Assault rifle legality question

[CTbuilder1]

just to be 100% on this any pre-ban made prior to Sept. 13, 1994 is legal to own in ct?if it is the way it seems,having to had already owned the weapon prior to the ban kinda puts a damper on things for the younger crowd.seeing as how i was 13 then,i dont think me obtaining one would be very easy or legal lol

Any firearm manufactured before 9.13.94 is legal to transfer now and is excempt from the AWB, provided that it is not banned by name.

 

[oneton]

this Conn AWB law doesnt make any sense. its like they flipped though the pages of a Gun Bible and pointed out the scary ones. then through in the part about limiting the Evil things you can have to fill in the gaps to cover anything that they didnt think of.

 

[dcmdon]

just to be 100% on this any pre-ban made prior to Sept. 13, 1994 is legal to own in ct?if it is the way it seems,having to had already owned the weapon prior to the ban kinda puts a damper on things for the younger crowd.seeing as how i was 13 then,i dont think me obtaining one would be very easy or legal lol

Corpse, you are incorrect. CT builder is correct, but let me just elaborate so people like corpse don't get themselves arrested. First a little historic background. When the law went into effect in 94, the guns were banned by name. It included the Colt sporter /ar15, but not any other brands of AR. It also did not say anything like "AR Type". In contrast, it banned "Avtomat Kalashnikov AK-47 type". this has since been litigated to mean that any AK style gun that is chambered in 7.62x39.

So when the law was passed, any non-colt AR was not considered to be an AW. The law was ammended in (about) 1999 to mirror the federal AWB. It added language that banned by evil features. The new law read that:

(A) A semiautomatic rifle that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least two of the following:
(i) A folding or telescoping stock;
(ii) A pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon;
(iii) A bayonet mount; (iv) A flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor A grenade launcher . .

It was interpreted to mean that any non-colt ARs made after the original AWB were now AWs and needed to be registered, sold out of state, or de-milled.

Where this leaves us now in CT is that for an AR to be considered pre-ban, it must NOT be a colt and it must have been made before the effective date in 1994. (if memory serves me right, its July 1, but don't take my word for it)

One other fine point is that an AR receiver just has to have been made prior to the ban date. It does NOT NOT NOT have to been made into a firearm by the ban date like some other states and the expired federal AWb require(d).

After AKs and ARs, the next most interesting item covered by the law is the Mini14. The law only banned the folding stock version of the gun by name. Otherwise the Mini14 doesn't have enough evil features to qualify. So in essence, all folding stock Mini14s are banned. There is no legal folding Mini14 in CT.

Here's another twist. The mini30 (the 7.63x39 version of the Mini14) was not banned by name. The folding stock version of the Mini30 did however have enough evil features to qualify as an AW when the law was amended. That means that a folding stock Mini30 made before the ban is NOT an AW by CT statute and is perfectly legal but a folding stock Mini30 made after the ban is illegal. All standard stock ones are legal. Confused yet?

Don

p.s. Anything that is considered a machine gun by the NFA is not banned. So you can have a Colt AR15 or an AK if its a machine gun. However, federally registered machine guns weren't completely unaffected by the CT AWB. The CT AWB banned select fire weapons. Select fire means a gun can fire full auto or semi-auto. What this means is that all Federally registered machine guns (other than those registered in CT as AWs in 94, which is a very small number) in CT must be full auto ONLY. No semi-auto allowed. Most military full auto guns were select fire and needed to be modified to be full auto only to comply. Crazy huh?

 

[CTbuilder1]

this Conn AWB law doesnt make any sense. its like they flipped though the pages of a Gun Bible and pointed out the scary ones. then through in the part about limiting the Evil things you can have to fill in the gaps to cover anything that they didnt think of.

Most of the banned weapons in the CT AWB were also in the fed AWB, if not all of them. You are closer than you may think to how they came up with the Clinton AWB.

[snip]

Great post.

I just wanted to add one clarification about Colts and I'll use some specific examples.

The only Colts that are banned by name are the "AR15" and "Sporter" and all variations of those labels. They are banned by name regardless of date of manufacture or configuration. The Colt 6520 is a 16" carbine with a lightweight barrel and A2 upper. It is designated "Colt AR15A2." This model can be found with preban manufacturing dates and is still in production. It is banned by name either way.

The Colt 6920 is the 16" M4 type (semi-auto). It's designation is "LE Carbine." and therefore is not banned by name. However it is banned by feature count. If one were to make a 6920 AWB compliant then ownership would be legal.

The Colt 6521 is a limited production preban gun. It is marked "Colt Carbine .223." It is the ONLY Colt preban that is not marked "AR15" or "Sporter" and is, therefore, the only preban Colt legal to own in CT. There are between 1400-1600 in the world and 300-600 in the United States making them extremely rare.

The Colt 6400C is the AWB state compliant M4 Type (semi-auto). It is marked "Match Target M4 Carbine." It has no bayonet lug, a non-flash supressing comp and a fixed M4 stock. It is part of the Match Target line that is 100% AWB compliant.

 

[dcmdon]

Agreed

You implywhat I forgot to say: that as soon as the AWBs went into effect, Colt did 2 things:

1) removed flash supp/threaded bbl, lug, collapsing stock
2) CHANGED THE NAMES.

Don

 

[CTbuilder1]

Agreed

You implywhat I forgot to say: that as soon as the AWBs went into effect, Colt did 2 things:

1) removed flash supp/threaded bbl, lug, collapsing stock
2) CHANGED THE NAMES.

Don

Right, one one series of weapons - Match Target. Then they relased the LE line later. There are still a few rifles, like the 6520, that go by the "AR15A2" designation. Which is a shame because it's such a nice light rifle.

 

[dcmdon]

I don't let it bother me. When the AWB first went into effect and I had to get rid of colts it bothered me.

But you can build the equivalent gun or just buy it from other makers. If you are a real colt snob, you could have even moved everything over to a non-colt lower.

A friend of mine did that in the 90s. He purchased a bushmaster lower and them moved all his colt parts, including his upper over to the bushmaster. He had to mess with a couple of things because of the large hole colt upper, but he got it worked out.

My evil rifle is built on a DPMS lower with everything else top quality. CMT lower parts kit, LMT upper. I've got 3 pre-ban lowers but only one is built into anything.

Don