Quote of the Day
In fairness, some ghost guns are also produced by the criminal element. And it’s also true that these firearms have become increasingly popular amongst prohibited possessors. But in a country that has largely traded any real concern for order, public safety, or property rights for legalized shoplifting, mass encampments of homeless drug addicts, and civil rights patronage schemes, one must remember that our government is simply acting in bad faith when it comes to gun laws like 05F.
If it were important to the government to stop gun crime, they would focus their efforts on St. Louis or Baltimore. But it’s not important to the government to stop these crimes, it’s important to the federal government to stop you from being able to defend yourself from them.
Lee Enphield
June 9, 2023
Ghost Guns Come Back to Haunt the Biden ATF
It is far beyond bad faith. They enable crime and then insist the victims not be allowed to defend themselves from the criminals. This is evil.
There is a solution to evil. The G0: 0% PISTOL.
I like the idea behind GG, but I wonder about the risk that the bad guys will target GG owners. Which makes me wonder: it clearly is possible to do what that machine does with any good CNC mill, perhaps with some tweaks to the G-code. I wonder if that has been done; if so it would be useful for that to be published as open source or public domain work. I was thinking a Sherline CNC mill, for example, is similar in price and size but “it’s just a metalworking hobbyist machine”.
There have been many AR-15 rifles and 1911 pistol frame built using home-grown (and also commercial) CNC setups. Myself, I’ve completed multiple AR lowers from 0% forgings, manually, using a small JET vertical mill. It’s time consuming and tedious, but they are all within spec and function very well. One of them is my primary home defense carbine, suppressed, in 300BLK.
Take a look online, there are a couple of forums dedicated to home-built firearms, some of them with CNC tooling (not the dedicated Ghost Gunner CNC).
Manual milling — that’s impressive. I know it can be done; Arne Boberg described building some of his XR-9 prototypes on his Bridgeport mill. It certainly takes more machinist skills than the limited amateur ones I have.
The basic concepts for manual machining are the same as CNC. The challenge comes when machining curves and profiles. If you look at many of the guns built prior to WW2 you’ll notice a lot more straight lines (think Thompson vs mp5) and a lot more sheet metal/riveted plate/tubing eg grease gun, Browning machine gun. It’s not that hard to machine gun parts. A gunsmith is just a more refined blacksmith (sometimes). Any high school kid with a couple years of shop class and access to a lathe and mill could make a pretty decent firearm.
Good point. And of course there is the famous shovel that became an AK-47 receiver. And I remember a picture of a Kashmiri gunsmith busy making some gun part, sitting on a dirt floor with a piece of metal held in a vise between his knees, wielding a file.
You’re correct on the curves! But most of the available digital read out (DRO) packages for mills and lathes have built in calculators to machine curves manually, inputting the curve shape, cutter diameter, etc. Basically it’s a human, following G-code-like coordinates.
There are advantages to using a bigger CNC setup instead of the GG. For one, you get to run coolant, which I don’t think the GG yet has as an option.
It’ll be even easier when additive machining methods like sintered metals become more available and less expensive.
Re sintered metal: MarkForged has an interesting machine that does that, but it’s undoubtedly priced way above hobbyist levels. I wonder about their continuous filament + thermoplastic machines, though — kevlar-reinforced nylon seems to be a material that might plausibly be suitable for some interesting applications.
The solution to real evil is a tall tree and a somewhat shorter length of rope. 0% pistol, no earpro needed.
Guns have to have serial numbers on them so that the government can track their movements/owners/possessors. The imposition is that the gun will be used in a criminal act. (As if all criminal acts with a gun are not already criminal?)
So, were to believe that was the reasoning behind the wording of the 2A?
No, were compelled to remember the reason for the argument is because they want an excuse to ban/control all firearms. No good faith to be had in it.
When under 2A, there is no “prohibited persons” over which one can argue. If someone is allowed to roam unsupervised in society. One is allowed to defend oneself.
