The things we deal with

So, Beretta has announced (and is actually shipping) the carbine kit to convert the Neos .22 pistol into a handy little carbine.  In and of itself, that’s pretty cool – the ability to swap barrels and add a stock to convert your pistol into a carbine is handy for a lot of shooters.

But no, this post is about the silly laws we have to deal with as firearms owners.  Say you buy this kit so you can convert your Neos back and forth.  You’re putting it together, and get the new stock all attached, when suddenly you’re interrupted by the phone/wife/kids/dog/etc.  You take care of business, and forget all about finishing the conversion on your Neos.  Congratulations, you are now in possession of an unregistered short barreled rifle.  If you then absent mindedly take said gun to the range without first putting the long barrel on, you will be transporting an unregistered short barreled rifle.

People ask for common sense gun laws, and I agree…but using my definition of common sense.  A common sense gun law wouldn’t throw someone in jail for years for putting a stock on their .22 and forgetting to finish putting the barrel on the gun.  These are the things we deal with as gun owners every day, though.  Navigating the byzantine gun laws and regulations all because we’re law abiding citizens that have no desire to end up on the foul side of Uncle Sam.

11 Comments

    1. Agreed, but I’d bet that more people are likely to run afoul of it with a .22 carbine than they would with a special purpose platform like an Encore/Contender.

  1. You know, I don’t actually know. But that actually further illustrates my point that all of this is basically bullcrap.

  2. Putting a stock on anything negates AOW.

    And lets face it, if the NFA wanted to, they could put us ALL in Jail, it’s written that poorly, and makes that little sense.

  3. I’m confused. I thought they had already released a carbine kit for the Neos back when I got mine 6 years ago.

  4. Well, I’m glad that after 7+ years of waiting, they finally lived up to the expectations they set when I ran out and bought one. Too bad I bought a 10/22 in the meantime because I thought this day would never come.

  5. I recall a gun magazine article – American Rilfleman, I think – that tried to address this problem by building a rifle conversion kit with the stock attached to the rifle length barrel. As I recall, the base pistol was a High Standard.

  6. Legally speaking, you need to assemble anything along these lines barrel installs first, comes off last, stock installs last, comes off first.

    Otherwise you are in an unregistered SBR situation, even if only for seconds. The T/C court ruling that allows these tyes of conversions doesn’t permit “momentary” NFA violations — it simply says that you can switch back and forth between non-NFA configurations if you start with the right flavor of receiver.

    Stupid, stupid, configuration laws. . . but laws nonetheless.

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