....while I can go out today and buy an AR-15, a full-auto modification kit, trigger modification kit and armor-piercing bullets.
Originally Posted by enderwiggin
Warning major thread drift ahead, but I wanted to point out some of the legal realities:
Yes to buying an AR-15, no problems if you pass the NICS assuming you're purchasing from a dealer.
No you can not buy a full auto modification kit legally unless you buy a registered transferable lightning link or a registered transferable drop in auto sear. You'd have to get finger printed for a FBI back ground check and if that clears you pay your $200 for the tax stamp transfer then get to pay somewhere around $8k-$15k for your new to you conversion device. It will take between 6 weeks to 4+ months to go through the process. Unregistered conversion devices are illegal machine guns and gets ya 20 year in a federal prison via the National Firearms Act of '34.
Yes you can buy M16 fire control parts but if you do not own a registered lightning link, a registered drop in auto sear or a registered M-16 and you do own an AR-15 you can be prosecuted for an attempted machine gun conversion. Yes just the possession of the parts that could make up an illegal machine gun gets people prosecuted and 20 year in a federal prison.
The only armor piercing ammo that you could get is grandfathered WWII 30-06 black tips. There isn't any grandfathered armor piercing ammo in 223/5.56. What that means is someone would have to be duly licensed to make or import any armor piercing ammo for an AR-15. The license holder now can not sell or transfer the AP ammo to anybody but a government or police agency with an exception for lab testing. So technically you can buy AP ammo for an AR but the manufacture or importer would be prosecuted for selling it to you so there isn't any supply. M995 AP is crazy but very rare stuff. The BATFE does not consider M855 as armor piercing round because of the quantity of lead and it's specifically excluded. The federal armor piercing ammunition law is somewhat sketchy because it's written as saying it only applies to hand gun ammo, but the BATFE considers any ammunition that is chambered in any hand gun "hand gun ammunition". With hand hand guns like TC Contenders and the like pretty much all rifle ammo is "hand gun ammunition". I'm pretty sure Texas also has some sort of AP ammunition law but I don't know the details off hand.
Be safe with the NFA stuff cause you can end up with a 20+ year vacation to Club Fed.