Quote:One glance at the headlines would have convinced you that a major tragedy was averted by the keen eyes of U.S. Customs inspectors at the Port of Tacoma recently. KOMO blared: “Customs agents nab shipment of machine guns in Tacoma.” Other news outlets pointed out the dastardly nature of the shipment. KIRO in Seattle claimed: “Automatic Rifles Labeled As Toys Seized In Tacoma.” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer went with: “Customs seizes gun shipment labeled ‘toys.’”

Working from a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) press release entitled “Tacoma Seaport U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers Seize Shipment of Machineguns,” these news organizations had every reason to feel that they were just reporting the news, especially when Customs and Border Protection Area Port Director Rolando Suliveras Jr. claimed:

These rifles could have had far-reaching and potentially devastating ramifications if they had gotten into the hands of individuals who wanted to do harm in the American population. This was a good interception by our officers.

But there was much, much more to the story that Suliveras and the CBP failed to mention, starting with the fact that the 30 “machine guns” seized in the raid really were toys.

To be specific, the items seized were 16 WE TTI (WE Tech) M4A1 and 14 WE TTI (WE Tech) M4 CQBR gas blowback Airsoft rifles that shoot plastic BBs.

For those unfamiliar with these toys, Airsoft offers a less messy and more realistic looking alternative to paintball for both gamers and tactical training. The lightweight BBs can sting and leave welts at close distances on bare skin, but they don’t pose the same threat of shooting your eye out we’ve come to associate with more traditional BB guns and their copper-coated steel payload. Because Airsoft guns can be made to look like existing firearms and can mimic their controls, they are sometimes used for military and police training scenarios where real firearms using live ammunition would be unsafe, and at a per-round cost far cheaper than alternatives.

Of course, Airsoft guns are not real firearms, even the most realistic looking ones.

While the exact materials used in Airsoft guns vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and model to model, even nicer models such as those captured by U.S. Customs in Tacoma are typically made of a mix of inexpensive plastics and cheaply cast pot metals. Some small critical components — typically parts of the trigger pack or gas system — are made of more durable metals, such as brass and steel. While not designed to handle high temperatures or pressures, the materials used in Airsoft are sufficient to reliably propel plastic pellets to a range of a couple hundred feet with a charge of compressed gas.

So when Brad and Ben Martin of Airsoft Outlet Northwest had their latest shipment of 30 WE Airsoft rifles confiscated by Customs inspectors, they expected to get them back in a reasonable amount of time. The guns are, after all, rather plainly toys once you have a close look at them and how they operate. The Martins have shipped these and similar Airsoft guns through the ports of Portland, Seattle, and Tacoma many times before, and while some Customs inspectors were more likely than others to let the toys pass through without undue delays, they were always eventually released.

But for reasons still inadequately explained, Customs provided the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) one or more of the Airsoft rifles from the shipment they seized from the Martins, and the ATF declared that these Airsoft guns could be converted into real, fully-automatic machine guns.

Those who know these particular Airsoft guns the best uniformly describe the ATF claim as preposterous.

Stephen Pringle of Airsoft World Ltd. in Great Britain sells the exact same WE Tech Airsoft products, with the handicap of selling them in a country where real firearms have been regulated almost out of existence, and where even Airsoft toys require permits from the government. Asked about the possibility of converting WE M4 gas blowback systems into functional firearms, Pringle was unconvinced:

It is certainly our understanding that any attempt to install real AR-15 parts would fail, either at the installation stage or at the point that the firer pulls the trigger, probably with disastrous consequences for the shooter. Although they feature a higher proportion of steel parts than many other Airsoft guns, they are still a long way from the build quality required of a real firearm, especially as regards the receiver.

The receiver on the M4/M16 family of weapons can be broken down into two main component groups commonly referred to as the “upper” and the “lower.” The lower receiver contains the serial-numbered lower frame of the firearm that is legally recognized as the part that is the firearm under U.S. law, along with the trigger pack, the grip, the stock, and other components in the lower half of the gun. The upper receiver is comprised of the barrel, bolt, handguards, and sights. Pringle notes that these Airsoft guns have suffered catastrophic failures even at their much lower operating pressures, and that it simply wouldn’t make sense to try to convert a toy into a real firearm that would more than likely explode in the user’s hands with the first shot.

