The gun Tyler Robinson allegedly used to assassinate Charlie Kirk was so old that it predated serial number mandates — making the weapon impossible to track.

The Mauser model rifle, described in texts by Robinson as “grandpa’s rifle,” is a decades-old, German-made gun used in both world wars and on the market years before a law created after the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy mandated weapons to be etched with unique, traceable numbers.

There are believed to be millions of such weapons in homes throughout the country — raising concerns among federal authorities of the potential for other assassins to carry out similar attacks with their untraceable rifles.

“Short of the security afforded to the president, there’s no way to defend against the threat posed by this,” Scott Sweetow, a retired official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told NBC News

Robinson, 33, allegedly ditched the rifle wrapped in a towel in a wooded area near the Utah Valley University campus shortly after allegedly using it to kill Kirk as he spoke at an outdoor event.

Cops found the weapon hours after the assassination — but it’s not clear whether they would have been able to trace it to Robinson had his family not pressured him into surrendering to cops.

The gun is a Mauser model 98, prosecutors said. The 30-06 caliber rifle fires cartridges slightly smaller than 8 millimeters and is a bolt-action style weapon, meaning it needs to be reloaded between shots.

Robinson said in texts to his roommate that the gun had belonged to his grandfather, but it is not clear how the grandfather came into possession of it.

The Mauser 98 was the standard rifle used by the Germans during World War I, and Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler favored a shorter version of the gun for the German Army in World War II.

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Tagged: Domestic Terrorism BACK TO HOMEPAGE