ATF proposed rule 2021R-05, Definition of “Frame or Receiver” and Identification of Firearms.

[stagpanther]

It is not difficult to make a firearm. Especially if the most simplistic form is considered.
Two pieces of pipe, a cap, and a nail. That is all you need. Assembly takes less than 5 minutes, with no special machining operations, and you have a shotgun

Easily acquired in 5 minutes at most hardware stores to make a slam fire 12 guage.

 

[44 AMP]

There is a fundamental change being proposed, and that concerns what is the "receiver" of a firearm.

Obviously, and since the beginning, of the term's use, the receiver is the primary part that the other needed parts attach to. It "receives" the other parts to make a firearm, hence it is the reciever.

The issue here, is that traditionally, there has only been ONE part designated the receiver and all the other parts were just parts that attached, and they want to change that. In part, it is because of our use of the terms, upper and lower "recievers". Had we (the industry) from the beginning, called the upper a group or housing, or anything but a receiver, I doubt their current proposal would have reached the point of serious proposal.

Look at what they want, they want any/all housings that contain fire control parts or part or all of the locking or firing mechanism to be considered ANOTHER receiver as well.

Under the current language of their proposed rule change, barrel assemblies such as on the Contender and others would not be considered receivers, but the grigger housing of an M1 or M14 or a Ruger 10/22 could well be, because they contain (receive) the fire control parts
So, if they get their way, welcome to having to go to an FFL and pass a bacground check to buy certain parts were not legally firearms but apparently will be if this is approved.

Welcome to the world of possibly becoming a Federal Felon because you posessed a piece of plastic or steel without the required number on it. Just as one is still at risk on state levels for having a spring loaded metal or plastic box in excess of approved limite...

I realize I'm in a distinct minority with the opinion that we should not have ever wasted our time and resources with laws concerning mere possession of inanimate objects.

Laws against or defining what may or may not be done with objects (including the harming of others) are an entirely different matter, or should be, in my opinion.

How can it be "right" to say ok, you can own a set of golf clubs, but not a 7 iron, because at sometime, somebody, somewhere, beat somebody to death with a 7 iron...???

The whole concept of blaming objects for the actions of people and using that as the justification for legally prohibiting or restricting ownership is, to me something that should have been left in the Middle Ages when "things" were "evil" due to demonic possession and therefore had to be surrendered to the Crown, or the Church (or their local agents). It's a SCAM, one that has been officially sanctioned and promoted by the people in power for centuries despite logic and reason showing otherwise.

This proposed rule change is nothing but another case of adding restrictions and requirements on those people already obeying the law and doing nothing to affect those who are not.

Just my personal opinion, and i believe worth every penny you paid for it..

 

[Aguila Blanca]

At first blush it appears that this proposed change is just aimed at combating (I was going to write "eliminating," but we all know that laws can't prevent or eliminate anything) so-called "ghost guns." Reading it, though, tells us that it goes far beyond that. It's also aimed at eliminating the hobbyist gunsmith.

Read it. It not just about AR-15s and upper receivers. They want to go after every semi-automatic firearm ever made. In debates about "upper" and "lower" receivers, who ever imagined that we would one day apply that terminology to firearms like the 1911? But ... does the slide contain fire control parts? Well, yes, it does -- the slide holds the firing pin, the firing pin return spring, and the extractor. So does this make the 1911 slide (and the slide of just about every other semi-automatic pistol ever made) into an "upper receiver"? It will if this change in language is allowed to go through.

And it will create a nightmare of paperwork. Anyone who wants to buy a different slide for their 1911 or their Glock would have to go through an FFL for transfer.

And, as 44 AMP has stated, it won't make any difference to the bad guys, because they'll just stop making "ghost guns" (maybe) and go back to the way they've always gotten their guns -- stealing them.

 

[stagpanther]

It's a fairly pointless debate for me--I don't see the ATF having the will or resources to all of a sudden start executing raids to take away all our firearms--which is more or less how everything they do is eventually interpreted into a corner. For all the rhetorical reflections on "bad boys are just going to be bad" what would you feel if your child was killed in a school by a "sick" kid who decided that shooting up his class was the best way to settle his grievances? Freedom is a great thing--right up to the point one person's freedom takes away your's.

 

[44 AMP]

It's a fairly pointless debate for me--I don't see the ATF having the will or resources to all of a sudden start executing raids to take away all our firearms--which is more or less how everything they do is eventually interpreted into a corner.

Everything does get backed into that corner, as it is the extreme, worst thing that they might possibly do, that we can think of.

