as one dismal frat boy practical joke.
bump...
Excellent insight. Let’s bury them in their own red tape - a citizen catch-22.
Why wouldn’t you just buy them “off the shelf”?
To the best of my knowledge, commerce in them is generally unrestricted.
The Constitution exempts ALL states from federal gun regulations, but that has not stopped the federal government from ignoring that old, outdated Constitution “thingy”!
This will come down to the same reasons for the Civil War - federal government encroaching on individual’s and state’s rights! I pray that it does not come to this, but it is really where we are! The “people” are tired of the government saying this is what you can drive (taxing oil out of business, forcing companies to build crap cars), this is what you can eat (over taxing fast food) - when and where does this stupidity stop?
If Alaska is exempt, then manufacturers will come. Keep in mind that, if one has no need to keep track of regulations, then any skilled machinist with a few thousand dollars in equipment is a "manufacturer".
I have to find a way to make a living in Alaska, and then move there (or vice-versa). Are bush pilots paid a living wage there?
In the context that the question was asked, several reasons.
First, Spyktr said that "any CNC" shop might now be a viable gun mfgr. If you can't feasibly make barrels, it's more like "any CNC shop can be a 90% gun manufacturer" (which is not a problem, some of the well known names buy their barrels outside).
Second, if the topic is making something yourself because the regulatory climate is different or you desire to be self sufficent, and there is one part that's harder to make than the others, it's natural for that part to become the focus of your attention.
Third, trade in most gun parts is pretty unregulated, as you say, but as you might expect, BATFE or someone has selected one part and said that this part is still a gun even before assembly with the other parts. This makes sense if you accept for the sake of argument that the government can regulate manufacture/purchase/use of guns, because otherwise people would just order all the parts, assemble them themselves and get out from under the regs. The same thing is done in cars. If you completely tear down a car, the front firewall is the part that's still the "car" and that's what bears the VIN. Up till now that part for guns has been the receiver, which leads to the final reason for the question. If you were BATFE and you saw a bunch of guys machining their own receivers and thus exempt from most regulation and you (being a tyrant who had to drink from a bottle as a baby) don't like it, what's the next logical step? Control the part that's hard to make, thus making it a choke point in the process. If I were BATFE, I'd be thinking the wrong part of the gun has the serial number.
Now bear in mind that that didn’t amount to a complete rebuttal of Spktyr’s statement that this would make gun manufacturing attractive to a broader group of shops and individuals. Even if barrels do prove to be too hard for a non-specialist to make, if there are a significant number of shops and individuals who can make everything else and want to do so, then a market forms for a barrel maker to move to Alaska or set up from scratch, thus bringing us back to the “entirely made in Alaska” premise that the thread is about.
I would agree that making a good rifled barrel would be more of a challenge than would be making a servicable receiver.
Read Spyktyr’s link from #21. It’s very interesting, and a relevant point that it makes is that barrel makers are almost always specialists, which suggests that it may not be something you want to try to do in a one off type setting. Almost all their machinery is special purpose and could only be used for gun barrels or other long precision cylindrical parts.
Saw that.
Corporate firewall says “Eeek! Weapons!”.
Have to read it tonight.
Even if you know how to fabricate a barrel, you also have to know what kind of steel to use; ran across a story recently about an M1A that blew up a few years back because the barrel-maker used steel that hadn’t been properly heat-treated.
Didn’t Montana do this also? What about full autos and sawed-offs? They exempt too?
Interesting shop. Over 1/2 the rifles had suppressors. One was an old Delisle (sp) from WW2 that was converted from an Enfield. Neat toy and very quiet. The owner was kind enough to let me take lots of notes and pics of the insides.
So what will Alaska do when the ATF storms the plant that will be making these guns? Because that is what would happen.
And they will loose 100% of and federal funds they might have received. Which is why this won’t pass.
Actually, it apparently already did.
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