And only under congresses regulation of commerce did someone dream up ghost guns. (Which the 2A modifies and amends. If not completely negates.)
Sorry, there is no such thing ghost guns. Simple machinations from communist nightmares.
It’s sad communist always destroy history. Otherwise, they would understand that in the 1770’s people wanted and talked of freedom.
But it was gun control that started the shooting. And the king’s men will fair less well this time around.
Ghost guns or no.
I know they have to be serial numbered if you’re manufacturing them for sale. If you’re building one for your own use, is that still true? I’m not sure.
Of course there are firearms without serial numbers; antiques, but also a famous non-antique example: the Liberator.
No, your right, one does not need a serial number to build a firearm for yourself. Just like not needing a license or pay taxes on your own homemade wine or whiskey.
The only reason is for tax control. And once again it’s gone on so long government is incapable of thinking in terms of freedom and rights.
Just like Joke Biden saying you can’t buy or build a cannon back in the 1770’s. They just talk shit, then go about enforcing it.
As you could buy or build those same cannons to this day. Quite legally.
The pet groomer next to our gun shop used to build them on his lathe at home and sale them as a side hustle. All legal. People loved’em. Everything from little golf ball shooters, to ones you could shoot beer cans full of rocks through!
Once you go outside black powder the ATF start getting froggish.
But facts and law only matter to us these days. They will do whatever they think they can get away with.
Too much black powder can get the BATFE froggy, too. In the mid 1980’s I worked with a fellow who was in a Civil War reenactor’s club and the BATFE came to him because they thought he was buying an awful lot of black powder (He used a good chunk of it every time his artillery crew went to a renactment. but somehow they weren’t watching that part).
Ya, the ATF has some weird classification on black powder. They don’t consider it as a flammable solid like smokeless powder. It’s more of an explosive to them. Even though the burn rate is much slower than smokeless.
Maybe something to do with ignition?
Or maybe the government is full of crap. No matter.
We even had to store it different at the shop.
Black powder is a flammable solid until you confine it more than it is in the breech of an unobstructed gun. When the pressure reaches a certain point, the flame front turns into a detonation and it’s an explosive.
I don’t know if smokeless propellants react similarly. I think manufacturers would prefer for their powder to be “safe” in regards to detonation, unless formulating it so unduly increases the cost or adversely affects other characteristics.
Some years ago there was an article on the net in which a professional welder in AK described the black powder mortar he built from a chunk of well casing and a steel plate; it would send a bowling ball about a mile. Certainly impressed his friends at the range where he showed it off. I think it used an ounce of powder, I have no idea if that is plausible.
Not sure about the mile part. But I bet everyone in the immediate area had ear to ear grins!
That stuff is just to much fun. I think that’s why all the commie-mommies are against it.
Everyone has to be as miserable as them.
Joe used to have a guy with a couple of bowling-ball mortars do a demo at Boomershoot. I think he used a pound of FFG per shot – the balls that had been drilled with finger holes made an eerie whistling sound as they zoomed downrange. I think those were landing somewhat short of the treeline – maybe 300-400 yards downrange.
The Feds still don’t require a serial number, but some states do, and make it hard to jump through the hoops to obtain one. Mine have serial numbers so I could identify one if it was stolen, but they aren’t “registered” with anyone by myself.
I’ve made this argument many times – Under 2A, there should be no “prohibited persons.” If someone is allowed to roam unsupervised in society, one is allowed to defend oneself.
Prison terms should be set with the idea that the convicted will be able to purchase, use and carry firearms when their sentence is completed. Don’t allow them out of custody until adequate time has passed for them to be considered “safe” to be armed.
That’s the reality now, released prisoners can easily arm themselves within moments of being back on the streets.
Exactly, and all released and rearmed by design.
Unless you are going to use that ‘ghost gun’ to execute criminal commies who are in power the creating one is pointless. America probably has half a billion guns in the hands of normal citizens. And the criminal commies are STILL IN POWER. It’s become quite plain that having guns is NOT the solution to the problems this country faces.