Cool photo and a "count the assault weapons" opportunity

[slackmaster]

Here's an image taken by a professional photographer at a gun shoot in the Nevada desert last year. As a photographer I like it for artistic and technical reasons, and thought I'd share it for a little fun in the Gungeon.

The object is to count the number of "assault weapons" as defined in Title 18, Chapter 44, Section 921 of the United States Code that appear in this image. I'll give you a few hints:

- Federal law: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/921.html

- I live in California.

- The man on the right is me.

- The rifle I'm holding belongs to me, and I keep it at home. (On edit: I bought the receiver at a gun show in 2000 and built it myself.)

- All weapons visible in the image are legally owned by private individuals.

OK, here comes the picture. It's reduced in size from a much higher resolution original, but you have enough information to make reasonably good answers if you know what you are doing. Have at it.

http://members.cox.net/slack/images/Dudes_+_black_weapons.jpg

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. The guy on the right really is him...I am a witness

[slackmaster]

3. Hi NSMA!

Nice of you to drop in. Hope you are keeping cool today.

:toast:

[Zynx]

2. Do we take possible grandfather exemption into account?

n/t

[slackmaster]

4. The 30-round magazine in my rifle is grandfathered

It belongs to me. I own several similar ones.

AFAIK nothing else in the image is.

[Mika]

5. What's up with the PC monitor in the foreground?

A target?

[slackmaster]

6. That monitor was bad

It was very, very bad.

Just to assure people we weren't making a mess - The venue for the shoot is an abandoned rock quarry on federal land. Some gun collectors in the Las Vegas area have an arrangement with the BLM rangers who are responsible for the mine and surrounding land. Once each month, a group is permitted to shoot anything legal they want to at anything they want as long as they clean up the mess before they leave.

Other than some shards of clay pigeons the place is as pristine as an abandoned rock quarry can be. The few pieces of trash you can see in the image were all removed by 8:00 AM the following day.

On edit: Does anyone else have words they just can't spell? My brain has always wanted to put a 'd' in 'pigeon'. I must have looked it up in dictionaries a thousand times.

[skippythwndrdog]

10. "d" in pigeon

It's the Forbidden Planet Syndrome.

[Lefty48197]

22. Who cleans up the lead to prevent an environmental catastrophe?

lead doesn't have to be shot into an animal to kill it.

[slackmaster]

25. Lead has to get into a soluble form to be an environmental problem

The quarry is located in a place that gets very little rainfall.

The place is less of a lead problem than most suburban shooting ranges. Very few people are permitted to shoot there.

The place is already a dead zone anyway. What little native vegetation that existed before the mining operations began was stripped off decades ago. It's pretty much a solid rock pit with piles of rocks and gravel. Very little grows inside of the pit.

[-..__...]

7. Looks like none are to me.

(one if your AR build is on a pre-ban receiver).

Is that Ted Nugent in the foreground? :+

[slackmaster]

8. It's getting very hot here in San Diego, so I must sign off

Have to shut the computer off to keep the room cooler and allow me to get some chores done. I'll be picking and canning some nice ripe tomatoes and tending to the gardens for several hours.

I look forward to seeing some other answers, and will explain all later.

Thanks for your contribution, D__S. I'll get back to y'all!

:D

[-..__...]

9. No fair...

If any of those are semi-auto knock-offs of full-auto firearms. :(

[slackmaster]

13. None of them are knock-offs

Every weapon pictured is what it appears to be.

The only "trick" to my question is whether or not you understand what the AW ban covers and what it does not cover.

Not that it matters much. In Eastern time the ban will evaporate in less than 24 hours now.

[Cravat]

11. Let me take a swing...

I see a M249 SAW(as designated by the Corps). This thing was invented in Belgium and most of the civilized world calls it a mini-me. Machine gun.

I see a M240. Looks like a Golf but it might be a Bravo. 7.62 belt fed machine gun.

Behind the 240 is an M-16 varient on a tripod. No strike that. I should know that stock. Maybe an HK. I am guessing an automatic because of the tripod.

The long rifle looks like it is free floating. I would guess bolt action. Nothing besides the pistol grip to make it bad. The tripod is clamped on and not a fixture of the gun. I will guess 7.62x54 because the big .50 fags have bigger scopes.

So that leaves your gat. Assault weapon.

[slackmaster]

12. You're on the right track

I'll let this ride until tomorrow evening to let a few others chime in.

Anyone who has served in the US Army or Marine Corps will have a leg up on identifying some of the weapons pictured here.

[FeebMaster]

14. Good God. You're left handed?

I always knew there was something funny about you.

[slackmaster]

15. I am right-handed and left-eye dominant

Because I have a severely lazy right eye (amblyopia).

The main reason I started buying and shooting semiautomatic rifles was the dearth of left-handed bolt action ones. I've never learned to operate a left-handed bolt rifle. I haven't figured out how to shoot a right-handed bolt rifle efficiently left-handed. It's really awkward. But semiautos and belt-fed automatics work just fine for me.

