Assault-style AK-47 rifles are being manufactured for the first time by an American company that is getting around the government's ban on imports of the weapon by producing some new parts.
But the company's owner and president says he wants to get out of the business as soon as he recoups the money he lost when the government cut off imports of the semiautomatic weapons last summer."There's no money in the firearms manufacturing market," said E. Robert Jensen of Lathrop's Shooters Supply Inc. in Tucson, Ariz. "I don't need to be in the manufacturing business. When I'm out seven figures because of an arbitrary action by the government, I'd like to get it back."
Jensen said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had issued him permits to import several thousand AK-47s from China before he contracted to buy them. But before they arrived, the government banned the imports and the Customs Service refused to release the guns to him, he said.
However, Jensen was allowed to tear the weapons apart and salvage some parts - everything except the receiver, which is the trigger and firing mechanism.
Then he hired a company with "state-of-the-art aerospace-type equipment" to produce new receivers and put the rifles together.
Jensen said his version of the AK-47 is even better than the old imports: "It was made to higher specifications than anything the Chinese ever made."
The action "is a perfectly legal activity," said BATF spokesman Jack Killorin.
The bureau permanently barred imports of 43 models of foreign-manufactured assault-style rifles in July 1989.
The weapons were equipped with military-type accoutrements such as folding or collapsible stocks, pistol grips, threaded barrels for silencers; flash suppressors that could hide the shooter's position at night; bayonet lugs and large-capacity ammunition magazines.