Talk:Sawed-off shotgun

message: The article says "In most states, a shotgun less than a certain length is legally classed as a pistol, and requires a pistol licence (which is much more difficult to obtain than a basic shotgun license), plus a registration. The act of sawing off the gun would constitute unlawful manufacture of a pistol."  The entirety of this article refers to the USA and then we have this sentence about "pistol licences" (which only exist in a few U.S. states) and "shotgun licences" which are certainly not an American phenomenon.  Further, there is generally no prohibition against manufacturing a pistol in the USA.  Of course if you manufacture a pistol out of a shotgun it's not a pistol at all, it's an AOW or SBS.  I will remove that the above sentences if there is no objection.
:That is a UK regulation, and should probably be tagged as such.  And the pistol license is probably a moot point, you can't get a pistol license in the UK anymore, for any reason, that's why the UK Olympic pistol team practices in France...  scot 15:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The national team can't even practice in the country anymore?  That's sad.  Here in the States the rules are almost as screwy.  take the Mossberg 500 12ga. pump-gun, it comes in a box with both a full buttstock and a pistol grip, one is attached the other is loose in the box.  If your shotgun shipped with the pistol grip attached at the factory and you cut down the barrel to under 14 inches then you have created an A.O.W.(any other weapon) and you will have to register that with the Treasury dept. and pay for a tax stamp (about $5.00 per year).  If your shotgun shipped with the full buttstock attached at the factory and you cut the barrel down under 14 inches then you have commited the felony crime of creating a short barreled shotgun and you can be imprisoned for up to 20 years.  Exact same weapon, same box, same price the only difference is that the pistol grip was screwed on at the factory rather than the full buttstock.  Fear the government that fears your guns.  Cheers. L0b0t 16:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep.  That's why Serbu won't do the AOW "shorty" conversions on your Mossberg/Maverick, they have to buy it themselves so they know it came in the "cruiser" configuration.  At least the Supreme Court isn't so picky, they at least let you buy a T/C rifle and put a pistol barrel on it, as long as you take the stock off.  That leads me to believe that if you did convert a stocked gun to an AOW, that you'd have a strong case in your favor.  Just make damned sure that you replace the stock with the pistol grip before you put on the short barrel...  scot 17:55, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I drool over those Serbu conversions.  They are soooo pretty.  Unfortunately, work and school have landed me in the People's Republic of Brooklyn for the next few years, so firearms are a no-go.  In NYC to keep a gun in your home you have to have a permit from your local police precinct (that they may deny without cause) at $80.00 per year per weapon.  Want to take your gun somewhere in a car, another $80 per weapon per year transport permit.  Fancy having a firearm in your place of business, yet another $80 per year per weapon business permit.  And yet we have gun crime here every day (our mayor blames Virginia), go figure. L0b0t 18:11, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, that's correct. After the renaming debate is sorted I'm going to split the article off into Sawn-off shotgun and Short Barrelled Shotgun to differentiate between, well, sawn-offs and guns manufactured "as-is" with really short barrels. (Psst: Have a look at the dates on the conversation you're replying to) Commander Zulu (talk) 04:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Pistol license?

message: Since the term "sawn off shotgun" implies an illegally modified shotgun, and there are plenty of short barrelled shotguns made that way for military and law enforcement use, would it be worthwhile to split off a new article on "entry shotgun", which is how the purpose built short barrelled shotguns are often labled (by, for example, Remington and Benelli)?  Probably much of the content here could go into the entry shotgun article, and this article can concentrate on the illegal variety.  scot 17:59, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article split proposal

message: :See also Talk:Boomstick#Keep as an info page?.
Please merge any relevant content from [ Boomstick] per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boomstick.  Thanks. —Quarl (talk) 2007-02-11 04:29Z
* There is nothing in that article worth merging.  It seems to be references to a movie and bits of trivia about dope and television shows.  Delete it.  Cheers. L0b0t 04:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge from [[Boomstick]] 

message: This sentence comes of as somewhat POV:
"In countries where handguns and pistol ammunition are rare due to legal restrictions or high price, criminals are known to convert legal or stolen hunting weapons into concealable weapons."
This practice may indeed be more common where handguns are less available, but it occurs in countries where handguns are available as well.  Right now it reads like a subtle criticism of gun control.  There are additional reasons why one would make such a weapon.  I will try to alter this sentence slightly to reflect this. Bad ideas 22:21, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prevalence vs. handgun availability 