The only semiauto I've ever had any problem with was an old AR (Colt SP1 type IIRC) that had no brass deflector. It kept hitting me in the forehead with ejected rounds.

I shoot pistols right-handed but crossed over to sight with the left eye.

[FeebMaster]

17. Alright then.

I guess you're OK, being one of us and all. Maybe we can use you to infiltrate their world. They're sinister, you know.

[-..__...]

16. Pray tell...

that he doesn't have one of those "girlie man" brass catching purses/deflectors. A real man knows how to take hot brass in the face.

(compensates for penis length and erectile dysfunction).

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

18. From what I can see

I see ZERO assault weapons.

I see one bolt on a tripod, though I can't figure out the make.
I see one post ban AR.
I see a belt fed or three.

None of those are covered under the AWB that dies in less than a day.

Cool part is, I'm bartending tonight. We close up shop at midnight, so guess who is going to have a VERY good tasting beer to celebrate the passage of the AWB into that good night?

Of course I'll need more beer when I find out how much it is going to cost to put a flash suppressor and front site block with bayo lug on my neutered AR.

[slackmaster]

19. Unused USGI uppers are available for reasonable prices

Look around on the 'Net. It may be cheaper to buy a complete pre-ban upper receiver assembly than have yours modified, especially if you have a pinned/welded brake. OTOH if your existing muzzle is plain the conversion (i.e. getting the barrel threaded) shouldn't cost too much.

Shop around.

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

20. Mine is sans brake

I've been playing around with the idea of getting a new upper anyway. Mine is an A2 and I would rather have an A3 to mount my EOTech on, since the gooseneck I am using just isn't that surdy.

That said, I'll likely get a RRA A3 16".

[Zynx]

21. None are "assault weapons"

The heavy tripod-mounted bolt action cannon is clearly not any sort of AW.

The AR being held and fired looks like a legal "sporter."

Two of the other guns on tripods appear to be belt-fed machine guns. Ergo, you must have the licenses for them.

I'm unfamiliar with the non-belt fed gun to you (shooter)'s immediate left. It appears to have a fixed stock, but the resolution on the front of the gun is too poor (at least without me knowing the weapon) to identify if the front of the barrel has illegal stuff on it. Because of the non-folding stock, I would be tempted to say it also is not an "assault weapon."

[Lefty48197]

23. Take that Janet Reno!

Is this a caption contest?

[slackmaster]

26. How about "PC Load Letter. What the fuck does that mean?"

Both shooters are techies.

[slackmaster]

24. OK, here is the answer

Correct answer is of course "None".

From left to right, the weapons are:

- ArmaLite AR-50 target rifle, buttstock removed, mounted on a German MG-42 machine gun tripod. The weight of the rifle plus the tripod, which has a spring system, absorbs the recoil of the .50 BMG round so no buttstock is needed. The Leupold target scope is larger than it may appear - The man in the blue shirt is very large. It's an interesting setup, very accurate.

The AR-50 is a single-shot bolt-action rifle and therefore not an assault weapon.

- US M240 Machine Gun - 7.62 NATO caliber, fully automatic and therefore not an assault weapon. I've been seeing the M240 in a lot of images and video clips of the fighting in Iraq. There's a spare barrel for the M240 propped up on two ammo cans near my right foot.

- US M60 Machine Gun - also 7.62 NATO caliber, fully automatic and therefore not an assault weapon. I don't know the revision level. It was interesting and a lot of fun comparing the M60 and the M240 side-by-side.

- US M249 Squad Automatic Weapon often called the "SAW". 5.56 NATO caliber, selective-fire; legally a "machinegun" and therefore not an assault weapon.

- My rifle is a homebuilt AR-15 in post-ban configuration - No bayonet lug, fixed-length stock, and permanently attached muzzle brake making the threaded muzzle inaccessible without drastic action that I would not be willing to risk.

D__S suggested that I could have bought a bare pre-ban AR-15 receiver in California in 2000. That is theoretically possible but very unlikely. Someone would have had to have disassembled a bona fide pre-ban rifle and sold it off as parts, which would have made no sense economically.

With the ban in place AR-15 experts consider it risky to build up a pre-ban configuration from a bare receiver. In order to cover yourself legally against a criminal charge of building an illegal assault weapon you need provenance that it was part of a fully assembled pre-ban rifle when the ban took effect. The age of the receiver, which can be established by its serial number, is not sufficient to prove to the BATFE that the receiver was ever part of such a rifle.

BTW - I was able to acquire a fully configured AR-15 from parts all bought in 2000 by exploiting a loophole in California's assault weapon laws. The bare lower receiver was not on the list of makes and models of firearms considered to be AWs at the time I bought it in July of that year. In early September IIRC the Attorney General had it added to the list. So I registered it as required by law, then was able to build it up with the pistol grip and all, though not in a federal pre-ban configuration.

That will happen tomorrow morning at about 12:01 AM when the federal AW ban vaporizes.