The Sputter Gun was a prototype test gun using 7 major components from the WW2 era
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
Sten
The STEN (or Sten gun) is a British submachine gun chambered in 9×19mm which was used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and during the Korean War. The Sten paired a simple design with a low production co ...
submachine gun
A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine (firearms), magazine-fed automatic firearm, automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to descri ...
carbine, along with other specially fabricated parts to make a complete operational firearm. It was designed to circumvent the existing U.S. Federal law defining a
machine gun. The Sputter Gun, lacking any
trigger
Trigger may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities
* Trigger (''Only Fools and Horses''), in the TV sitcom
* Trigger Argee, in science fiction short stories by James H. Schmitz
* Devil Trigger, a transformation ability of ...
, was designed to fire multiple rounds automatically, upon release of the bolt from its safety slot, until all
ammunition
Ammunition, also known as ammo, is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. The term includes both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines), and the component parts of oth ...
was expended from the magazine.
Background
In 1983, the ATF became aware that, William M. York, doing business as York Arms Co., was offering for sale a version of a
Mk.II Sten that was capable of fully automatic fire that did not meet the Federal definition as a machine gun. York advertised the “Sputter Gun” (so named by his attorney friend Ron Boutwell) as a firearm for those "who want the fun and excitement of owning and firing a fully automatic firearm without the government tax and red tape." A then employee, Chuck Lanum, of the ATF Firearms Technology Branch (FTB) in Wash. D.C. made a scheduled personal visit to the York Arms Co. in Hurricane, Utah, to inspect and discuss some of the Sten-based firearms the company was manufacturing under their Class 2 FFL issued by the ATF. York had in attendance at this meeting with Lanum both an attorney and a court reporter. During that meeting Lanum offered his opinion that the Sputter Gun might be considered a “machine gun” under Federal law if a person's finger could be considered the “trigger” of the firearm.
[BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SPUTTER GUN as told by William M. York (2023)]
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Classification
The Sputter Gun has never been classified or reclassified as a Machine Gun by ATF or any other organization of the Federal Government and thus has never been "outlawed."
The US Congress defined a machine gun in the 1934 National Firearms Act
The National Firearms Act (NFA), 73rd Congress, Sess. 2, ch. 757, was enacted on June 26, 1934, and currently codified and amended as . The law is an Act of Congress in the United States that, in general, imposes an excise tax on the manufact ...
["U.S.C. Title 26 § 5845 Definitions" U.S. Government Publishing Office. ]
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...any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.
In spite of assertions by ATF or others this legal definition has never been changed by any Ruling or Congress and still stands as Federal law.
See also
*Gun politics in the United States
There are two primary opposing ideologies regarding private firearm ownership in the United States.
Advocates of gun control support increasingly restrictive regulations on gun ownership, while proponents of Right to keep and bear arms ...
*Firearm action
In firearms terminology, an action is the functional mechanism of a breechloading firearm that handles (loads, locks, fires, extracts, and ejects) the ammunition cartridges, or the method by which that mechanism works. Actions are technically ...
References
9mm Parabellum submachine guns
Submachine guns of the United States
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