The Opening Round • A joint police/army raid scooped up dozens of weapons, including many homemade and modified automatic models, in Northern Ireland late in 1 979. The improvised/modified varieties included submachine guns made from machined pans, found materials, and salvaged ponions of issue weapons. In addition, several pistols were fashioned in the home guns hops of the IRA. (CounesyofT.H. Irwin.) threat of a firearm during commission of a crime as a much more serious offense than actually possessing one. A replica Uzi converted to full-auto fire was confiscated tn Seattle in 1989, while another turned up in Denver in