message: Pic=stolen
http://www.keepshooting.com/productimages/firearms/class3/btpmodel2shortbarrelbig.jpg
"taken by myself on white tarp" my ass  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.0.149.121 (talk) 06:32, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've tagged the image as disputed over a Wikimedia Commons.  There is a chance that the original uploader is affiliated with BTP Arms, and if so, they may have the right to release the image; if not, then it will be removed.  scot 17:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Picture

message: Police officers are NOT in a different class from "civilians." There's a reason we in the Army have a branch that's called military police. 128.220.152.49 (talk) 18:59, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You obviously haven't looked at the requirements to get a handgun in Washington, D. C., or a .50 BMG rifle in California, or get a handgun in the UK.  The police, just like the military, are specifically exempt from most firearms legislation, including the Brady Bill, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, the National Firearms Act, and the Gun Control Act of 1968.  In addition, check out the definition of civilian:  a person who is not on active duty with a military, naval, police, or fire fighting organization.  scot (talk) 22:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "Civilian"

message: What's the point of a wider spread if the "destructive power" is the same as the article claims? If the spread is larger, the destructive power should be greater since the pellets are impacting a larger area. Malamockq (talk) 02:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The main reason for cutting down a shotgun is to make it easier to handle in tight spaces, and/or to make it easier to conceal.  The power (in terms of muzzle energy) of a short barreled gun is slightly less than that of a long barreled gun, as the shot isn't under acceleration for as long (though with a shotgun, the low pressures and large swept volume mean most acceleration takes place in the first few inches).  Beyond that, you're into very subjective territory.  A wider spread does increase hit probability at short range, by being more forgiving of poor aim (this is why skeet chokes are only .005", barely tighter than a cylinder bore), but it also reduces the pattern density and reduces the range at which you can expect multiple hits.  A standard military buckshot load only has 9 pellets, so by the time you get out to 40 yards (the military's max range for a combat shotgun), the spread from a cylinder bore is about 60 inches (see Shotgun#Pattern_and_choke).  That's two square feet per pellet (a square 44cm on a side), which makes makes it more likely than not you'd hit a human sized target at that range, but not by a lot.  On the other hand, at typical room-to-room fighting (or a Mafia hit) ranges, say 4 yards, your spread will be only about 6 inches (15cm).  This is nowhere near the mythical clear-a-room-in-one-shot spread, but it is quite a bit more forgiving than a single projectile.  scot (talk) 15:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Same destructive power? 

message: The article currently says cutting the barrel less than 50% doesn't affect performance (then what's the point of long-barrel shotguns anyway? might as well make them all just over the SBS limit...) and then it says the choke is in the first two inches and significantly affects the spread. This is outright contradictory and confusing; I can't think of a way to rephrase it to be clearer. 
The percentage doesn't make sense. Wouldn't that mean if you had a 10-foot shotgun (I'm just trying to make the math easier) you could cut it to 5.1 feet, then make a 5.1ft shotgun and cut it to 2.6 feet, then make a 2.6 foot shotgun and cut it to 1.4 feet, and so on, and the .5 foot shotgun would be roughly the same as the 10 ft shotgun? 68.123.224.214 (talk) 09:39, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Barrel length and shot spread

message: * Short Barrelled Shotgun is a different concept to Sawn-off Shotgun. That's the entire point of the argument to split the two articles, and a point already made earlier up the page... Commander Zulu (talk) 10:43, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split short-barreled shotgun / sawn-off shotgun? 

message: do not move Anthony Appleyard (talk) 10:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There have been plenty of sawn-off shotgun offences committed here in Britain where I live, if the newspapers and the television news can be trusted. On television I once heard a criminal described as "a standard British rough with a standard British sawn-off". I once saw 2 sawn-off shotguns on an evidence table in a Crown Court trial where I was a spectator in its public gallery. Once long ago some scuba divers who I knew found a sawn-off shotgun barrel in a flooded quarry. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As regards "sawed-off" / "sawn-off", which is preferred usage in each English dialect area between "The log was sawed into planks." and "The log was sawn into planks."? Regularizing irregular verbs has been happening down history. The usual past of "work" was once "wrought". Sometimes old forms persist as fossils: for example, people still say "molten steel" with the old strong-verb form, but not "I have molten the rest of the butter to make ghee". Likewise Anglo-Saxon "Ic hæbbe geholpen" became "I have helped". I am tempted here to think of the song "You say tomayto, I say tomahto.". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 10:06, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

