#intratec

The TEC-9 was the AR-15 of the late-80s/early-90s - it was held up by gun-grabbers as the single most terrible implement of destruction wrought by the hand of man since the atom bomb. The most infamous use was probably the Columbine massacre, which ironically enough occurred five years after it was banned by name throughout the entire country by the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban*.

The gun itself is nothing special - it’s a cheap, lightweight, blowback pistol. Originally designed as a submachine gun for military use, it never found a buyer so Intratec made semi-auto versions for the public. ATF threw a big hissy fit over the original design being open-bolt (and thus easy to convert to full-auto) so it had to be changed to closed-bolt for commercial sales. It sold reasonably well, but I imagine that’s more because of infamy than anything else - the manufacturer cheaped out so much on materials and design that it could only fire standard 115gr 9mm bullets. Any heavier rounds or hotter loads would crack the receiver. Probably for the best, because blowback firearms suck enough as it is and firing +P ammo out of this would likely be miserable anyway. The gun is too big to be comfortably carried like a regular pistol yet still too small to be any good as a “not-a-SBR” faux-pistol. The position of the magazine up front instead of in the grip means you’re sacrificing a ton of barrel length (and hence muzzle velocity and mechanical accuracy) for absolutely no gain. 

Let me be clear on something - this is a gun that I’m roasting not out of any place of fondness and joking affection like so many others, but out of genuine disgust. The TEC-9 is hot garbage and frankly we’re all better off without it in the world.