Man Orders TV On Amazon, Gets Shipped Assault Rifle 666
First time accepted submitter InfernoApple writes "Seth Horvitz, a Northeast D.C. resident, thought he had ordered a new high-definition television a few days ago through Amazon.com from a third-party merchant. When the package arrived yesterday, however, Horvitz opened the oddly shaped box to find something completely different. Instead of the flat-panel TV he had bought to enjoy with his wife, who is pregnant, Horvitz opened the long packaging to discover a Sig Sauer SIG716, a high-caliber, semi-automatic assault rifle capable of mowing down, well, just about anything."
Not an assault rifle (Score:5, Informative)
The SIG716 is not an "assault rifle" and you won't be "mowing" anything down with it. It is a conventional semi-automatic rifle that can be legally owned just about everywhere. Also, it is in a large caliber that makes it better suited for hunting than for rapid fire.
If the guy had been shipped a functionally equivalent hunting rifle with a classic wood stock there would not be as many ninnies getting the vapors over it. Unless Amazon has never made a shipping error before, this is a non-story.
Re:really??? (Score:5, Informative)
In this case it is 7.62x51, roughly identical to the .308 Winchester.
That is legal for deer hunting in all 50 states, unlike the weaksauce 5.56x45 used in actual assault rifles.
So he didn't actually get an assault rifle, semi-auto hunting rifle that happened to be painted black, had an adjustable stock for comfort and rails for attaching a scope, bipod and other accessories.
Re:really??? (Score:5, Informative)
For those unaware, an assault rifle is a firearm capable of firing in a fully automatic mode, as opposed to semi-automatic or single-action. Furthermore, the most common round used in assault rifles is a pittance, it is a .22 caliber bullet (granted with a lot more power and better aerodynamics than the .22 LR you shoot in Boy Scouts). But even with all that it is considered pitiful, not much more than a varmint round.
Here in Pennsylvania it is illegal to hunt dear with a .223 caliber because it is not considered powerful enough to ensure a clean kill. In fact, those evil high caliber rounds are often half the size of a hunting cartridge.
So where does the term "high power" stem from? Not the cartridge itself. But the capacity of the firearm. Essentially, you had a 45 caliber semi-automatic designed by the Revered John Moses Browning. This held about 8 rounds. They're big short fat stubby rounds. 8 rounds of firepower was two more than the average revolver. The Revered than creating the Browning Hi-Power using a much smaller 9mm round. The result was a capacity of 15-19 rounds. Hence hi-power simply mean greater capacity, often related to small, weaker, less powerful bullets.
In fact, the current .223 round used in M16/M4/AR15 (semi-automatic version) is essentially considered the smallest, weakest, bare minimum rifle round that can ensure a reasonable expectation of success. Compared to what gramps used in WWII or worse, WWI, it's laughable - unless you're shot by one of course.
Re:really??? (Score:5, Informative)
Came to post this. The article throws about "hi power", "mows down about anything", without ever specifying the caliber. 7.62x51 (not x56) is a standard NATO round, about 10% less powerful than a 30.06.
And as someone above said, the gun is probably worth twice what the TV he ordered is.
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:1, Informative)
Yes...and that's the point. It's really nothing special. Just a standard semi-automatic rifle (not much different than any other varmint rifle).
But in DC it is illegal and near impossible to get one. And he did....
(Could of just kept his mouth shut. And when things hit the crapper in another decade, he'd have the means to keep himself and his neighbors safe.)
Re:really??? (Score:5, Informative)
What's a "high-caliber" assault rifle?
A contradiction in terms.
An assault rifle is A) fully automatic (with a fire selector that includes either full auto or burst) and B) fires an intermediate rifle cartridge, meaning not high calibre.
If it's high calibre, but still a military rifle, it's a battle rifle. If it's intermediate calibre, but limited to semi-automatic fire, it's just a semi-auto rifle.
You can't legally buy assault rifles, or select fire battle rifles for that matter, if you're a civilian living in a first world nation. Doesn't matter what you might see in the news that says otherwise, go try it at your local gun store and see how far you get. If it's got automatic fire capability, it's a military weapon belonging in the hands of soldiers, and cannot be owned by your local gun nut anymore than he can own a live grenade.