text: How do we decide what's "More common"? We have one country that uses the term. Everyone else uses "Sawn-off". I'd argue that makes "Sawn-off" the more common term. Commander Zulu (talk) 13:43, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment: the UK has a population of 61 million or so, Canada has a pop. of 33 million, and Australia has a pop. of 21 million. There are 306 million Americans, more than twice the number of people in UK/CAN/AUS combined. Parsecboy (talk) 13:54, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment: Want to throw India into the numbers game? Skinsmoke (talk) 17:04, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Comment: Hell, just go by Google hits if you want a common term and put the anti-American prejuduces aside for a change.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 13:57, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: (ec) It's hard to go the route of population, since while the US has 215 million of the estimated 375 million native speakers of English worldwide (over 57%), India had signficantly more people who speak English, albeit most of them as their second or third language. (This info is from English language.)  More clear cut is the Google data I offered above. Ed Fitzgerald t / c 13:59, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I was just trying to illustrate the fact that stating that one version is more commonly used because it's used in several places is problematic. Parsecboy (talk) 14:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested move

message: In the Legal Issues, United Kingdom section the article states 'A shotgun cut down so that the barrel is less than 30 cm (11.81 in) or the overall length is less than 60 cm (23.62 in) is deemed to be a "short-barrelled" shotgun and is prohibited.'  This is indeed true, under section 5(1)(aba) of the Firearms Act 1968 as amended.  However, if it is a pump action or self loading shotgun, the limit is longer under section 5(1)(ac), which states 'A person commits an offence if...he has in his possession...any self-loading or pump-action smooth-bore gun which is not an air weapon or chambered for .22 rim-fire cartridges and either has a barrel less than 24 inches in length or is less than 40 inches in length overall'.  I reckon this should be added (in a much clearer way than I've quoted) as otherwise someone may think it legal to saw a pump-action shotgun down to below 24in.
Also, a shotgun which is not pump action or self-loading, once the barrel has been shortened below 24in, is no longer classified as a shotgun under UK law and needs a different firearm certificate.
The legislation I'm using can be found here if anyone wants to check my interpretation of it.
Ariseymour (talk) 20:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Legal Issues (United Kingdom)

message: United States v. Miller (1939) was for many years the only ruling on the Second Amendment. It found that: In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. The paucity of evidence could easily have been addressed by this article at Sawed-off shotgun#Police and military use. If nothing else, this is a notable ruling about this class of weaponry, and should be mentioned. Likewise some link to Combat shotgun should appear in the Police and military use section.130.39.189.249 (talk) 16:50, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What are you waiting for?  Go for it.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 21:03, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: American Law should discuss US v. Miller (1939)

message: This article is one of a  number selected for the early stage of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue   are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.
The following request appears on that page:
Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Penfding changes"  would be appreciated.
Please update the Queue page as appropriate.
Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially
Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 23:57, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Pending changes

message: I completed a copy edit of this article on 9/15/2011.
J appleseed2 (talk) 19:22, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Copy Edit

message: The O.F. Mossberg and Sons Model 590 Shockwave and Remington Arms Company TAC-14 are weapons manufactured with a 14 inch (35.56 cm) barrel and stub pistol grip - with an overall length of 26 inches (66 cm).  
According to Jon Hodoway, writing in the Guns America blog, this excludes them from the definition of "shotgun" (not designed to be fired from the shoulder), and thus they cannot be “Short Barreled Shotguns” (SBS) requiring a $200.00 transfer tax to purchase. If they had pistol grips and were less than 26 inches (66 cm) in overall length, they'd be considered “Any Other Weapon” (AOW) and require a $5 transfer tax. But the Shockwave and TAC-14 fall in neither legal class.  They are described as "pump-action firearms".
The Shockwave and TAC-14 never had stocks attached for firing from the shoulder. They have pistol grips extending their overall length to 26 inches (66 cm) or more, disqualifying them from falling under the "Any Other Weapon" category.  These weapons are not regulated by the US National Firearms Act (as described in our article under the headings "Legal Restrictions - United States - Other").  They can be purchased with the same BATFE Form 4473 required for purchase of any ordinary single-shot or semiautomatic weapon, with no tax stamp.  Having never been manufactured or designed with a buttstock, they are not legally "shotguns" despite being chambered for and firing shotgun ammunition.
Should we discuss the Mossberg Model 590 Shockwave and Remington TAC-14 under "Other" or in their own paragraph?  While they're not "sawed-off shotguns" they are weapons chambered for shotgun ammunition in the same performance range and used for the same thing (personal protection) as sawed-off shotguns and "entry" shotguns. 
Comments, anyone? loupgarous (talk) 01:42, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mossberg 590 Shockwave and Remington TAC-14 "Non-NFA/Non-AOW" 14-Inch (35.56 cm) Barrelled Shotguns 

message: Double barreled shotguns have become a prominent weapon in video games such as Doom as well as movies such as Mad Max PlasmaticGrain (talk) 15:56, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  In popular media