I saw an “assault weapon” tonight
I was at the shooting range and an unbelievably cute asian couple set up in the booth next to mine. The husband noticed that I had a 10/22, the same gun he had, and he started up a conversation. I looked over at his, and noticed it had a folding stock. And a pistol grip…
My eyes widened. This man owned an assault weapon! Didn’t he know that those ergonomic additions made his weapon 100% illegal!?! He probably noticed my dinner-plate-sized eyes and quickly said, “don’t worry, it’s pre-ban,” referring to the fact that any weapon branded an “assault weapon” that was purchased before the law was written was “grandfathered” in so as not to upset existing owners by making their weapons illegal.
“Did you actually buy it before the ban, or buy a marked-up one that was?”, I asked.
“Oh, it’s totally before the ban. I got this in 1987, and it collected dust for a while, but I decided to take up target shooting again.”
And that was it. His “assault weapon” was 100% legal because it was purchased before 1994. His gun had the otherwise illegal combination of folding stock + pistol grip, but it was legal simply because it was bought before some arbitrary date.
But then I got to thinking. How would a police officer determine whether his weapon was legal? It sure looks like an illegal weapon. Visually, there’s no way to tell this legal ‘87 gun from an illegal ‘95 one; in fact I can’t even be sure his was legal since for all I knew the guy was lying about it being bought in ‘87 — there’s no easy way to tell. Sure, a police officer could check the serial number, but that would only tell him when the receiver was purchased; the stock is a detachable part that could have been manufactured yesterday.
What if this guy’s receiver was manufactured in ‘87 but the folding stock actually was added yesterday? And if this is indeed illegal, what method on planet Earth exists to determine it? Moreover, what public safety is gained through this byzantine web of laws that one must scrupulously understand? How exactly is New York State any safer?
Yet more silly gun laws that just inconvenience those who pose no danger yet do nothing whatsoever to address crime.