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Felons, illegal immigrants and all others banned from buying a gun in the United states take a new alternative if they're looking to get their hands on a firearm: Just buy a toy.

A FoxNews.com investigation reveals that a popular recreational pellet gun can be converted easily to a real semi-automatic weapon. And while the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is already enlightened of the issue, these "toys" -- new, elevation-of-the-line airsoft rifles -- continue to be sold throughout the country.

Like paintball without the paint, the propane-powered airsoft guns are designed to shoot quarter-inch plastic pellets and are generally used for recreation or in military and law enforcement training.

When the ATF seized a shipment of 30 of these guns in Oct from a port in Tacoma, Wash., information technology said they could be "readily convertible" to automobile guns. But gun experts called that claim absurd and said the ATF was overstepping its premises.

At present i of those critics is reversing his position, saying at least 1 airsoft manufacturer has taken the quest to exist accurate a little likewise far.

"The airsoft can be converted to an AR-15," firearms manufacturer Leo Gonnuscio told FoxNews.com after testing the make and model of airsoft guns seized by the ATF.

Having ended that several other airsoft guns could not be converted to burn real ammunition, Gonnuscio said he was surprised to find that he was able to to transform this particular gun to the real thing  -- and with "minimal work," because its bottom half, or "receiver," is and so similar to an AR-15'south.

To brand the airsoft receiver function simply similar an AR-15's, Gonnuscio said, "All yous take to practice is drill one pigsty."

And in one case that'southward out of the way, the residue is fifty-fifty easier. The AR-xv receiver is the only role of the semi-automatic rifle that is given a serial number, and is the only part that is regulated. All the remaining parts of the real thing can be purchased by anyone – any child, criminal or terrorist.

The toll of ownership the Taiwan-made airsoft gun and all the parts needed to convert information technology to an AR-xv comes to roughly $1,100 -- more than the cost of some existent AR-15s. But someone who can't clear a background bank check or has been refused a gun for any other reason could apply this method to make his own lethal weapon, Gonnuscio said.

Making it into a machine gun, he said, would require yet some other conversion, and the makeshift gun would probable be able to burn down but 15-20 rounds before it stopped working due to the pressure it would have to withstand while firing in an automatic mode.

Simply as semi-automatic weapon, Gonnuscio said, "It may non concluding forever, but they've got a gun to get the job done that they were assigned to practise, and nobody knows the wiser."

The ATF has made no reported moves to regulate or seize any more of the airsoft guns, which keep to be sold in stores around the country, and it appears to be bowing to critics and reconsidering its stance on the guns' convertibility.

"We're having to take a serious await at this, so it's just something that we're reviewing, and I'm hoping we'll have some data that we tin can make bachelor to the public certainly very shortly," ATF spokesman Drew Wade told FoxNews.com.

But firearms practiced Len Savage said the ATF is taking a "serious look" at the wrong issue -- or, more specifically, the incorrect part of the gun.

The reason it's possible to brand these airsoft receivers function every bit real receivers is that all an AR-15 receiver does is concord the gun together, Savage said. Then with enough gun knowledge, almost anything tin can be fabricated into a receiver.

"There's a line of AR-15 firearms out there where the lower (the receiver) is made entirely of injection molded plastic … It could be fabricated of cardboard and scotch record," he said.

The most important office of an AR-15, and the most difficult part to replicate, he said, is the upper half of the gun -- which is unmarked, unregulated and readily bachelor for purchase.

"The ATF is regulating the incorrect part equally a firearm receiver, not the role that goes bang," Savage said.

"The upper is what contains the barrel, the breech or bolt, that'southward what contains all the pressure," he added.

The reason the lower half of the AR-xv is the part with the serial number, and thus classified as the receiver, is that when the gun was created it was upwardly to the manufacturer to choose the location of the gun's serial number, he said. Because the bottom of the gun has a flat surface, it was the easiest to mark.

And though federal law has since defined a gun'due south receiver as the part "which provides housing for the hammer, bolt, breechblock and firing mechanism," Savage says the bureau has continued to mark and regulate the lower part of the AR-15 to avert defoliation.

"In the stream of commerce, you'd have uppers that were marked and regulated so lowers that were marked and regulated, y'all could see the confusion on a dealer basis" in determining which parts require licensing and which don't, Savage said.

But even though the upper half of the gun can be bought past anyone, Gonnuscio still says that banning the airsoft receivers and implementing a few new rules for airsoft manufacturers could exist a skillful start to keeping unregulated AR-15s off the street.

"I would hope that the ATF applies force per unit area to the manufacturers of these airsoft guns to redesign them so they cannot be converted," he said. "Brand them move the pivot holes ... so that an upper can't be attached to it without major machining.

"Make full in some of that gap so that they would literally have to chuck this thing up in a manufactory and totally reconfigure it to work. Tighten up the magazine well and then a regular magazine won't fit in it."

And because the U.S. is such a big market for these airsoft guns, Gonnuscio said, a foreign manufacture would change the product if its current design were banned here.

"At that place are tons of expert uses for these guns: Nosotros use them for grooming, kids exercise reenacting with them, kids get out there and play just similar the old days. We played BB gun wars when nosotros were kids and we survived. These are fiddling plastic assurance that are shot past electricity or propane.

"So let them have their toys. Just make certain they're still toys."