PRO-GUN RELATED INFORMATION
Pasadena REPEALS 1995
Ammo
Law!
On
Monday 18 August the Pasadena City
Council voted to
repeal an ammunition-registration
ordinance enacted in
1995.
The
council also ignored pleas from
gun-control freaks to
adopt "alternate" proposals.
The
"law" which was originally passed with
great fanfare
required ammo buyers to write their
names and addresses
in a ledger at the points of purchase.
The police would
then go around and collect those. The
Pasadena Police
said the measure was WORTHLESS and, in
fact, gun-related
homicides rose during the first
year this stupid
"law" was in force.
THAT
from the City from whenst I came. Good
for Pasadena!
Let's hear it for REASONABLE politicians
and one more
DEFEAT for the
anti-Constitutionalists!!
"Saturday Night
Special/Junk-Gun" Myth
De-Bunked by EXPERT!!
Saturday Night Special'
myth
By Eugene J. Wolberg
(Wolberg is a forensic scientist with
the San Diego
Police Department. He specializes in
the identification
and classification of firearms and is a
court-qualified
expert witness with 19 years of
experience. The
views expressed in this article are his
own and not
necessarily those of the San Diego
Police
Department.)
"Saturday Night Special" There's a
term that everyone
understands, or do they?
It's
been said that "nothing is so firmly
believed that
is so least understood." This
definitely applies to the
"Saturday Night Special" debate.
My
purpose here is not to convince
you to support or
not support an SNS law. That is your
choice. My
purpose is to give you the facts
so that you can
make an informed decision.
The
first thing that must be made clear,
from a firearms
identification technology point of view,
is that the
term Saturday night special does not
exist as a type of
firearm. The term is one of perception,
one of belief,
a media or political term. From the
point of view of
trying to identify SNS as a type of
firearm or establish
a physical description of the gun, this
identification
attempt is pointless and simply cannot
be done with any
precision.
The
reason for this is that the
manufacturing technology and
materials used cross all boundaries in
firearms
manufacture. Expensive and inexpensive
firearms share
many factors in design, materials used
and chambering.
There is nothing that characterizes the
supposed
Saturday night special from many other
handguns.
Insisting otherwise reflects a
tremendous
misunderstanding of firearms
manufacturing
technology.
While
we normally think that SNS's are cheap
handguns, under
the definitions offered by the people
writing these
bans, virtually all handguns can be
included.
I
have studied the West Hollywood SNS
ordinance
(currently being used as a model for
other
municipalities) and have found it
fraught with technical
and identification errors. The reason
for this is that
the West Hollywood model is a
reverse-engineered
ordinance; that is, the guns to be
banned were listed
first and the definitions were written
later to cover
the list.
Unknown to the authors of the SNS law,
the definitions
used actually describe a much larger
list than was
envisioned by the ordinance's drafters.
The guns
included are most of today's modern
firearms that use
plastics, nylon polymers, zinc and
aluminum for their
construction materials.
In
effect, the ordinance is a fraud. The
curve was
drawn first and the data points plotted
later.
The
reality is that the proposed SNS ban
goes after a group
of identified manufacturers rather than
after a specific
type of firearm, loosely and
perjoratively
called Saturday night specials.
Unrepresentative tracing data from the
federal Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is
often cited to show
that these pistols are used in a
majority of gun crimes.
This is untrue. The real incidence of
use is somewhere
between 10 and 15 percent depending on
the
year, and these percentages are steadily
declining,
mostly due to economic factors.
It
should be noted that the Association of
Firearm and
Toolmark Exam- iners addressed the SNS
issue in 1987.
AFTE is an international association of
court-qualified firearms experts with
members in 24
countries. The association produces a
glossary of
firearms terms that are accepted by the
membership and
used in court testimony and firearms
investigations.
The AFTE Glossary does not describe a
SNS because the
gun does not exist as a specific type of
firearm.
It is
also interesting to note that rather
than one
clear and concise definition of a
Saturday Night
Special, the authors of the West
Hollywood ordinance,
which contains parts of the ordinance
suggested by the
San Diego County Board of Supervisors,
had to use three
different methods in attempting to
define a SNS.
The
first method is to define the
construction of a
firearm having a "frame, barrel,
breechlock, cylinder or
slide that is not completely fabricated
of heat-treated
carbon steel, forged alloy or other
material of equal or
higher tensile strength" as a SNS. This
definition
would require handguns to be made
completely of
stainless steel, chrome-moly steel, or
heat-treated
steel.
