U.S. authorities announced on September 11 that they had seized 355 websites used to sell suppressors and conversion kits, known as “switches,” which are used to convert semi-automatic handguns into machine guns. The suppressors, reportedly being imported into the country from China, are highly regulated in the United States under the National Firearms Act, while the switches alone are considered illegal under most circumstances as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) considers them machine guns regardless of whether they are installed on an actual firearm or not.
Let’s be clear that “highly regulated” and “considered illegal” are just euphemisms for infringed upon, but I digress.
Boston federal prosecutors indicated that the investigation into the websites, businesses and people illegally selling and importing the devices had been ongoing since August 2023, culminating in these recent seizures. While it is unknown how many undercover purchases were made by law enforcement during that period of time, Ketty Larco-Ward, inspector in charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Boston Division revealed that over 700 machine gun conversion devices, 87 illegal suppressors, 59 handguns and 46 long guns have been seized in addition to the websites.
“The proliferation of readily available devices which allow the illegal manufacturing of machine guns is a plague on our communities,” said Larco-Ward.
“The seizure of these domains is a critical step in disrupting the flow of dangerous contraband that threatens public safety,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy in Massachusetts said in a statement.
I think it’s fair to say that authorities are likely to have lists of purchasers as well, which is a great reason to never participate in this sort of thing, no matter how you feel about the infringements… I mean regulations.
The packages shipped from China deceptively described their contents as inconspicuous items such as “necklaces” or “toys,” according to prosecutors, as “machine gun conversion” or “silencer” might have been a little on the nose for customs.
Predictably, authorities said in court papers that many of the products imported from China were counterfeit and featured the Glock Inc. trademark, suggesting the switches were produced by the Austrian firearm manufacturer when they were not. No big surprise here. If you were foolish enough to believe they were, then you were ripe to be swindled. But let’s face it, nobody purchasing these giggle switches really cared about authenticity.
ATF internal statistics suggest that despite the more than 1 million silencers legally registered under the National Firearms Act, less than 0.003 percent are used in violent crimes. While there have been recent reports of increased incidents involving switches, these crimes are almost exclusively carried out by the sideways handgun-holding variety of delinquents who will maintain their violent lifestyles regardless of the availability of these devices.
“We are seeing these used for retaliatory shootings and gang-related activity and that’s common all over the country,” said Kenny Fos, acting assistant special agent in charge for Alabama, Nashville Field Division ATF.
While it’s nice to see our tax dollars hard at work, perhaps authorities may want to temper the back-patting and celebratory high-fives until they are willing to take on the real issues causing crime and violence across the country, like migrant gangs, sanctuary cities, mental illness, bail reform, many times over repeat offenders and district attorneys who refuse to prosecute real criminals.
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“Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) considers” -…….. that the 2nd doesn’t exist.
ATF: “Yea Us! Pat us on the back! We self-interpreted a vague term of ‘in the business’ cause we wanted to and killed an innocent man accused of no actual crime.”
Criminals: “🤣 welcome to the club ATF”
So this begs the question of what the current state of firearm prohibition/proliferation is in China.
They’re obviously manufacturing some components on a fairly large scale. How about others?
China wages cultural war against the US. It’s obvious their government is perfectly fine with this, and with fentanyl and degenerate TikTok content (for Western audiences only — they don’t allow that crap on Chinese TikTok).
Air drop 10 million glocks and 1 billion rounds of ammo into China. Would be awesome! Fuck you Xi.
Glocks with switches.
Absolutely!
To the CCP, criminal enterprise is wholly condoned, and even encouraged, is the “victims” are in other countries. People smuggling for scam call centers? Check. Making and selling precursors for illegal drugs? Check. Making and selling prohibited weapons? Check. And more.
“To the CCP, criminal enterprise is wholly condoned“
Yep:
“Ivanka’s Trademark Requests Were Fast-Tracked In China After Trump Was Elected
Tommy Beer
Former Staff
Sep 22, 2020,02:59pm EDT
Updated Apr 14, 2022, 02:05pm EDT
This article is more than 4 years old.
TOPLINE The Chinese government granted a total of 41 trademarks to companies linked to Ivanka Trump by April of 2019—and the trademarks she applied for after her father became president got approved about 40% faster than those she requested before Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, according to a new book by Forbes’ senior editor Dan Alexander.
On March 29, 2017, Ivanka Trump, the eldest daughter of President Trump, became an official government employee, joining her husband, Jared Kushner, as an adviser to her father.
