CBS Evening News had a piece on last night about how you can buy parts from a gun-show to make fully-automatic M16s without a background check. You can read a transcript of it at their website[1]. I sent this response to them:
[start] CBS Evening News:
I saw your program on 11/12/02 entitled 'Assembling Automatic Weapons', and I had to comment: you can't 'easily find all the parts' needed to modify a firearm into an automatic weapon. While your reporter was able to find the fire-control parts for an M-16 (i.e. the DPMS branded hammer, trigger, disconnector, selector, etc.), you did not find the most crucial piece of them all: the automatic-sear. Without this important item, you don't have a functional machinegun (you do, however, meet the statutory definition of a machinegun (26 U.S.C. section 5845 (b)). Your unidentified interviewee found this out the hard way).
The reason you didn't find this for sale is that it is a restricted item (in BATF parlance, this piece _is_ the machinegun, and must be registered as such (BATF Ruling 81-4, 1981-3 ATFB 78)). Manufacture of this part has been forbidden since 1986, and possession has been severely restricted to Class III Federal Firearm Licensees, or to those that have passed the government's rigorous screening process. (Approximately 178,000 law-abiding Americans have done so.)
This is sensationalism over a non-issue. [end]
Regards, Greg
[1]
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/12/eveningnews/
main529068.shtml
