IDF Pushes to Stop Illegal Gun Manufacture on West Bank

Carlo Style Submachine gun found after attack on Israeli Car in January, 2017

In many places around the world, where firearms are very difficult to obtain legally, small shops manufacture simple submachine guns for the black market.

They are common in Brazil, Israel, the Philippines, and increasingly in Australia,  Canada, and even the United States, where submachine guns are highly regulated. In Israel, the Israeli Defense Forces have turned their attention from the private owners of black market guns to the small shops that produce them. The crackdown started in 2016. From timesofisrael.com:

Save for members of the Palestinian security services, it is illegal for Palestinians to own guns of any kind. In its crackdown, the army has focused on the sources of weapons — manufacturing workshops and gun dealers, instead of individual owners.

To that end, in the first quarter of 2017 the army shuttered 20 suspected gun-making workshops and seized about 150 guns, putting it on track to far surpass its numbers from last year. In 2016, the army closed 44 workshops and confiscated approximately 450 weapons.

“In 2015, we didn’t close a single workshop and we seized 170 weapons that entire year,” the officer said.

Not much equipment is needed to make simple submachine guns. It can be done with a hacksaw and files. A decent machine shop, such as the one shown above (Image from 4 August, 2016, idfblog.com) makes the manufacture much easier. A small welder helps quite a bit.

Most of the magazines used for Carlo submachine guns appear to be either UZI magazines or converted AR15/M16 magazines. The case heads of the 9X19 and the 5.56 X 45 rounds are fairly close. A 9 X 19 case base is .394 inches in diameter, the 5.56 X 45 base is .378 inches.

I expect 3D printed magazines to appear shortly. Their lifespan of a few hundred rounds would be sufficient for black market use; their functionality has already been demonstrated.

Prices for low end Carlo small shop manufactured submachine guns have reportedly risen from about $415 to $1,900 in the last year. In the West Bank economy, that is two weeks to two months wages, on average. The low end guns are notoriously inaccurate and unreliable. The barrels are generally smooth-bore, so the bullets tumble almost immediately. The effective range is likely about 10 meters.  The Times reports that this is not much of a detriment. From timesofisrael.com:

For most owners of Carlos, this is not much of an issue. The gun is not meant to be used for hunting, where its inaccuracy would be a significant problem or in operational situations where a malfunction could be catastrophic. These kinds of guns are instead used for things like home protection, petty crime and celebratory gunfire at weddings.

The problem is when these guns end up in the hands of those who want to carry out terror attacks, as they increasingly have in the past two years, the officer said.

Apparently, illegal guns are quite common among Israeli Arabs. From jpost.com:

According to 2015 police figures, 59 percent of murders in the country take place in the Arab sector even though Arab-Israelis only make up 21% of the population. While the country’s Arab sector has long been saturated with illegal firearms, the issue of unlicensed guns reached a new level of national attention when Nashat Milhem went on a shooting spree in central Tel Aviv last January.

Two sources quoting that black market submachine guns are common in the Israeli Arab sector, where they generally are not much of a problem.

Guns are a very simple technology that has been around for hundreds of years.

It is impossible to stop their manufacture when metals are readily available.

Ammunition is a separate problem, but it can be overcome. Criminals and terrorists do not need a large amount. The cartridge box in the top picture appears to be from the Israeli Defense Forces. Perhaps a reader can make a positive identification.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.

Link to Gun Watch