The day before that appointment, Ivanka applied for 17 new trademarks with the Chinese government.“
Yep, Trump White House Advisors conducting business in China while they serve in the White House.
How do you seize a website, especially if it originates in another country?
“How do you seize a website, especially if it originates in another country?”
various methods…. have root dns level authority organizations redirect and block at root dns level to redirect or deny traffic, have url de-registered with what ever entity its registered with (e.g. Go Daddy), and other methods.
The People’s Liberation Army parks thousands of grunts in front of computers hacking all day, every day. Beats 20-mile hikes. Ebay & Amazon seller accounts are simple to open and the merchandise is given a harmless sounding or deceptive name. Plenty of AR & AK parts are sold every day right under the moderator’s noses. China is using their classic strategies to defeat us.
You don’t Gipper. As on Youtube another one pops up immediately. I know because we dropped cable TV & there’s multitudes of channels pirating many shows especially news & game shows. When one gets pinched another one pops up. They all want subscribers to data mine.They seem to mostly originate in Asia or Indonesia. Some distinctly Islamic. Dunno about China. Seizing websites is a joke similar to lowering interest rates to benefit Dims before an election🙄
“How do you seize a website, especially if it originates in another country?”
This is the general idea :
When you type in “thetruthaboutguns.com” and hit the return key, the first thing that happens is your ISP looks up who actually owns that name through the domain registry table computer.
That returns something like this “168.8.8” (or whatever) which is the specific computer that hosts TTAG. The two computers connect, say ‘hello’ to each other, and you can read TTAG.
I may have missed a few particulars, but that’s the general idea. The key computer is the domain registry computer. It tells your computer the digital ‘address’ where the TTAG website actually physically resides, be it Dallas, Texas, or Perth, Australia…
EDIT –
Actually ‘seizing’ the website :
The operators who control the domain registry computer get a court order to redirect the seized website to wherever the court orders it to go to, like fbi.gov.
The domain registry computer is a digital ‘traffic cop’ that tells digital traffic where to go…
The question though is whether seizing sites is just a game of “whack a mole”?
You order the registrar to transfer control of the domain to you, and point it at your server.
Yeah, the bad guys are out at least 99¢ for a domain registration.
Good job, ATF. Keep it up.
I’d rather have a gangbanger shooting at me with a full auto Glock that’s going to send 29 of 30 rounds anywhere but at me, and have his magazine empty in a couple seconds, than a guy with a revolver who knows how to use it.
You severely overestimate the muzzle rise. Check out some of the Worldstar and similar videos. 4-5 somewhat on target shots seem to be fairly common. Also seems to be similar in the ER for multiple gunshot victims where “rapid fire” is reported.
A 12 gauge shotgun loaded with buckshot will get far more projectiles on target than a full auto pistol.
Steve Sailer’s law of mass shootings still holds:
“Sailer’s Law of Mass Shootings is that in incidents with four or more people killed or wounded by gunfire, if more are wounded than killed, the shooter (or often shooters) is probably black. But when more are killed than wounded, the shooter is likely nonblack.”
You know what doesn’t make it onto World Star or the emergency room stats? People who were missed completely.
Happens about as often in semi auto criminal shootings so not too concerned.
Yeah. About that. Birmingham, AL last night. “Youths” with switches killed at LEAST 3 “innocents” (plus the guy they were shooting at ) and wounded 21.
And? Tell you what if it wasn’t gang related I will pretend to give a damn. Now on to effectiveness it works and yes works better than expected for most especially if a ported barrel gets involved but in most cases we see more hit in random locations similar to typical drive by accuracy which can be very fatal for unlucky victims. It is not a magic murder machine or a lead to the sky novelty. Just a device that should be legal for us citizens that are not recidivist criminals
OK, so I disagree with the law here just as much as anyone else, and probably more than most.
But.
It is the law, at least for now, these products are clearly illegal, and for once that’s what ATF is enforcing.
Probably we should give them a little bit of credit here, given their history of coloring outside of the lines.
“It is the law, at least for now, these products are clearly illegal, and for once that’s what ATF is enforcing.”
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCotUS) has ruled guns in common use are expressly constitutional. With *millions* of switches out there, re-open the select fire registry and make them legal, because 3-D printing technology can easily print countless millions more.
A scummy drug-dealer has the right to defend himself from armed robbery by a homie…
“is the law, at least for now, these products are clearly illegal,…”
well, not really so clearly. Its ATF interpretation they are ‘machine guns’ not that there is an actual law that says ‘glock switches are illegal’
Wish it could be known if these switches actually make a firearm more dangerous or less so, since the perp is gonna wildly expend the whole mag in about 5 seconds instead of possibly somewhat aiming in regular semi auto mode.