In
addition, gun parts would have to be
forged; a
process used by only a few handgun
manufacturers. The
most current manufacturing technology
features
casting, polymer injection, powdered
metal technology
and metal stampings. If parts are cast
from steel,
zinc, aluminum or by injection molding
of polymer metal,
the gun would be considered a SNS.
This
description would include virtually all
of the
handguns that are issued to law
enforcement officers in
San Diego County. Pistols that are
normally considered
high-quality firearms would be
considered SNS's under
the ordinance.
The
second definition is any semi-automatic
pistol that does
not come with a "locked breech action"
and is designed
to accept ammunition which causes the
development of "maximum permissible
breech pressures
above 24,100 copper units of pressure,
as standardized
by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition
Manufacturers
Institute (SAAMI).
But a
"locked breech action" is not defined.
If one
accepts the term "locked breech" to mean
anything that
is not a blowback action, then
effectively only blowback
guns would be affected if the breech
pressure was in
excess of 24,100 cup. This definition
bans only higher
pressure cartridges, such as the 9mm
Parabellum (Luger)
that use blowback mechanisms. This
would not only
include the Jennings 9mm (a supposed
Saturday night
special) but also the Spanish Astra
Models 1921, M-400
and M-600. Also included is the H&K
VP-70Z, which is an
expensive Blowback 9mm Luger pistol. It
should be noted
that this gun's frame is made of nylon
polymer and the
slide of metal stampings.
The
third definition is any handgun which
1.) Uses any
action mechanism substantially identical
in design to
any action mechanism manufactured in or
before 1898 that
was designed to take very low-powered
rimfire ammunition
and, 2.) That is now chambered to fire
ammunition of higher pressures. This
would include all
9mm and some .380 ACP loadings. As
mentioned above, not
only would the Bryco and Jennings
pistols be affected,
but also Heckler & Koch and Spanish
Astra firearms. Also
included would be the Walther PPK in
.380, a rather high
grade and expensive semi-auto
pistol.
This
third portion of the proposed SNS
ordinance is vauge.
Firearms manufactured before 1898 are
considered curios
and relics, in other words, antiques.
It is
unclear just what pre-1898 mechanism is
being referred
to since even semi-automatic pistols
existed before
1898.
This
third part of the definition also
includes firearms that
have barrels less than four inches.
This portion of the
ordinance bans pistols based on the
barrel
length. Quality and price are not
factors.
Therefore any pistol with a barrel less
than 4 inches
would be
considered a SNS if the pistol was a
blowback, and using
a non-steel frame. This would include
firearms
such as the Beretta 950 series, the
Taurus PP22 series
and the latest Smith and Wesson models
2213 and 2214.
These are all high-quality, well-made
firearms.
Those
who favor attempting to ban SNS's argue
that safety is a
prime factor. They say that pistols not
made of steel
are inherently unsafe. The myth spread
by
the uninformed is that these guns blow
up while being
fired. This is utterly false. As a
police forensic
specialist, I have been test-firing
these firearms for
19 years and have never seen one blow up
or be destroyed
when using factory ammunition.
It is
true that when cheaper materials are
used to
construct the firearm, the gun may wear
out faster. But
this does not make the firearm
unsafe. Any
firearm of any construction can become
unreliable if
improperly maintained or used.
All
U.S. firearm manufacturers, including
those who make
so-called Saturday night specials,
adhere to
chamber-pressure standards set by the
Sporting Arms and
Ammunition Manufacturers Institute
(SAAMI).
In
sum, Saturday night specials
cannot be defined
with anything close to the
required
precision.
From The San Diego Union-Tribune
Sunday, June 22, 1997
Page G-1
By the way......
THE most popular "crime guns" according
to the BATF are
as follows:
1. Smith & Wesson .38 Special
revolver
2. Raven Arms .25 cal (junk?)
3. Davis P-380 (junk?)
4. Smith & Wesson .357 revolver
5. Ruger .22 cal revolver
6. Lorcin L-380 (junk?)
7. Smith & Wesson semi-auto
handgun
8. Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun
9. Tech DC-9 (junk?)
10. Remington 12-gauge shotgun
HARDLY "Junk Guns" even by idiot's
standards!!!!!
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