#GunControl

In a futile attempt to curb the rampant violence in Venezuela, the National Guard and local police destroy 2,000 firearms that were seized or traded in for electronic goods. Reuters’ Article mentions that most firearms that criminals get are acquired from corrupt law enforcement. The new Interior Minister Nestor Reverol has publicly stated that they will bring about “disarmament and peace”.  Not sure how they plan on doing that other than by force. According to Reuters, Venezuela also purchased a laser engraver and plans to mark ammunition and somehow register ammunition.

It’s no good to discuss how firearms work without also giving the context surrounding the firearms themselves. With that said, let’s talk about the AR-15, its copycats, competitors, and relatives. Together these rifles share space under the loose umbrella of black rifles, a term which references the use of lighter and more durable black polymer gunstocks in place of traditional wood, something that became common from the 1960s onward in military firearms design. Today the term simply means any modern military rifle, or any rifle patterned after a modern military rifle, the two most common of these by far being the AR-15 and AK types. For the purposes of this article, we’ll focus on the AR-15, but much of what we’ll talk about will be applicable to any black rifle.

The Mariana Islands are a US controlled territory often forgotten, but now they have everyone’s attention. This small set of islands far off in the Pacific ocean passed a Senate Bill which is drawing a lot of criticism. As of April 11th, all new handgun sales are subject to a $1,000.00 tax. The governor of the islands, Ralph Torres, has since defended his position on passing the bill, and even suggested that this could be a model for others (referring to states in the U.S.).

Whenever anyone, regardless of their political views, asks me about guns, I talk to them openly and empathetically, and then I offer to take them shooting – and emphasize that we’ll do it safely. Out of those I’ve offered range trips to, most of the ones who were repulsed by guns accepted, and their outlook almost invariably changed afterward.

A recent police raid on an illegal weapons factory in Sao Paulo netted some interesting items. The group involved were producing bombs, submachine guns, pistols, shotguns as well as .50 cal rifles.

Here is another unknown machine pistol that I’ve posted a short write up on via the ARES blog. A number of these have been appearing in the hands of Italian and British crime groups, one even being seized in a Real IRA weapons cache. Along with the ‘R9-Arms’ pistol It appears most likely to be Croatian in origin with obvious false branding. It most definitely has nothing to do with Intratec or the real TEC-9 pistol.

Pictured is an interesting improvised 9mm firearm being sold within criminal circles in Brazil. The entire trigger group / lower is from a standard paintball marker, allowing for a more useful semi-automatic (open-bolt) operation. A clever feature is the use of standard 9mm holed hexagonal brass bar stock as a crude smooth-bore barrel.

Pictured is an unknown 9mm machine pistol which has been seized in the Netherlands and more recently in the UK. ‘R9-Arms Corp USA’ appears to be a fictional company, suggesting it has been manufactured illicitly. The model is made to a very professional standard with a milled receiver and slide, perhaps even produced in a former legitimate arms factory in a country such as Croatia. It appears to accept an Uzi type magazine and can fire semi or fully automatically.

Banten’s police chief displays a P.A Luty designed expedient submachine gun equipped with suppressor as well as a crude homemade copy of a Thompson, both of which were seized from militants operating in Java.

It doesn’t help that a large number of submachine guns churned out in the garages of Mexican drug cartel ‘engineering departments’ point the finger at the USA as their country of origin.

Here is a video from a local news station in Toowomba, Australia. Due to the stringent gun control in Australia it took a bit of hoop jumping to get the go ahead to build an indoor range as part of a gun store. One of the major problems was to mitigate any chance of accident or suicide to shooters. According to the gun store owner, it seems you must be registered to handle firearms so this is one way of getting around that. If you look at the video, you can see that the handguns are tethered so that the muzzle stays down range. It is over reaching control but it is a system that is allowed in this Australian range.

The below are machine pistols of a design that were being produced and distributed by criminal networks in Sweden. Apparently specifications for many of the parts were simply sent off to various machine shops and ordered as ‘boat components’. All examples are smooth bore, chambered in 9mm luger and full auto only.

Some glorious individual decided to take a duffel bag full of improvised slam-fire shotguns (of legal length) to a local gun buyback which was offering $50 for each gun handed in.

Homemade firearms have long featured strongly in Indian criminology. Known locally as Kattas or tamanchas, these crude handmade pistols account for up to 30% of firearms related crime. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, their use is continuing an upward trend with around 75% of gun homicides in the capital being carried out using homemade weapons. Almost all examples are smooth bore, sometimes utilizing a sanitation pipe or automobile steering shaft as a barrel. As well as 12 gauge, many are notably chambered in the 8x50mm mannlicher /.315 bore and British .303, both very common cartridges in the region. The designs themselves are typically influenced by old British flare pistol patents, such as the Webley MKIII.

Police in Sydney, Australia have arrested a suspected manufacturer and supplier of pen guns, an increasingly popular weapon among Australia’s world famous gasoline marauding biker gangs. The examples seized are extremely minimal in design, the suspected culprit suitably being caught in the car park of a local hardware store (Edit – a reader has correctly identified them as being made from a $3 automatic center punch .. with very little modification!