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Comment by bargle0 | Hacker News Reader

This was made before 1899 (or whatever the cutoff date is), and it’s black powder. The ATF does not consider this a firearm.

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Pedantically, it would be considered an "antique firearm". Still a firearm, but basically unregulated

> (3) The term “firearm” means (A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive; (B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon; (C) any firearm muffler or firearm silencer; or (D) any destructive device. Such term does not include an antique firearm.

according to the law antique firearms are not firearms.

And at one time a 14-inch long shoestring with a loop at each end was a "machinegun."

https://web.archive.org/web/20050313043608/https://jpfo.org/...

That’s an incredibly biased reading of that. It’s the gun + 14” of shoe string attached to the trigger enabling automatic fire that’s the machine gun not the string on its own.

No, this 2004 letter specifies that the string with loops on its own, because it was designed to be used to modify a rifle to fire automatically, was a machinegun.

Three years later, in 2007 the ATF decided differently, "Upon further review, we have determined that the string by itself is not a machinegun..."

https://everydaynodaysoff.com/2010/01/25/shoestring-machine-...

Black powder deflagrates, it doesn't detonate (explode.)

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