We have seen an AWSS rifle break at the junction between the upper receiver and the barrel, an area subjected to some of the greatest stresses in a real AR-15 as that is where the chamber would be located. The machining required to create a gas-operated rifle from one of these rifles would be extensive and expensive, requiring the replacement or fabrication of several key components — barrel, gas block, gas tube, receiver, bolt carrier, bolt, firing pin, associated springs, etc. Anything less would pose as real a danger to the shooter as to any potential victims. There is also the long-running argument that if someone with criminal intentions has the skills to actually convert an Airsoft gun, they probably have the ability to fabricate a basic firearm from scratch.

In other words, it would be difficult if not impossible to convert an Airsoft rifle into a real firearm without replacing the upper receiver entirely.

Pringle concludes:

I struggle to see why anyone would spend the time and money to convert a toy when it is so much easier to obtain a genuine firearm in the U.S. and if required do the work to convert it from semi auto only to full auto.

Indeed, a full upper receiver can be bought online and delivered to your door in the United States without the background check required of the lower receiver (the serialized part recognized under the law in the U.S. as the gun). So can the upper receiver of a real U.S. rifle be mated to the lower receiver of an Airsoft gun as the BATF is trying to claim, turning the Frankentoy into a a real and untraceable machine gun? Or are U.S. Customs inspectors and their allies at the BATF way in over their heads, and perhaps trying to cover up serial incompetency?

We’ll address these questions and hear from other professionals in “Agents of Incompetence, Part II.”

Quote:It is quite a stretch for U.S. Customs inspectors at the Port of Tacoma to declare that they recently intercepted machine guns, especially when the devices they confiscated were two models of a well-known brand of high-end Airsoft toys. To make such a claim, Customs relied upon a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) determination that these toys could have parts replaced or modified to turn it into a weapon capable of firing real bullets in automatic mode.

For such a claim to be true, the modified toy would have to:

* accept M4/M16-type military magazines
* strip a cartridge from the magazine and push it up the feed ramp into the toy’s chamber
* have a functional fire control group action, barrel, and gas system to cycle the weapon
* withstand (structurally) the high heat and pressures of a firearm cycling at hundreds of rounds per minute

Both Airsoft Outlet Northwest (the retailer/importer the Airsoft guns were seized from) and AirSplat (the nation’s largest Airsoft retailer) stock and have experience with the various configurations of the WE Tech Airsoft gas blowback systems, and both claim to have had experts attempt see how these toys could possibly be converted into functioning firearms. Airsoft Outlet Northwest took a previously delivered (without incident) WE Tech to a gunsmith that specializes in the AR platform. The gunsmith determined the following:

* The WE TTI M4s lack any sort of functional gas tube which is integral to an AR15’s operation
* The upper receiver of an AR15 fits onto the lower of the WE TTI M4
* The stock trigger pack in the WE TTI cannot strike the firing pin of a AR15 bolt
* The body of the WE TTI lower is several mils thinner than an AR15 lower, and shims would be needed for any AR trigger pack to work
* The trigger pack of an AR15 appears to be able to fit onto the lower receiver of a WE TTI M4, one of the AR15 trigger pack retaining pins is impossible to insert without major modification, and the hammer isn’t operable with the WE TTI lower.

In short, the gunsmith determined that the entire upper receiver would have to be replaced by an upper from a real M4/M6 type rifle to have a hope of functioning, and a trigger pack from a real M4 would have to undergo extensive modification to even fit. And even when modified to fit, it wouldn’t fire. If this gunsmith is correct, then all the effort to take a $400 toy and $600-plus of real gun parts — plus significant labor from a proficient gunsmith — would result in a thousand-dollar club less functional than the original toy, unable to fire real bullets or Airsoft pellets.

AirSplat, which has had samples of the exact same firearms in the past and which carries WE Tech products, had a slightly different experience in their attempts to see if these toys could be converted into weapons. They also had a tester who seemed supremely qualified to be in a position of being able to tell a toy gun from a fake one. Jon Dibblee was an Army infantryman for six years before being honorably discharged as a sergeant last year. He currently works for AirSplat, and he conducted tests with other employees on several models of gas blowback M4 replicas, trying to see if they would work with real M4 parts.

