Seattle Gun Rights Examiner Dave Workman first brought us news of Bellevue Police Chief Linda Pillo testifying at a Washington State Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, supposedly as a private citizen, but conveniently in uniform and armed, to urge a ban on so-called "assault weapons." One of her reasons:
Assault weapons can also be easily converted to fully automatic machine guns.
This assertion didn't sit well with St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner Kurt Hofmann, who responded with "The 'easily converted to machine guns' myth makes a comeback." He in turn found a link to an old Southtown Star article, where a journalist tried to do just that. It's an interesting and entertaining read.
I notified WaronGuns readers and urged them to ask Chief Pillo to personally demonstrate how easy it is. After all, she offered that as expert testimony based on her "law enforcement background."
Writer Carl Bussjaeger ran with that, and shared his email to the Bellevue PD:
I challenge Chief Pillo to demonstrate the ease of such a conversion, making a video of her performing the procedure available to the public on the Internet. And since she is a supporter of SB 6396, I challenge her to do this with this SB 6396-defined assault weapon...
Read the entire open letter here.
If lawmakers are trying to enact legislation based on what she tells them is "easy," it shouldn't be too much to ask.
The good news, per Workman's follow-up:
Pundits are calling [the] legislation “dead on arrival” and predict it will never get out of committee.
Comments
I might be wrong or mistaking, but didn't most AR makers design them after 1986 not to be able to convert due to extra material in the rear of the lower receiver. This way one could not buy a drop in sear kit to covert the AR to full auto. Also it still takes about 5 parts to covert an AR, the bolt,trigger,disconnect, hammer, and selector switch - all of which are restricted and hard to find.
So the myth of converting an AR is just that a myth.
The legislation may be "dead" - this time, but the myth and the propaganda value of all this will not easily be countered.
And I do wish those of US who write about these things would be much more careful how they use the term "assault rifle." Using that term for a semi-auto rifle simply feeds the propaganda machine and keeps non gun owners confused.
If you are a Shotgun News reader, you are familiar with ads for semi-auto versions of famous full-auto weapons. Want a semi-auto PPSH-41? no problem. Browning .50 cal M2? got you covered. Colt M1919 .30 cal? They have one of those as well. An outfit called DIVA Arsenal is even offering a semi-auto version of one of the the ancestors of all true all "assault weapons", the Sturmgewehr MP44. There are many others and I won't bore you with a more extensive list. But the bottom line is, before any company can offer any of these semi-auto versions for sale, BATFE must inspect them and certify that "THEY ARE NOT EASILY CONVERTABLE"!
I got the same load of crap from the office AZ Senator John McCain when I called about his support for the assault weapon ban.
His staffer told me that we can go to any gun show and find kits to convert a semi-auto to full auto.
I told him I didn't believe that claim since I have never seen one at a gun show. He told me the dealers keep them under the tables.
This begged the question, why not make the "kits" illegal. He said they already are illegal. Okay, so what will it accomplish to make assault weapons illegal?
Answer, "thank you for your call"!
MML-- not sure who strayed on that--it appears everyone here and in links using it has qualified it with quotation marks--except in cases where we are directly quoting or citing something. I even included the qualifier "so-called" in my opening sentence.
Hey, I hear it's "easy" to convert a common police chief into an unemployed private citizen. Maybe somebody ought to write her and tell her that.
I can traslate easily your English but I don´t understan what are you talking about in this article.Anyway thankeyou very much for your article.
Ok, dig, here goes. The article is about people who intentionally lie using their position as bona fides. It is about people, Pillo qualifies, but barely, who use their position to lie in order to abuse the people they have sworn to serve. It is about calling them out having them prove what they say.
Don't hold your breath waiting for this challenge to be met.
straightarrow, while it would be interesting if Pillo did accept the challenge, I don't expect that. My goal is to show her up as the idiot she is, exposing her to ridicule that makes her a less credible "authority" on firearms in the future. And to expose SB 6396 itself to ridicule. Showing the Fudds that this bill also applies to hunting rifles and shotguns, not just EBRs, is another plus.
yeah, I got that Carl, I was answering Dig, who said he didn't understand. Don't know if he was being facetious, but it seemed a good place to explain it to others who might not be able to grasp the principle either.
straightarrow, OK. I misunderstood. I apologize for that.
Sometimes I think I'm getting too used to explaining to the folks who _don't_ get it.
While Carl Bussjaeger has the right idea, without doubt, his target was incorret in my opinion.
The correct target was the local government (her employers) and the state legislators who might act to enable such nonsensical legislation.
Officer Pillo has made herself irrelevant otherwise, in fact she's shown herself unfit for office, but that's another argument.
No Pat H, it isn't irrelevant or a matter for another time. Her display lends the appearance of official sanction of what is actually her personal opinion. It may even be shared by others in positions of political power, that still doesn't make her opinion legitimate or her falsehoods true. Unfortunately there are many people out there who are impressed and influence by displays like this, even though they be wrong. It is important to rebut every such display and follow it all the way up the ladder, if for no other reason, than to expose the evil they try to impose on us despite their oath to do no such thing. It is very difficult to educate the unthinking but we must try. If only so we have no reason to feel guilt should we need to take more drastic action.
The "antis" have us debating the wrong argument. Government does not have the legal authority to regulate any form of firearm. Their authority is the threat of and the actual use of force to get us to comply.
Linda Pillo is just another political gasbag who has foot in mouth disease, all she has to do to show the existence of foot in mouth disease is open her mouth and spew out garbage i.e., semi-auto weapons EASILY converted to full auto "yeah if you're a gunsmith".
Yet I know of at least one case in Washington State where an ATF agent effectively framed a gun dealer by showing a video of a semi-auto slam-firing and claiming it was an illegal conversion to full-auto instead of the clearly BROKEN weapon it was. (Evidence that the ATF agent himself broke the weapon to get the video was not allowed into the trial.)
No matter how untrue, this myth is hard to kill when the 'experts' keep claiming it.
Make violating the constitution illegal with punishment=death. Then, they will leave us alone.
The police and politicians seem to forget that the constitution was written for the people, not for them.
I was just remembering the DC official on a video clip, fumbling around with a trigger lock, trying to show the press how easy they were to remove. Only took him around 5 minutes. It was kind of hilarious to watch. Watching Chief Pillo fumble around with the guts of an AR15 lower might be even more entertaining. I'd especially like to see her crawling around looking for a detent spring that she just launched across the room. Or am I the only one that happens to?
If she only knew...after 21 years in the military, I guess I didn't learn a thing... There is no secret to a pump, you pull back it eject spent schell, you pump forward it takes a new round from the tube. I love my pump. I also love semi auto's. I am a law abiding citizen. My weapons are safe. Go after the criminals that break the law, and don't worry about who has what. WE SPEND MORE TIME ON HOW TO DISARM AMERICA. Try putting and keeping the criminals that break the law in jail, instead of worrying about who we might offend. The slepping giant sleeps no more.
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