Referring to anything that looks remotely dangerous as either an assault rifle or machine gun is a good indicator that the person doing the labelling knows fuck all about the subject at hand. "Assault style rifle", which is the weasel word term for weapons like the one in TFA, is about the same thing as a car that looks like a racecar, but drives like a sedan; legal, fancy looking, but boring under the hood.
(Disclaimer: I am Canadian. The second amendment down south is none of my business either way. I own no guns. I am firmly in the "guns belong in the hands of professionals" category. Anyone busting out the "sure, that's what an NRA drone wants you to think" in response to my post presumably didn't read the post script.)
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:5, Informative)
How dangerous, really? (Score:5, Informative)
This story was on the local Washington DC NPR affiliate yesterday, and they did a much better job describing the problem -- it was quite obviously a UPS bungle, underneath the address sticker on the package, there was *another* address sticker, with the address of a gun shop in Maryland, which confirmed that they had indeed ordered this thing, and were waiting for it. Amazon doesn't appear to have done anything wrong in this case.
The part that I thought NPR did poorly was, both they and the guy who was the subject of the story kept going on about how dangerous the situation was, and I thought that was kind of over-blown. It was left on his porch for a while, which put it at risk for theft, but the gun was, as far as I can tell, not loaded, and there was no suitable ammunition anywhere around. So, it seems to me that, practically speaking, it was no more or less dangerous than a similarly-sized shovel or crowbar, independently of the presence of pregnant women and other vulnerable people.
When someone shows up with the right ammo, *then* it's dangerous. But not before.
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:5, Informative)
It used to be before assault weapon bans became popular. Now semi and fully automatic versions of the same base gun are different enough that it's now a difficult complex modification...
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:5, Informative)
Shipping error (Score:5, Informative)
It was, NPR reported that his address label was stuck on top of one for the gun shop it was intended to go to. Pretty much every one of the articles on this story also neglects to state that you can't have firearms shipped to your house unless you have an FFL.. You have to go pick it up at a gun store and go through a background check.
Re:really??? (Score:5, Informative)
the gun was supposed to be shipped to a gun shop (Score:5, Informative)
NPR reported that the label under this guys address is for a gun store in PA. This is really poor reporting. The washington post version lacks this detail as well, as well as any reporting that you can't ship firearms to a persons home unless they have a FFL.
WTB Better Summary (Score:3, Informative)
Preferably one written by someone at least knowledgeable about guns. It's neither high caliber, nor capable of "mowing down just about anything".
It's gas-powered semi-automatic: One trigger pull, one round.
It's 7.62x51mm NATO, which is nearly (but not exactly) identical the .308 Winchester it's based on. It could be potentially classed as high-power (the .308 being a hunting round), but it is not high caliber.
It features the so-called "scary assault rifle look", particularly since it uses the popular modular rail mounting for components and accessories using with a common attachment design. But then there is no law that all rifles must look like grandpappy's squirrel gun, or be "not scary looking".
As for "mowing down", that's hyperbole. Any weapon is capable of such a thing if misused, be it a knife, gun, car, or simple bottle of Chlorine gas from your local pool.
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't read if there was ammo to go with the rifle. No ammo the rifle is not much better then a baseball bat or golf club. Both of which are legal to have in DC and make a better club then the rifle does.
According to what I read UPS screwed up the labeling. UPS said that the label fell off his TV box. The TV label was but on the rifle box. Sounds really odd to me.
Re:really??? (Score:5, Informative)
You and a lot of posters are confusing "assault rifle" with "assault weapon [wikipedia.org]", a term invented by the Brady Campaign to mean "scary-looking gun."
An assault rifle is simply a fully automatic, low-caliber rifle. An assault weapon, on the other hand, was legally defined as a gun with too much black plastic (pistol grip, barrel shroud, folding stock, others.)
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:2, Informative)
That's just not true. The ruling that "anything easily convertable to a machine gun is a machine gun", and the subsequent modification of existing and new designs to make the conversions harder (and break compatibility with some military surplus parts) predates the assault weapons ban by a long while.
While I'm not intimately familiar with the relevant laws and quasilegal rulings, I know ATF ruled all open-bolt designs illegalclear back in '82, based on the already existing "readily convertible" test. (Does "readily convertible come from NFA? or is it an ATF concoction? anyway it was around back then...)
Re:Meanwhile, in Switzerland... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:0, Informative)
You are way off.
Pre-1986, fully-automatic weapons can be purchased WITHOUT the $200 Class III tax stamp and they are very expensive because of this.
