http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/agents-of-incompetence-atf-seizes-toys-then-touts-their-danger-part-ii/
First let me say this. The agents at the local level, just like the FBI, are mostly decent fairly intelligent guys and gals. BUT, in a department like the ATF, a very political and unliked federaal agency, the politics makes them act stupidly. According to the artice the ATF seized air soft guns that looked like assault weapons because they can be converted to real weapons. Now seriously, the companies that make them have tried to have a number of gunsmiths make the conversions, just to be on the safe side and found what anyone who is familiar with firearms already knows- it won’t work. The fact the ATF doesn’t know this means a supervisor somewhere saw a political opportunity to prove “they are on the job” and should be funded once again.
“It is quite a stretch for U.S. Customs inspectors at the Port of Tacoma to declare that they recently intercepted machine guns, especially when the devices they confiscated were two models of a well-known brand of high-end Airsoft toys. To make such a claim, Customs relied upon a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) determination that these toys could have parts replaced or modified to turn it into a weapon capable of firing real bullets in automatic mode.
For such a claim to be true, the modified toy would have to:
- accept M4/M16-type military magazines
- strip a cartridge from the magazine and push it up the feed ramp into the toy’s chamber
- have a functional fire control group action, barrel, and gas system to cycle the weapon
- withstand (structurally) the high heat and pressures of a firearm cycling at hundreds of rounds per minute
Both Airsoft Outlet Northwest (the retailer/importer the Airsoft guns were seized from) and AirSplat (the nation’s largest Airsoft retailer) stock and have experience with the various configurations of the WE Tech Airsoft gas blowback systems, and both claim to have had experts attempt see how these toys could possibly be converted into functioning firearms. Airsoft Outlet Northwest took a previously delivered (without incident) WE Tech to a gunsmith that specializes in the AR platform. The gunsmith determined the following:
- The WE TTI M4s lack any sort of functional gas tube which is integral to an AR15’s operation
- The upper receiver of an AR15 fits onto the lower of the WE TTI M4
- The stock trigger pack in the WE TTI cannot strike the firing pin of a AR15 bolt
- The body of the WE TTI lower is several mils thinner than an AR15 lower, and shims would be needed for any AR trigger pack to work
- The trigger pack of an AR15 appears to be able to fit onto the lower receiver of a WE TTI M4, one of the AR15 trigger pack retaining pins is impossible to insert without major modification, and the hammer isn’t operable with the WE TTI lower.”
Of course it won’t work and anyone with the slightest knowledge of firearms, which for the agents making the actual seizure in the field it should be a mandated requirement, knows these are just hi-tech toys. My son and his friends own dozens of them. They aren’t even close to be the real thing, you can see that even with just a cursory review with hands and eyes only. It CAN’T work. It would be like saying to a kid who has a board of wood, “Hey kid that’s a gun! Give it here!” When the kid complains explain by saying, “You see, the board can be carved into a shoulder stock and a foregrip. Then a receiver and barrel can be fitted to the wood stock making it a rifle! See you board of wood, with some slight modifications, IS A GUN!”
Needless to say, the kid would look at the agent like he had lost his mind. With, in fact, some have, but most are just looking to justify their pay.
