Idiot shows off unlicensed AR-15 on youtube. Video used as evidence.
Stupidity has no limits. Times Colonist (Victoria, Canada) reports:
YouTube videos of a Victoria man blasting a couch with an assault rifle in the woods near Jordan River were entered as evidence in a trial yesterday in B.C. Supreme Court.
The showing of “AR-15 Makes Swiss Cheese Out of a Couch” is the first time the Crown in B.C. has used YouTube videos to prove a number of allegations, prosecutor Nils Jensen told Justice Robert Metzger in his opening statement. The video has been removed from YouTube.
Darcie Kate McNeill and Brian Lynn Morrison are charged with a number of prohibited and dangerous weapons offences. These include use of a prohibited weapon in a careless manner near Jordan River in 2007 and possession of a loaded Colt AR-15 rifle — the equivalent of an M16 assault rifle — without a licence or registration certificate. The offences are alleged to have taken place between Oct. 31 and Nov. 7, 2007.
A while back an Australian emailed me from his work email address asking me to provide instructions on how to build a suppressor. I replied that I thought they were illegal in Australia. He said he knew they were but really wanted one. Sheesh. I could have forwarded that email to his boss! (I didn’t).
I founded TFB in 2007 and over 10 years worked tirelessly, with the help of my team, to build it up into the largest gun blog online. I retired as Editor in Chief in 2017. During my decade at TFB I was fortunate to work with the most amazing talented writers and genuinely good people!
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In the US, suppressors are not really restricted, but they are unusual due to a set of National Firearms Act (Title II), which is also what governs automatic firearms and non-handgun weapons with barrels less than 16" for rifles and less than 18" for shotguns (one thing you Canadians have over us...). All these laws are left over from Prohibition, though they've mutated a bit over the years.
The basic rules for suppressors are that you must be 21, you must get a $200 tax stamp for each one, and I believe they must be registered, though I am not sure of that.
I'll just let the BATFE* speak for themselves:
"As you are aware, the terms "firearm silencer" and "firearm
muffler" mean any device for silencing, muffling,
or diminishing the report of a portable firearm, including any combination
of parts, designed or redesigned, and intended for use in assembling
or fabricating a firearm silencer or firearm muffler, and any part intended
only for use in such assembly or fabrication. Thus, certain internal
components, intended only for use in a silencer, are silencers as defined.
If an individual made one of these parts, even for use as a
replacement part, the individual would be making a silencer. Under
the provisions of the National Firearms Act, any person must apply
for and receive permission to make a silencer and pay the making
tax for each silencer made. This would require the individual
owner to file an ATF Form 1 application for each silencer part to
be made with the payment of $200.00 for each application prior to
making any replacement part."
Yes, theoretically, this could mean you need to register your finger, since it aided you in making the silencer. This is the same agency that declared once that shoestrings were machine gun components and thus needed to be registered.
Why a noise control device is so heavily regulated on firearms, but mandated on automobiles, I will never figure out.
The laws on short barreled weapons are so baffling that even I don't fully understand them. Basically, a weapon with a stock and barrel under the limit for its respective type (rifle or shotgun) is a Short Barreled Rifle (or Shotgun), and needs the same tax stamp and everything that a suppressor does, since they are covered under the same law. Pistols are free to have barrels as long as you want them to, but as soon as you attach a stock or vertical foregrip, you have a rifle, and if the barrel on that pistol is less than 16", you must undergo the process of SBRing it. Interestingly, shotguns with barrels less than 18" that have never had a stock on them are classified as "Any Other Weapons" and are subject to only a $5 tax.
*Our government firearms regulatory agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
two major things wrong with this uninformed article, firstly it is not an assault rifle it is merely a semi-auto rifle and secondly the ar-15 is not "the equivalent" of an M16. Whoever wrote this article needs to learn a thing or two about fact checking before they embarrass themselves further.