Post-1986, fully-automatic weapons requires a $200 Class III tax stamp before you can take possession.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act#The_market_for_NFA_items
Also, the definition of an "assault weapon" IS NOT the same as a "fully-automatic weapon".
Many assault weapons are simply semi-automatic.
And yes, a semi-automatic weapon CAN be an assault rifle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually an assault rifle has very strict legal definitions
Citation needed. "Assault rifle" is a term made up by politicians and adopted by the media because it sounds threatening.
The expired Assault Weapons Ban may be what you are referring to as defining the term, but that also included arbitrary and cosmetic features as well. A bayonet lug could mean the difference between owning an "assault rifle" or just a rifle.
Magazines are completely separate things. How is it that if I have 100 rounds ready to fire in 10 round magazines makes me the owner of a sporting rifle, but having 100 rounds ready to fire from 25 round magazines make me in possession of an "assault rifle" or having 100 rounds ready to fire from a drum makes me a terrorist?
Which orifice did you pull 24" from? Maybe you mean 16" which is where a rifle becomes a NFA firearm?
The OP was stating the definitions used in various bans or restrictions of "assault rifles" are absurd, and you proved his point. The only difference between an "assault rifle" or a rifle is the intent of the person holding it.
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately both you and GP are wrong on a number of points.
First, "assault rifle" is a military term with a fairly widely accepted definition. Skipping a bunch of parts but the weapon should be select-fire with full-auto or burst modes and should be of intermediate caliber. (Intermediate caliber is again a fuzzy definition but it is more powerful than sidearm and less powerful than battle...)
Second, the term the GP was looking for is "assault weapon" which is a legal term defined in assault weapons ban laws. The federal AWB law had a strict definition that requires the weapon to be semi-automatic in all cases (fully automatic weapons were already covered by the '34 and '86 laws) and is mostly defined by cosmetic features.
Altogether, though, you both have demonstrated quite well one part of why AWB laws have been historically braindead -- they rely upon misinformation and misunderstanding of the situation to try to reach a political victory instead of a practical solution.
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:4, Informative)
Actually an assault rifle has very strict legal definitions, and ARs and AKs, even semi-auto with no select-fire, are absolutely assault rifles.
You're confusing "assault weapon" with "assault rifle". "Assault rifle" is a meaningful term historically used to describe fully automatic firearms firing an intermediate cartridge (i.e. stronger than pistol cartridges, but weaker than a full-sized rifle cartridge like .308).
"Assault weapon" is a purely legal term that designates a random concoction of features that can be summed up more or less as "looks scary" (pistol grips, barrel shrouds etc) - about the only meaningful part there is the magazine size restriction. On federal level this no longer exists since AWB expired. Some states retain it, but their definitions vary.
The primary distinctions are high capacity magazines and 24" barrels.
24" barrel length? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. That's actually very long (WW2-era rifles were slightly shorter).
The actual limit is 16" for barrel length - anything shorter makes it a "short-barreled rifle", which is more stringently regulated by ATF. It does not, however, make it an "assault weapon"
Even weirder, I know that my AK needed no less than 9 American made parts to be considered a "US legal assault rifle" (the freaking furniture counts!).
Again you've heard something but you didn't get it right. An AK, for starters, needs to be semi-auto to be legal for civilian ownership, unless it was imported into the country before 1986 (and if it were, you need to have a license to possess a full auto weapon, and pay a $200 fee to ATF every time it changes hands - and in that case the parts don't matter). The whole story about the part count enters into play when importing a foreign made weapon into US. Currently, US only permits weapons to be imported that are designed for "sporting purposes" - for example, hunting rifles. So e.g. an all-Russian Saiga, which is basically a semi-auto AK in "less scary" furniture (no pistol grip) and a 10rd mag, designed for hunters, is a "sporting rifle".
On the other hand, a proper AK cannot be imported, even if it's converted to semi-auto. You could seemingly import a Saiga, and then convert it to an AK lookalike inside US, but the law treats it the same as violation of import restrictions. However, ATF considers any gun "American made" if it has 10 or less parts in it that are not made in USA - including, yes, things like some furniture, and parts of magazines. So people import Saigas, and make just enough details in US to convert them to AK to get down to that "10 foreign parts max" limit.
