https://youtu.be/t3rEKu2rJXE
Dimitri Karras used to run Ares Armor, makers of 80 percent lowers. The company was raided by the ATF. To make a long story short, click here for our posts on the Karras’ no-holds barred pro-gun agitation. Anyway, Dimitri was ousted from Ares. Now he’s taken to YouTube with his new Guntraband channel – proving that you can’t keep a gun rights absolutist down. In the video above . . .
Dimitri makes shotguns from Home Depot pipe, sells them at a gun buyback, sells the gift cards on Craig’s List for cash and donates the money to the Firearms Policy Coalition. Amongst other things. Clearly, we’ve not heard the last of this proud American. We’ve invited the man to write for TTAG. Watch this space.
Ok, that’s pretty cool.
So, basically we’re diverting tax dollars to fund the Firearms Policy Coalition? I’m ok with this. =)
Where does the money for the buy backs come from?
Tax dollars or seized money. Both belong to the Citizens of the state or community that they originated from. The money eventually goes to FPC?
Very admirable you say? Stolen money, whether it came from a police department, tax coffers, or in this case Demetrie’s hand, is still stolen money taken through coercion by state or local authorities. If you steal it from me I want it back. If you want me to donate money to you or your organization, ask.
So, if you stamp a “1” on the first shotgun you make, and a “2” on the second one, and so on, does that make them “serialized”?
That was my thought too! Bust out the engraver!
Wonder if you would run into problems with not being an FFL doing that
Wouldn’t think so, since you aren’t selling them (technically, “buybacks” wouldn’t count as “selling” I should think.)
Make gun, give gun, get money for giving gun. Sounds like a pretty basic business model to me. He’s even marketing with his youtube channel.
Ahh, but he is “turning in” his guns for “reimbursement”, not “selling” them for profit. That’s what the cop himself said– “We can’t reimburse you for them”. Remember, it’s not really a “buyback” at all. It’s a voluntary turn-in with a taxpayer-financed “incentive”.
I think the ATF encourages everyone to serialize their homemade firearms, FFL/Manufacturer or no (I could be wrong). Provided they meet all the legal requirements set forth in the law, it’s a legal serial number.
I encourage the atf to follow the constitution… See how well encouragement works?
I think you’re also supposed to engrave the creator, and origin location. If you don’t add those two you might actually be doing worse than not adding a SN at all.
“So, if you stamp a “1” on the first shotgun you make, and a “2” on the second one, and so on, does that make them “serialized”?”
Serial # 12345
Serial # 123456
Serial # 1234567
Lather, rinse, repeat,
Ad nauseam.
Donald Knuth uses various irratoinal numbers for his version numbers; each release adds one more digits. So for TeX (I think), the versions were 3, 3.1, 3.14, 3.141, ….. Some other project uses e: 2, 2.7, …. I like the symbology that no project is ever finished.
Good move, TTAG.
He’d be the most pro gun rights writer TTAG has.
Lol ohh that was priceless! ???
How was he “ousted” from the company that he owned? I hadn’t heard that.
Long story short, he sold a majority share in it (or something like that) to a “business” dude so he could focus on pushing barriers on the 2A and fighting the ATF, as that was starting to take a lot of time away from the business. The dude was doing a crappy job of running the company and they had a public falling out. Having kept up with it somewhat, and reading both side’s stories, it sounds like Karras got screwed.
American entrepreneurship at its finest.
Cool that he donates the proceeds, however, I would not respect him any less had he pocketed the money.
OK this is funny and interesting. I may do this if I have a chance. However to the last points made, I do not fear a foreign army, I fear the government.
They’re both pretty dangerous. In the last hundred years, more people were killed by a government (their own or someone else’s), than by all unnatural causes combined.
Look up Dimitri’s issues when he ran Ares and you might reconsider. Check calguns.net
Loveit.
Yeah, I’d like to know also.
Awesome stuff. And I hope Mr. Karas takes you up on the offer. Tell him to spill the beans on his 99% lower.
ALL politicians are lying scumbags, yeah! He’s got my vote!
Go ahead and make a shotty in your basement if it’s legal under the law of your state. It’s legal under Federal law to make a shotgun, but a short barrel shotgun is an NFA item. And you know what that means.
The NFA makes very little sense while making a whole lot of cents at the same time.
Thanks to the NFA short-barreled shotgun bull caca, you have to use a piece of pipe that is at least 18 inches long. Guess what? That pipe is pretty expensive these days. Last time I looked at an 18 inch piece of 3/4 inch galvanized pipe it was something like $20. While that is cheap in terms of making a shotgun for your own use, it is expensive when you are hoping to turn it in for a $25 or even a $50 gift card … especially given the fact that you have to purchase another $5 to $10 in parts/pieces to make a complete shotgun.
Add in your time to make the things and drive to and acquire the parts, as well as your drive time to exchange them for gift cards, and it starts to not make any sense unless they are offering something like $100 or more.
Home Depot has a 10 foot stick for 12 bucks. That makes it around $2 a barrel. Not $20.
2 bucks each for five pieces of the pipe, how much to have those pieces threaded?
Plus, you don’t have to use galvanized pipe if you are going to turn it over to the local police … black pipe (for natural gas) will do just fine and is probably a lot less expensive.
I don’t know how much it would cost to cut and thread one end of each piece.
All the ones I’ve heard about offer $100 or so, more for an “assault weapon”. Come to think of it, maybe he should have added a wooden foregrip and a hardware-cloth “barrel shroud” and made it into an “assault shotgun” to get another $100.
Sweet. I hope he makes an awesome contribution here.