In the models they reviewed, Jon and his team determined the same fundamental conversion problem that dogged every attempt to turn an Airsoft gun into a real one, and that was the quality of the materials used in Airsoft construction. While quite acceptable for use in compressed-gas powered toys, the metals and plastic used in Airsoft would melt under the temperatures generated by real firearms, if they didn’t blow apart from the high pressures first. The all-important component (from a legal perspective) that determines whether or not a product is a gun or a toy is the lower receiver, which all Airsoft distributors contacted have confirmed are made of inexpensive pot metals that can not withstand the heat or pressures generated by authentic firearms.

In addition to the failure-prone lower receivers, the various Airsoft toys (including WE Tech) tested by AirSplat could not mate a real AR upper receiver to a toy lower, due to the placement of the two pins that hold the upper and lower units together. The hole location for the Airsoft pins were not compatible with the real AR upper, and were in fact ingeniously placed in such a location that attempting to drill new holes would result in the receiver metal tearing between the existing holes and new ones, immediately turning the receiver to scrap.

AirSplat was also unable to get real M4 magazines to lock into place in the Airsoft lowers, noting that the magazine lock was located in a different position inside the receiver, with the toy magazines designed to catch roughly 1/4″ higher. They captured this magazine locking failure on video as part of their review of a similar Airsoft M4. This video, of course, isn’t evidence that the WE Tech would have similar problems, but it certainly suggests that is yet another possible failure point of the ATF determination that the two WE Tech M4 variants could be turned into a weapon.

Playing devil’s advocate, one can easily understand why the ATF would want to block the importation of toys that could be easily converted into automatic weapons. Any toy that could be converted into a machine gun should of course be banned.

The ATF has thus far failed to show anyone evidence that they were able to easily convert one of the confiscated WE Tech Airsoft Rifles taken from Airsoft Outlet Northwest into a weapon. There has been no information that they attempted to test fire any conversion they may have attempted, or what the results of that test may have been. All requests for specific comment to the public affairs officers of both the ATF and U.S. Customs have gone unanswered.

Last but not least, the Customs/ATF argument for confiscating these toys might seem more plausible if they were focused on one kind of firearm, with a specific lower receiver they would publicly demonstrate as a serious threat.

But Customs has not stopped with confiscating just WE Tech M4s from Airsoft Outlet Northwest. They’ve also confiscated sixteen KJW M700 bolt-action Airsoft rifles (though Amazon.com sells them easily enough), four m700 bolt-action rifles from Bell, fifteen WE Tech SCARs (available seemingly everywhere), ten pistols, and four revolvers. The total cost of the additional Airsoft toys and accessories being held from Airsoft Outlet Northwest by U.S. Customs is roughly $20,000.

Bren Martin, part of the family that owns Airsoft Outlet Northwest, says they are no different than any other family-owned business trying to survive in a down economy and that the seemingly vindictive and arbitrary seizures by Customs threatens ten jobs.

Are U.S. Customs inspectors and the ATF treating the Martin family and their business fairly, or are these confiscations both punitive and unreasonable, considering that the same guns they have declared are “machine guns” can be purchased with monotonous frequency by anyone in America with a credit card and an internet connection?

We’ll address these questions and whether or not the entire affair is a gross example of bureaucratic incompetence in “Agents of Incompetence, Part III.”

Quote:Airsoft toys are not machine guns.

Even though the replicas often strive to be as realistic as possible, most people intuitively grasp that a toy gun made to fire plastic BBs measured in tenths of grams is not remotely a lethal threat.

Unfortunately for Brad and Ben Martin of Airsoft Outlet Northwest, a contingent of surly U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers have focused an inordinate amount of time and taxpayer dollars to repeatedly raid and hold their imported shipments of Airsoft toys and accessories, apparently without legal justification for doing so.

The 16 WE TTI (WE Tech) M4A1 and 14 WE TTI (WE Tech) M4 CQBR gas blowback Airsoft rifles currently being called “machine guns” and facing destruction aren’t the only Airsoft rifles that Customs is withholding from their rightful owners. In addition to the toys at the center of this controversy, Customs has 10 M1911-style pistols, 15 SCAR rifles, 4 revolvers, and 20 bolt-action rifles belonging to Airsoft Outlet Northwest. This is a total of roughly $20,000 in merchandise, $12,000 of which is slated to be destroyed. In addition to the Airsoft guns, Customs officers nabbed a shipment of 500 Airsoft magazines and held them for two months without providing Airsoft Outlet NW with any sort of explanation or legal justification for the seizure.

