More than 100 House Democrats have reportedly signed a letter from Reps. Joe Neguse (D-CO) and Mike Thompson (D-CA) to President Joe Biden urging him to expand the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) to include the gun used in the Boulder, Colorado shooting.
Iâm not so sure this is a great start for Dâs. Instead of going right for certain hardware, I think we should hit the easiest and most widely accepted problems first: gun show and used gun sale loop holes and close mental health gaps. Itâs absurd that mental health screening isnât part of the approval process. This would be a much easier sell than starting with banning certain types of guns IMO. Pound the message that most of these mass shootings are mentally disturbed people. The problem is the shooters, not the guns and cut off most of the GQPâs protest arguments immediately.
This is weird but the entire premise of this article doesnât seem to stand up. The Ruger AR-556 looks like a budget version of the AR-15. No way is it a pistol in any sense. If they mean you can disassemble these things enough to fit the parts in a backpack that might be the point.
ETA the letter asks that Biden ban the importation of semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity magazines. Nothing about the AR-556, pistols, or concealability is mentioned.
The letter pointed to a pistol (therefore smaller) version of the AR-15 known as the AR-556
This is the AR-556 Pistol. It is a specific model separate from the AR-556 (Which is already a lightweight carbine).
This is a pistol firing 5.56mm NATO ammunition, which is a rifle round. The weapon also comes from the manufacturer with a flash suppressor. Ruger will tell you thatâs for huntingâso you donât startle the preyâbut this is a pistol.
A pistol with a carbine-length bolt, flash suppressor, and a 30-rnd standard magazine loading the same ammunition as an M4 carbine.
This is a weapon of murder.
Edit: @mattinpa - the AR-556 Pistolâs hidden on Rugerâs site in the pistols drop-down menu. Just popping it into a Google search wonât find it, because the carbineâs got better SEO⌠I suspect, on purpose.
Second Edit: Also, itâs got an SBA3 âpistol braceâ. Do not be fooled. This is a 5-position telescoping stock for all carbine-length receivers. Pull it out, youâre a full-length carbine, waiting for the fire selection switch and firing pin to be replaced.
Good question. One view is yours. Another is that public support for (ostensible) âstrong measuresâ is highest in the immediate aftermath of these massacres.
It is. Anything with less than a 16" barrel is a short-barrel rifle and subject to the 1934 restrictions.
Unless⌠You take the stock off the weapon, thus it canât be shoulder-fired, then itâs a pistol.
And you add in a thing called a âpistol braceâ, which looks very much like a stock, but itâs actually a brace invented by an Iraq amputee vet who wanted to be able to shoot his AR one-handed.
Quaint!
Thatâs as may be but the letter says nothing about any of that.
I just happen to be familiar with the arguments about them, thereâs been back-and-forth since they showed up on the market with the ATF wanting them to be classified as short-barreled rifles since people do put the pistol brace to their shoulders and judges telling them that because itâs not designed to be used that way specifically, it doesnât count as a SBA and therefore legally canât fall under those regulations.
Dems should be careful here, could end up giving the Supremes a crack at that 1934 act and everyone could finally buy the machine guns theyâve been wanting.
Yeah, itâs a serious case of the laws not keeping up with the technology.
Yup. And since the AR is modular, if someone wants to circumvent it anyway, theyâd just buy a full 16" rifle, buy a short barrel (not regulated, since itâs just a part), and swap out the upper receiver group which involves popping out two pins and can be done in seconds.
OK just checked out the specs and the shortest it can get without disassembly is 24 inches. Thatâs bigger than the medium-sized day pack I use for fishing and photography. Doesnât really fit the definition of âpistolâ as most people would understand it, but of course legal definitions can be different. Seems like theyâre trying to get short rifles (like civilian-modded âbullpupsâ) into the market for people whoâll pay to fantasize that they have a gun the shortness of which gives them the crucial added maneuverability when engaging in running firefights up and down the halls of their houses. 
Obviously nothing that helps you hide a weapon is great for society but this thing is only technically a pistol.
Iâm all for mandatory, universal background checks for firearms transfers (yeah, Iâm including gifts and inheritances as well as sales), but background checks will not address the issues. To the best of my knowledge, while the Boulder shooter has mental issues there was nothing there that would show up in a background check to stop the sale. The same is true of the Atlanta shooter. These guys could buy a gun and walk out with it the same day.
The most frightening thing about the mass shooters since 2015 or so is the use of long(er) arms. Pistols just donât have the lethal effect of a rifle. Kinetic energy is mv2/2. The muzzle energy of an M9 (US Army issue pistol for officers and senior NCOs) is about 500 Nt-M. For comparison, the AR-556 referred to in the article has a muzzle energy of over 1,100 Nt-M. (Muzzle energies will vary with bullet weight and powder charge.) The rifle is carrying more than twice the kinetic energy of a pistol despite a bullet about half the weight. Just for comparison, the kinetic energy of the pistol round is roughly the same as a 100 lb weight dropped from waist height. The rifle bullet is a 200 lb weight dropped from waist height.
We need rules that slow down the acquisition of semiautomatic weapons with high-capacity magazines. Covering them as Class-II weapons under the NFA accomplishes that. It also results in the weapon being registered to its owner. I view that as a good thing, too.
Yeah, itâs why gun control measures need to not target specific models or features, but go after broad categories that arenât easily evaded.
Right, but because of how pistols were made when the legislation was written, they really only care about barrel length. Basically, the idea of âletâs put a long-ass rifle chamber and receiver with a gas-blowback system into a pistolâ wouldnât have really occurred to them.
Canât be done. High-capacity magazines slot into the same port as low-capacity mags, and itâs not exactly hard to make them at home. A better approach would simply be to move all semi-automatic weapons with removable magazines into Class-II status. The only way to use a âhigh-capacity clipâ would be making the weapon large enough to fit all of the ammunition internally.
Fuck machine guns. I want a goddam howitzer.
Only âslow downâ?
We banned new sales of what were then called âassault weaponsâ for years, and there were restrictions on magazine capacity too. It can certainly be done. But the mass shootings are distractions from the daily drumbeat of less shocking deaths on street corners and in peopleâs houses every day across the country. If we could make all guns a little harder to get and a little easier to get rid of, weâd be generally better off.
It didnât do a damned thing about high-capacity magazines. And the '94 Assault Weapons Ban was useless as a real gun control measure. It didnât actually address problems, it addressed superficial combinations of features, and relied on the meaningless âassault weaponâ term. But thatâs well-trodden ground.
With enough money, time, and paperwork, you can buy one â and maybe even fire it.
(Not kidding.)
I know that. You could buy high-caps that were already in the pipeline. But God damn it, do you give up and do nothing? Fewer were made, for a while there. And I alluded to the confusion about âassault weapons.â They banned pistol grips and other scary-looking cosmetic stuff, for Christâs sake. But fewer of the bad guns were sold. It doesnât make the news when a bunch of people fail to die because they werenât shot with a gun that was never sold.