Posted on 01/01/2019 6:50:40 AM PST by marktwain
Some interesting items turned up at the Baltimore gun “buy back”. “Buy back” is an Orwellian propaganda term. You cannot “buy back things you never owned. At the event, someone turned in an expended AT4 trainer. From saab.com:
All AT4 weapons are single shot and fully disposable. You simply aim, fire, destroy the target and discard the empty tube. Furthermore, the AT4 family has proven itself to be a highly reliable, robust and durable weapon system that has been extensively proven in combat. Its key characteristics include high target effect and hit probability – creating a high target kill probability for each fired weapon.
The gold or yellow band on the tube indicate it is a trainer and not an actual AT4. The lack of a cover on the front end shows it has been expended. Used trainer tubes are inert.
They are not illegal to own, because they are inert, and cannot be reloaded. You can buy them over the Internet for $250. The price is that high because airsoft enthusiasts love them.
With a lot of work and machining, they can be made into a very clumsy 9 mm single shot. It is essentially a collector's item or a toy.
Vice claims the Baltimore police paid $500 for it, but no one has been able to confirm that.
The police did pay $500 for what looks to be a WWII bring-back, a Sten submachine gun. It is shown alongside the expended AT4 trainer
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Liberals: looking like idiots and feeling good about it. Hilarious.
I”ve always wondered about that. Why wouldn’t Mr. PDChief embezzle such a valuable collector”s item and either put it in his own collection or arrange to have it sold on the black market? Does anyone really trust these people?
What? No muskets or assault blunderbuss?
A couple of MP44 Sturmgewehrs have been given to police at these circus sideshows by the bring back owner’s widows in the last few years
There are checks in place. The police collecting the guns fill out information cards on them, and tags with the information. So there is likely an inventory to be done and maintained.
Clever scammers can get around that, with a some thought and effort.
For example, I was able to zoom in on one of the revolvers' tag, and see how it was filled out. Caliber: UNK SN: UNK Make: UNK Looks like a good free market gun to me. Of course, many old revolvers may be hard to determine caliber, make, and serial numbers...
An amazing story - I had no idea people still live in Baltimore.
I’ve only seen a Sten and a Lanchester in a museum. Museums the these no questions ask, but you sign them over for display. It’s a wonder these tow are not donated to local museums?
Ping to cyclotic.
“...Museums [take] these no questions ask, but you sign them over for display...” [realcleanguy, post 9]
It must be said in the clearest, most emphatic terms, that this is NOT the legal situation in the USA.
Pursuant to federal law and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE, still referred to in trade parlance by its former shortened acronym “ATF”) regulations, all “machine guns” as defined under the National Firearms Act and amendments must be registered with ATF. No exceptions: not for museums, not for arms found in Uncle Ebenezer’s barn nor under Grandpa George’s floorboards after they passed away.
And - pursuant to the McClure-Volkmer Firearms Owner Protection Act - no private citizen has been allowed to register a new-made machine gun since the law went into effect n 1986.
No museum is even allowed to register any machine gun they might have found on their doorstep of a morning, left there overnight by an anonymous person. Applies with equal force to a legally inert Deactivated War Trophy (DEWAT) incapable of firing.
ATF regulations have meant pretty much whatever agency officials say they mean (or are told they mean by higher officials & Congress): they rarely provide interpretations, and insist they are never constrained by prior interpretations nor legal precedent Federal courts have backed them in almost all cases. Challenges are rare; successful challenges rarer. The prevailing institutional attitude is “innocent until proven guilty:” citizens and dealers caught in a technical violation, who plead ignorance of law or regulatory changes, rarely get the benefit of any doubt. Purity of motive means nothing.
Some other countries do allow donations to museums without penalty - even when they heavily regulate ownership of the more-common “civilian” guns.
Forum members are advised to proceed carefully. Seek competent legal advice. “Competent” is a key word here: attorneys with training & experience in firearms law, and who are also reliably pro-gun, are rare. A generic pro-gun stance does not always extend to military-style firearms. True of citizens and attorneys alike.
Thanks for That,
How did You know I
have an Uncle Ebenezer?
I can absolutely confirm the veracity of his story about the Lanchester.
“...How did You know I have an Uncle Ebenezer?” [Big Red Badger, post 12]
I could simply say it’s a talent of mine, but that would be fibbing. It’s merely dumb luck & coincidence.
I was forgetting Fred - my own father. While serving in Italy in 1945, he happened on an entire case of Kar98k rifles. New, never issued. Couldn’t come up with any way to get the whole lot sent home safe & secure, so he took one out of the case and held onto it: carried it around with him for weeks. Eventually managed to get it home OK. After a couple seasons he gave it to my mother’s first cousin Donny. Who sporterized it.
Can’t begin to imagine what Dad would have done, if his trophy had been an MP40, or an MG42.
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