Fox News, get a clue!
I generally find no need to criticize Fox News, but today is different. If you haven't, please read this article from Fox News.
Fox News needs to check up on their own employee, Diane Macedo. This is so much of a non-story it is pathetic. Maybe she's a plant from CNN, NBC or the Whitehouse trying to discredit Fox News. Nah. Probably not.
Either way, I'm astonished that Fox News let this run without checking with a real gunsmith or at least someone with some serious firearms experience. You have to consider the source of the story--the Bureau of Tobacco, Alchohol, Firearms & Explosives. After all, the ATF does fall under Eric "As-clueless-as-my-boss-as-to-how-to-do-my-job" Holder.
Even the premise is flawed. This story is designed to stir up the ignorant & prey on their lack of knowledge. That is about all that it accomplishes. Anyone with reasonable knowledge of firearms knows that just because you can replace one part of a toy with a real, regulated firearm part, doesn't make that toy a real firearm. Doing so would accomplish nothing. It still would not fire. In fact, by the time one replaced enough parts to make it work, one would be better off just buying a real AR-15. Buying a black market AR-15 through a Mexican drug cartel or from a gang banger would be faster, safer & easier & doing so qualifies as neither fast, safe or easy.
Why, you ask, would one risk ones life to go to the trouble of buying a black market AR-15 instead of converting a toy? If a person were foolish enough to replace the lower receiver of an airsoft AR-15 with a receiver of a real AR-15, the upper half is still incapable of chambering, firing & surviving the firing of a live .223cal/5.56mm round. The two halves of the mechanism are meant to function together. It is kind of like a baseball & a baseball bat. If you try to hit a real baseball with a wiffleball bat, all you will do is destroy the wiffleball bat. Or conversely, if you hit a wiffleball with a real baseball bat, you will destroy the wiffleball. The two are meant to work together. In the case of the airsoft AR-15, unlike the real ball & the toy bat, it very well could & probably will blow up in your face. In dealing with firearms, one of the first things that is taught, is never to put ammunition into something that the particular ammunition was not designed for. There are folks out there who have done this & lost fingers, hands, limbs & lives.
The barrel on a real AR-15 is designed to handle the high pressure of real ammunition. The barrel of an airsoft AR-15 is not. A firearm functions by igniting a small amount of powder inside a metal cartridge in a confined area (the chamber), funneling that controlled expansion down a barrel to push a 5.56mm metal projectile (the bullet) at a high velocity to a known point down range from the firearm. The metal cartridge, by itself, is incapable of retaining these high pressures. It simply holds the components together. An airsoft AR-15 uses low pressure compressed gas, to propel a 6 or 8mm plastic ball down the barrel in the same manner, but is incapable of retaining the same chamber pressures as real AR-15. Also, a real bullet propelled down the barrel of an airsoft AR-15 using live ammunition could rupture the barrel or send the bullet off in an unintended direction. An airsoft upper receiver is not designed to handle the backwards push resulting from chamber pressure of a live round. Such a backward thrust could explode driving parts & pieces of the airsoft into the shooters face, killing or severly injuring the shooter. The similarity between an airsoft AR-15 & a real AR-15 is purely cosmetic. Internally they are completely different.
Its clear Diane has little or no knowledge of firearms. Next time, Diane, you should leave such a story to someone with more expertise than you or like a good reporter, educate yourself thoroughly. Fox News editors, do you job.
Fox News needs to check up on their own employee, Diane Macedo. This is so much of a non-story it is pathetic. Maybe she's a plant from CNN, NBC or the Whitehouse trying to discredit Fox News. Nah. Probably not.
Either way, I'm astonished that Fox News let this run without checking with a real gunsmith or at least someone with some serious firearms experience. You have to consider the source of the story--the Bureau of Tobacco, Alchohol, Firearms & Explosives. After all, the ATF does fall under Eric "As-clueless-as-my-boss-as-to-how-to-do-my-job" Holder.
Even the premise is flawed. This story is designed to stir up the ignorant & prey on their lack of knowledge. That is about all that it accomplishes. Anyone with reasonable knowledge of firearms knows that just because you can replace one part of a toy with a real, regulated firearm part, doesn't make that toy a real firearm. Doing so would accomplish nothing. It still would not fire. In fact, by the time one replaced enough parts to make it work, one would be better off just buying a real AR-15. Buying a black market AR-15 through a Mexican drug cartel or from a gang banger would be faster, safer & easier & doing so qualifies as neither fast, safe or easy.
Why, you ask, would one risk ones life to go to the trouble of buying a black market AR-15 instead of converting a toy? If a person were foolish enough to replace the lower receiver of an airsoft AR-15 with a receiver of a real AR-15, the upper half is still incapable of chambering, firing & surviving the firing of a live .223cal/5.56mm round. The two halves of the mechanism are meant to function together. It is kind of like a baseball & a baseball bat. If you try to hit a real baseball with a wiffleball bat, all you will do is destroy the wiffleball bat. Or conversely, if you hit a wiffleball with a real baseball bat, you will destroy the wiffleball. The two are meant to work together. In the case of the airsoft AR-15, unlike the real ball & the toy bat, it very well could & probably will blow up in your face. In dealing with firearms, one of the first things that is taught, is never to put ammunition into something that the particular ammunition was not designed for. There are folks out there who have done this & lost fingers, hands, limbs & lives.
The barrel on a real AR-15 is designed to handle the high pressure of real ammunition. The barrel of an airsoft AR-15 is not. A firearm functions by igniting a small amount of powder inside a metal cartridge in a confined area (the chamber), funneling that controlled expansion down a barrel to push a 5.56mm metal projectile (the bullet) at a high velocity to a known point down range from the firearm. The metal cartridge, by itself, is incapable of retaining these high pressures. It simply holds the components together. An airsoft AR-15 uses low pressure compressed gas, to propel a 6 or 8mm plastic ball down the barrel in the same manner, but is incapable of retaining the same chamber pressures as real AR-15. Also, a real bullet propelled down the barrel of an airsoft AR-15 using live ammunition could rupture the barrel or send the bullet off in an unintended direction. An airsoft upper receiver is not designed to handle the backwards push resulting from chamber pressure of a live round. Such a backward thrust could explode driving parts & pieces of the airsoft into the shooters face, killing or severly injuring the shooter. The similarity between an airsoft AR-15 & a real AR-15 is purely cosmetic. Internally they are completely different.
Its clear Diane has little or no knowledge of firearms. Next time, Diane, you should leave such a story to someone with more expertise than you or like a good reporter, educate yourself thoroughly. Fox News editors, do you job.
posted by CyberRanger at 08:32
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