I was thinking about it like would i rather have a crip blood shootin at me with a switch or without one. Im not sure to be honest
Missed shots still go somewhere.
Recheck the four rules.
Law abiding Gun Owners wouldn’t criminally misuse a firearm whether it is full auto or not. Besides a deranged perp can be deadly with a knife, brick, bat, fists, feet, vehicle, etc. Nonetheless a switch would be handy if you have more than one meanie coming your way.
What is cornfusing is the disguise to get through customs only to be sold on hundreds of websites?
Until Gun Control is Defined by its History and rejected like its sidekick Slavery the party that owns the Legacy of Slavery will see to it the 1968 Gun Control Act remains in your face…pucker up slackers.
I know from personal experience that Dodge vans can be deadly as well.
“sideways handgun-holding variety”
Sigh. If they like to do that, that’s OK. Why bother to mention it?
If (fill in the blank)s start wearing SAAs and cowboy hats, and having crime sprees while fanning from the hip, please don’t mention it.
THEY DON’T NEED ADVICE.
Machine Gun ownership in the country is not the problem.
“It’s not the machine gun.”
“It’s the criminal using the machine gun that is the problem.”
And not having a father in the home to provide discipline and instill self-control. That is the real cause that is creating these problems. A father is what keeps young people out of trouble. Far more reliably than a government welfare check. Thank you to the atheists/sexually liberated, for causing this problem to grow out of control.
They are non judgmental about adultery or a woman having five kids from five different men.
But They are very judgmental when it comes to glock switches and bumpstock ownership.
How many more devices have yet to invented??? That will allow any semi auto to fire faster. Not just a glock.
Ruger 1022 machine gun conversions have been around since the early 1980s.
Has any so called second amendment group filed against these confiscations???
The “gun community” supports the NFA. They are just too cowardly to say it in public.
You want to complain about too many people being locked up. Then make it legal for the law abiding to kill criminals DRT. Just like the police can.
The fudd end of the gun community maybe.
Apalachee HS murderer needed a father’s guidance in his life to keep him out of trouble.
Oxford HS murderer needed a father’s guidance in his life to keep him out of trouble.
Got it.
Thomas Crooks was very appreciative of the guidance his father gave him on operating his AR15 rifle.
Fortunately, it seems his father’s guidance was a bit incomplete regarding windage corrections.
Excuse me. When you refer to “sideways handgun-holding variety of delinquents”, I you referencing the folk who President Obama might say, “if I had bastard son’s, they’d look like these guys”? Just asking for a friend. We really wouldn’t want to stigmatize anyone by pointing out the obvious. Reminding people of what particular demographic accounts for only one-eighth of the population but commits over half of all homicides and nearly two-thirds of all gun homicides just might enable them to understand why the problem isn’t guns or Glock switches.
After all, a normal American could have an enormous amount of fun using a Glock switch without ever killing or injuring anyone. Pistols that are equipped with such switches are actually quite legitimately useful in defensive situations. With the installation of a full auto switch, any common Glock pistol can be transformed into the ballistic equivalent of a politically correct, Senile Sock Puppet President Joe Biden recommended, 12 gauge shotgun, that can discharge dozens of potentially lethal projectiles with one or two squeezes of the trigger.
A normal American could have tremendous fun with grenades, dynamite, RPGs, mines, etc. I can easily imagine countless videos, probably on TikTok, of folk blowing up old cars, mounds of watermelons or pumpkins, even plain ol’ piles of dirt.
But that isn’t the point. Some things are just too damn dangerous for the public. In fact, you probably even agree with me, when it comes to Cocaine, Heroin, etc.
For the record, I was referring to gangbanger types, not a specific race.
” … these crimes are almost exclusively carried out by the sideways handgun-holding variety of delinquents who will maintain their violent lifestyles regardless of the availability of these devices.”
A good author uses brevity, and omits needless words. You could replace all of these words with just three.
“The usual suspects.”
Don’t worry — everyone will know who you are talking about.
how dare you use the term “The usual suspects”. that’s an offensive term… you should call them by the name the Democrats have given their pets so call them ‘justice impacted individuals’
so there… get with the program and comply or else a line backer sized self-misgendering person with a beard and lipstick will show up to harasse you into admitting their nails look pretty in purple and that size 18 dress looks great.
😄
I’ve seen far to many who weren’t misgendered who required a size 18 dress. That might explain why so many of President Obama’s bastard sons are homicidal maniacs.