It is also perfectly legal to just manufacture a (semi-auto) AK clone entirely in US and not bother with the parts. Some companies do just that. Problem is, a well-made American AK clone is expensive - compared to the much cheaper but still quality Russian Saigas - and cheaply made American AKs that can compete with imports on price are crap. So imports are more popular.
Note also that all this applies to any imported weapon, not just AK. For example, the Czech Vz 58 is also imported in "sporter" configuration and then remade into the original shape with US-made parts. Other European companies just open manufacturing facilities in US, like SIG did (it is a Swiss company).
Re:Not an assault rifle (Score:4, Informative)
Who says anyone is "spraying and praying" all over? One shot is one shot, and neither the bullet nor the game animal cares what mechanism cycles the next round into the chamber. Lots of people (myself included) hunt with semiautos, not out of some crazy "must shoot everything in sight" urge, or a need to make up for poor shooting skills, but rather just because we already have one, it works fine, and there's no sense buying another rifle just to hunt.
The AR-10/AR-15 family is actually quite well-suited to hunting use (provided appropriate ammunition is used for the desired game), if you put aside asinine drivel about "spraying lead everywhere". Here's why:
Synthetic stocks are less susceptible to warping due to humidity and temperature changes.
Adjustable stocks (as commonly found on these rifles) make them usable by a wide range of ages and body types. My 6'3" friend and his 5'1" wife can easily use the same rifle to hunt, despite the large disparity in size.
The gas operation and large buffer tube reduce felt recoil, making it more comfortable for small or new shooters.
The placement and operation of the safety mean that it can be operated easily while already sighted on a target, unlike many bolt-action rifles where the safety is high on the receiver, or even on the back of the bolt. The safety can also be left engaged while loading and unloading, helping reduce the chances of accidental firing.
The detachable magazine makes loading and unloading much easier and reduces the chance of dropping cartridges while fumbling with the floorplate of a fixed magazine, or repeatedly cycling rounds through the action. Not only does this improve safety during these evolutions, but people are also more likely to follow safety rules like unloading when crossing ditches or fences, or climing into/out of tree stands.
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, you've got it backwards. NATO ammo in a .308 chamber is fine, and .308 in a NATO chambered gun is usually OK too. The max pressure on .308 Win is slightly higher than 7.62x51, enough that some auto-loading NATO guns can be over-gassed and run too hard if shot with .308 Win. It's something like 58,000 PSI for NATO and 62,000 for commercial. Also, commercial ammo often uses slower burning powders designed to get higher velocity out of bolt action hunting rifles with longer barrels, further increasing the pressure at the barrel tap on the autoloader.
However, the real significant difference between the two lies in the chamber, and more specifically the headspace. Dimensionally, the unfired cases are exactly the same on the outside. The .308 chamber is tighter, and like you noted, the brass is generally thinner. This is because with the tight chamber, the brass doesn't expand so much. The shoulder/neck on the NATO chamber is a bit different. The NATO no-go gauge is about 10-13 thou longer in the shoulder area. The reasons for this are to make more room for mud, blood and guts between the cartridge and the chamber, so to improve reliability. Consequently the brass is usually made from a thicker, but more annealed (softer) alloy which better expands to fill the gap (this is also why they keep the NATO ammo pressure slightly lower). As an aside, that feature leads to more erratic muzzle velocities, making guns with the .308 chamber more accurate, all other things being equal.
So, if you're running a max pressure commercial cartridge in a NATO chambered gun, you can possibly end up with case-neck separations, stuck brass, damaged extractors, blown-up rifles, etc. But most ammo doesn't quite push the envelope that far, so it would be acceptable to do interchange the two in an emergency.
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite. The 715 is chambered in 7.62 NATO, not the 5.56 NATO the normal AR rifle is chambered for.
A short history lesson:
The original AR-10 rifle was indeed 7.62. This is very similar and almost interchangeable with .308 Winchester. This isn't a plinking or varmint round. This is a blow-your-head-off-at-800-yards man killer. This is what the M14 chambered. This is what the M40 sniper rifle chambers.. and countless civilian rifles as well.
Somewhere down the line, the round was dropped to 5.56mm. Some desk jockey thought it was better to carry many more lighter, smaller bullets that don't hit nearly as hard as a heavier, larger bullet.
So no. This isn't your typical assault rifle. The 716 is more properly called a battle rifle. Like an M14 or FAL or M1 Garand, or a '03 Springfield, or a '98 Mauser.