Brilliant! Truly great sentiments, well produced, and did not disagree with anything said.
Back in the Australian gun buy-backs of the 1990s, I knew someone who was force matching expired SMLE barrels with dud Garand receivers and handing them in at the instant payout centres at $800 each.
AU$800? US$500?
They actually paid serious money for the forced weapons buys?
Yes, which is why the Australian gun buyback “worked so well” / had a big response. But that couldn’t be done here — too many guns.
We would just see the usual, $50-100 for handguns / shotguns / rifles, and $150-200 if they’re black and have a flash hider.
Sometimes I do think these guys believe this is how much firearms cost.
Considering how much pure junk they wind up getting, maybe it averages out. Kinda like socialism, I guess…
Serious money indeed:
Remington 11-87 Sporter- $1,100
Remington green plastic cheap case for 11-87 – $150
Per screw choke for 11-87 – $100 each
you can do the maths.
Knowing a gun grab was on the way, a well known importer here deliberately brought in clapped out/damaged Rem 870 and 1100 barrels by the drum load and got $150 each for them.
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/004/128/BRILLIANT_.jpg
If you turn a profit of $30-$40 per “shotgun,” you’d be able to buy a pretty nice gun in almost no time.
I think we need to publicise this, so that we have “reps” in every major city that does this gun buyback foolishness, and they do exactly this.
Until recently, I advocated elimination of gun buybacks. Now, I advocate for them for three reasons:
(1) Many, possibly even most, of the firearms that people turn in are junk and they get cash for them that far exceeds their market (scrap) value. And many of those people use that cash to purchase functional/modern firearms in replacement. I like it.
(2) Motivated people (such as Mr. Karras) either make their own cheap firearms or acquire junk firearms on the cheap and exchange them for cash that exceeds their initial outlay. I like it.
(3) Shrewd people attend such events and purchase nice firearms for a slight premium above the dollar value at the turn-in event … which means they get a nice firearm way below market value. I like it.
So, if he came in with a pile of his shotguns and one budget AR15 built on an un searialized 80% poly lower complete with an evil standard cap magazine they would be in a bit of a dilemma. If he refused to turn them in for no copinsation and said it was all or nothing, they would have to ask themselves how little of a risk is a rifle in the hands of somebody that doesn’t mind driving to a police station with a bunch of guns and is likley very little risk VS. the foundation of the whole gun “buyback” idea of getting guns off the street.
*Depot
Lowes is closer though
There aren’t any of those turn in events here. They decided to quit as soon as there was a law in place baring the use of tax dollars in them. Funny how that works isn’t it.
I think the only way we got that law passed here was when a certain big name sporting goods store was an active participant in a couple of those. the turn in program gave out gift cards and destroyed unfixable dangerous guns while the gun store bought up the usable ones to resell. They (antis) just wanted them gone not resold and it took all the air out of their lose guns just laying around rhetoric and they gave up on the turn ins.
“Clearly, we’ve not heard the last of this proud American. We’ve invited the man to write for TTAG. Watch this space.”
Now that is exciting right there. That guy knows how to piss off tyrants… What other quality does one need?
“Now that is exciting right there. That guy knows how to piss off tyrants… What other quality does one need?”
The skill to stay one step ahead of Johnny Law(less)…
Great!
I would say that TTAG, as a website, appeals to a younger demographic than the traditional gunzines. Specifically, TTAG is targeted at Millennials, or so it would seem.
This article is about some pro-gunners who “trolled” the gun controllers. We should follow some other websites and promote “trolling” the opposition. Trolling appeals to the young and the “edgy”. In the “trolliverse” we can do and say things which would be too “over the edge” in a more mundane venue.
On a similar note, we can promote the “alt-gun” meme. We can be intentionally provocative and extreme. The PC crowd, the SJW’s, but we can call them “SJJ’s” (Social Justice Jerks) and the mainstream punditry are so very trollable.
Suggesting that high profile shooting incidents may be “false flag” provocations or simply may have been faked by the establishment are just two of the tactics which can be employed in alt world of trolling.
Let the trolling begin!
His numbers break-down at the end is rather overly-optimistic. Understand that no militia can stand against a Western military utilizing combined arms and win. The only reason the military hasn’t been used to go door-to-door gun-grabbing in America is that the government realizes that it can’t trust them not to join us. But if they are used, we simply have no counter to air power, unless you can improv a stinger, and in that case would you get the design out on the net, please?
Planes have to be refueled. Pilots have to eat, crap, and sleep. Aircrew and ground crews have families.
Western militaries using combined arms are not set up to win 4th Gen warfare.
You don’t win wars by drones and airstrikes. Which the US should know since the government hasn’t actually won a “conflict: since 1945.
Air power would also be meaningless in cities where 85% of the population wouldn’t be a combatant. Every bomb dropped by the government against the rebels that killed innocents, would only create more rebels.
I heard these homemade guns were not accepted for gift card exchange at the recent San Marcos CA gun buy back.
Have to wonder why not? Isn’t the whole idea to “get guns off the street”? Even if they are not functional? Just because guns are bad? Are homemade guns not “bad” enough to merit being taken “off the streets”? Inquiring minds want to know….
They were in the morning. The accepted quite a few actually. They changed their minds in the middle of the buy back and stopped accepting them.
Wait ’til the Moms find out they are not accepting “ghost guns” at a turn-in…there will be hell to pay. After all, those are the deadliest guns of them all.
Galvanized pipe? Why?
Black pipe is less expensive and looks more tacticool.
I know I’m kinda late to this discussion, but here is my question.
If I were to buy all of the pieces used to make this gun and then sell them as a kit with instructions, am I violating any laws?
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