All of these Airsoft toys and accessories are carried by other Airsoft dealers throughout the United States and overseas, without any known importation issues.

Ben Martin describes a long train of inconsistency and abuse by Customs and Border Protection at the Airsoft Outlet NW website. Martin claims that a CBP agent in Portland forcefully removed the plastic tips required on Airsoft guns in order to claim the shipment was illegal. Agents within the same office in Tacoma even made contradictory claims about the now infamous shipment of WE Tech M4s that arrived without orange tips, with one agent claiming that Airsoft Outlet NW’s business practice of not selling their replicas to those under 18 without parental consent meant that the Airsoft guns would then be classified as BB guns, and therefore did not legally require orange tips.

And the CBP website seems to confirm that Airsoft guns do not have to have orange tips:

Air soft, paintball, bb guns, and other guns that use a gas or air pellet or mechanical spring action to fire a projectile are not subject to Department of Commerce regulations for toy or imitation firearms that require bright orange plugs or other markers to be affixed to the end of the barrel (15 CFR 1150).

15 CFR 1150.1 specifically exempts “traditional B-B, paint-ball, or pellet-firing air guns that expel a projectile through the force of compressed air, compressed gas or mechanical spring action, or any combination thereof,” which would seem to mean the justification for Customs seizure of this shipment is based upon ignorance of the very regulations they are meant to enforce.

Of course, the laziness, ignorance, and inconsistency of the CBP is only part of the problem.

In the end it was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that made the determination that these toys were analogous to automatic weapons, as explained by ATF Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Seattle Field Division Kelven Crenshaw. Crenshaw helpfully displayed his knowledge and expertise with firearms in an interview with Portland’s KOIN6 by attempting to put a magazine into one of the WE Tech CQBR backwards. This is apparently the same Special Agent Kelven Crenshaw that ATF whistleblower site Cleanup ATF says is a former assistant director demoted and moved for incompetence, reprisals against his own employees, and regulation violations.

Pajamas Media has contacted the CBP and ATF on multiple occasions in the last week, attempting to determine why these and similar Airsoft toys are just now being determined to be machine guns, after thousands have already been imported.

We asked if the ATF determination claimed in this Customs press release would reclassify any or all gas blowback (GBB) firearms with realistic external proportions as firearms, and selective-fire versions of these items as Class III weapons.

We also asked if this determination means that every retail establishment that has sold or will sell this and similar weapons is guilty of committing felonies for violating numerous federal laws including (but not limited to) the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (for those Airsoft dealers that sold handguns to persons under 21 years of age), and the Hughes Amendment of the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act, along with an unknown number of state and local laws.

Pajamas Media also asked that if this determination stands, will the ATF and Department of Justice call for the immediate suspension of imports of these Airsoft rifles, and begin attempts to confiscate those already imported. We also asked whether owners and sellers of such devices face jail time if they do not turn them in.

And finally, we asked if it could it be possible that the ATF officers who made the determination are incorrect, and suggested that if that were the case, the ATF should return these items to their rightful owner, Airsoft Outlet NW.

To date, Customs and Border Protection officials have referred all questions about the seizure to the ATF. They have refused to respond to specific claims by Airsoft Outlet NW. The Seattle Division of the ATF, which should have immediately recognized these toys as toys, has referred all inquires to ATF Headquarters in Washington, D.C., which has refused to answer any questions.

An incredible $20,000 worth of Airsoft Outlet NW Airsoft guns are presently under threat of destruction because of apparent incompetency in two federal law enforcement agencies, while the exact same toys are available for purchase online, in neighborhood retail shops around the nation, and around the world.

It would seem that the CBP and ATF have painted themselves into a corner.

They either must admit that their officers and agents made a serious mistake after a pattern of serial unprofessional behavior that verged on punitive abuse, or they must attempt to shut down the entire distribution chain of all similar Airsoft products being imported into the country and attempt to confiscate the thousands already on the market.

The latter would come at tremendous taxpayer expense and make these agencies even more of a laughingstock than they are now.

But at least we’ll be safe from toy guns.