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."
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:4, Interesting)
Your laws are funny in the USA. Isn't that a simple mechanical modification to make ?
Mechanical modification, yes.
Simple? Far from it.
Also, highly illegal.
It would be far cheaper, easier, and safer to just install one of these. [slidefire.com]
Re:really??? (Score:4, Interesting)
The media term is "assault weapon" and the reason they usually don't use "assault rifle" is because the former has no real definition, where as the latter is a specific designation type and MUST feature an automated mode of fire. And I believe it is also defined as an individual firearm (as opposed to a squad manned fully automatic rifle, oft referred to as a machine gun)
Re:Sounds like win-win to me! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure what the DC one did, but the one in Chicago just got rid of the handgun ban. Chicago and Cook County still have very strict gun ban codes that make AR's illegal unless your local municipality has specifically preempted the county "Assault Weapon Ban". Other rifles are illegal too, and it doesn't have much to do with how they operate. Weird criteria like, "Hand guard that goes around the barrel" and "designed to look like a military rifle" get passed out on a sheet by FFL's when you buy a lower receiver in a nearby county, as a warning.
The joke of all this is that nobody can tell you, universally, what an assault weapon is. It used to have a strict ATF definition, but now it's just a scary political phrase that changes to suit whatever legislation someone is trying to pass.
Re:really??? (Score:4, Interesting)
> I bet everybody who was there was sufficiently impressed.
I dunno. That was almost a worst case scenario and it managed to score 13 and wound a lot more. If the idiot had used a more reliable weapon (ditch the hundred round drum) he could have got a few more. But remember he also built bombs which were supposed to create a distraction and only failed because of pure luck.
Imagine instead if the guy had been a little more rational (just not rational enough to realize how stupid the whole going postal thing is) and realized the bombs were far more lethal than the gun. Now imagine him coming in through that emergency exit with a dozen bombs. Toss some incendaries and smoke into the exits to cause the exit stampede to bottle up then lob fragmentations into the dense crowd. Use a pair (with sensible clips to avoid jams) of pistols to nail anyone coming toward him (easy targets) while continuing to toss various nasty stuff. Lead pipe cinch he would have upped his score with that plan. And this guy had some education, remember that. A chemical attack would have been within his ability. WWI tech poision gas should not have posed a problem for someone with his knowledge.
He went with the guns because he bought into the popular mythology.
This story seems to be BS! (Score:4, Interesting)
Amazon DOES NOT SELL FIREARMS!
YOU CANNOT BUY FIREARMS THROUGH THE MAIL!
IF THIS BULLSHIT IS TRUE MANY FEDERAL LAWS WERE BROKEN!
This is a classic political BS story that would never have appeared if it was not in the wake of mass murders involving firearms!