Which Journalist Will Ask Kamala About Her Decade-Long Ban on Handgun Sales in California? > h ttps://www.shootingnewsweekly.com/gun-control/kamala-harris-should-be-asked-about-her-decade-long-ban-on-modern-handgun-sales-in-california/
I think also it should be noted that Comrade Kamala’s ‘gun owner ship’ (if its true) also is not like yours or my gun ownership. She automatically qualified for it with no questions asked because of her position and didn’t need to ask the state for ‘permission’, she did not need to have her ‘suitability’ determined by the state of California, and although she might (yes, that’s might) have had to do the 4473 if she purchased it herself its more likely that the state bought it and gave it to her or just gave her one they already had thus no 4473 was done by her. So Kamala is the ‘elite’ type of ‘gun owner’ (if she does actually own a gun) that is ‘privileged’ and above us mere mortals, so she doesn’t need to worry about defense because she has had armed security available to her and is basically immune from the trials and tribulations we mere mortals are subjected to so we can exercise a constitutional right.
Remember, if all guns were suddenly banned today and suddenly the government by some miracle were actually successful in confiscating every gun from law abiding gun owners Kamala would still have people with guns protecting her, and would still be able to have a gun – while the rest of use out here were defenseless against the crazy crime and violence she has helped and did unleash on society.
So no Kamala, you are not a gun owner like us.
Freedom in🇺🇸🥰555
Until I see a list of the alleged sites…I don’t believe a word of it.
Frankly with the amunt illegal crap that gets imported into the US from China…I’d have to say the US Customs Service is kind of a joke.
Yea i read an article, one of these news organizations ordered all the stuff you need feom china to make Fentanyl. They even asked the lady through email why they werent shut down or what not and the lady replied “no worries we are a large company and your product will arrive in discreet packaging “ or something to that affect.
The article didn’t show the exact steps to make it but they were successful and explained it was rather easy with only a few inexpensive steps. Definitely no chemistry degree needed.
I did see an ad on Facebook once for what looked obviously like silencers. I forget what euphemism Temu called them, by I doubt even the dimmest ATF agent wouldn’t have recognized the baffle structure shown.
I saw a Temu listing where they had one of their ‘filters’ on he side of a motorcycle engine with a spark plug wire running through it. Still scratching my head over that.
” I forget what euphemism Temu called them,…”
“Solvent trap”, is a common euphemism…
So that’s why they shuut sideways, start on the right and with all that muzzle rise spray to the left! Now it makes sense. Those silly gangstas know their marksmanship.
I will say this only once. I consider myself retired from commenting. This Darwin guy who looks like some Albanian expat is posting articles across multiple gun friendly websites. Fed is written all over it.
That may be so, but at least he’s not a mentally-ill communist who wants us to live in the Stone Age. Don’t know which columnist I’m talking about??
The ATF and the Civilian Disarmament Industry, are all about rate of fire and mag capacity. As we all know there are multiple ways of increasing rate of fire that are perfectly legal, and magazines are easily obtained. So, regardless of the circular back patting within ATF, et al, none of that is going to change – nor should it.
It is NOT the law. It is the ATF’s edict and should be stopped by the Courts. Possession of a component should never lead to an arrest, a charge, or a conviction unless the component is installed in the completed, functioning weapon.
mental illness
equals
voting
democrat
When will they get to FakeBook? I’ve reported a few hundred of these ads there and it’s always ignored.
She lost her privilege of concealed carrying when she stopped being AG. To carry in D.C., she would still have to get a DC CCW, but even that would not allow here to carry in secure locations. The same rules apply to legislators. But yes, she has hallway had armed guards. formerly it was some unlicensed friends who were paid generously for their services. (It’s true, look it up. There was quite a brouhaha when this dislcosed while she was AG. Strangely, no criminal charges were ever filed…)
“To carry in D.C., she would still have to get a DC CCW,”
Not necessarily. DC has an (sort of) ‘quasi-official’ thing they use to allow carry for senators/congress members without permit ’cause official government business’ reasons as though they are ‘federal law enforcement’ (like some states do for their AG’s) and does selectively allow some but not others.
“Firearms are banned from Congress except for members, who are granted certain exemptions under a 1967 regulation from the Capitol Police Board, a source confirmed to CNN. Members of Congress are able to carry firearms in the halls of Congress and on Capitol grounds as long as they have Washington licenses and they carry ammunition separately, the source added. Under no circumstances are lawmakers allowed to bring firearms onto the House floor.“
And then a glock switch gets used at a cigar bar in Birmingham last night….
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