And, no most of us don't see the ATF has having the will and resources to "all of a sudden" start doing national house to house raids and confiscations. TODAY. And most probably not tomorrow or in the easily foreseeable future, BUT, if they have a solid, unchallenged legal basis, a future administration could have the will, and allocate the resources with a stroke of an Executive pen, not a Congressional pen.

Adding to the potential is the fact that the longer a law, or ruling stays on the books, unchallenged, the greater the belief it is correct and proper. The assumption being that there's nothing wrong with the law that's been on the books for years, because if there was it would have been challenged before.

The flaw in thing is that, in most cases, the law has to be applied, and there has to be someone "injured" by it, who has standing in the eyes of the courts in order to bring suit.

One of the reasons, and perhaps the main reason that the DC handgun ban lasted as many years as it did was that it took a decade+ to find someone in DC (so they had standing) and both affected by the law and willing to go through the process of fighting it in court. The end result was the Heller decision, but it took a long time to get into the process, and more time to go through the process and reach the SCOTUS.

what would you feel if your child was killed in a school by a "sick" kid who decided that shooting up his class was the best way to settle his grievances? Freedom is a great thing--right up to the point one person's freedom takes away your's.

I'd like to think I'd feel the same way I did when my son was almost killed by a drunk driver. That it was the PERSON who was driving (or pulling the trigger) that was responsible and that they should be permanently and if possible, painfully removed from the earth.
But that's just the way I feel....

Even the Founders recognized that rights are not absolutes, and there must be limitations simply for society to function. The old saying was "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose" for example.

Note that what the Founders focused on when it came to individual natural rights was NOT defining or limiting what people could do, but what the GOVERNMENT could do and was prohibited from doing in regard to those rights.

Look at the Bill of Rights, it grants no rights (and it was never meant to, government does not grant rights, gov can only grant privileges) the entire thing is a list of restrictions on what the Fed Gov can do.

 

[zukiphile]

Stagpanther, you are a smart person. My response isn't personal.

For all the rhetorical reflections on "bad boys are just going to be bad" what would you feel if your child was killed in a school by a "sick" kid who decided that shooting up his class was the best way to settle his grievances?

I might like to find who killed my child and drop the killer into a world of pain for the rest of his life, and I might like it to last as long as possible before the killer gets to the relief of his own death.

That's not a reasonable policy response and it's why we don't have victims and their families control criminal sentencing. It's a terrible question that sheds absolutely no light on the topic.

It's a fairly pointless debate for me--I don't see the ATF having the will or resources to all of a sudden start executing raids to take away all our firearms--...

They will never need to do that.

After just a few raids, people like me, people who have a lot to lose by keeping regulated and prohibited items, will just turn them in as an alternative to suffering government vandalism and harassment. It's the same reason Internal Revenue doesn't need to seize lots of businesses to terrify most people.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

One of the reasons, and perhaps the main reason that the DC handgun ban lasted as many years as it did was that it took a decade+ to find someone in DC (so they had standing) and both affected by the law and willing to go through the process of fighting it in court. The end result was the Heller decision, but it took a long time to get into the process, and more time to go through the process and reach the SCOTUS.

Standing can be a real issue. Remember that, even after cherry picking the plaintiffs in what became Heller, there were originally five or six plaintiffs. By the time the case reached the Supreme Court, Dick Heller was the only one left who hadn't been disqualified for one reason or another.

I'm pretty certain I remember that correctly. Perhaps one of the lawyer types around here could verify or correct that.

 

[zukiphile]

Only Heller had applied for a license and been denied.

 

[5whiskey]

So wait I just had a thought about this. This isn’t just about killing ghost guns... it’s also as much about killing internet sales of uppers and slides. A booming industry at the moment. We can’t have bubba shipping an upper receiver to his house now. After all he may slap it on a lower that he built and then the government would have zero chance of a paper trail on that firearm.

This stinks to high heaven.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Only Heller had applied for a license and been denied.

True -- but he applied for a license so that he could keep an operable handgun in his home.

From the decision:

Respondent Dick Heller is a D. C. special police officer authorized
to carry a handgun while on duty at the Thurgood
Marshall Judiciary Building. He applied for a registration
certificate for a handgun that he wished to keep at home, but
the District refused. He thereafter filed a lawsuit in the
Federal District Court for the District of Columbia seeking,
on Second Amendment grounds, to enjoin the city from enforcing
the bar on the registration of handguns, the licensing
requirement insofar as it prohibits the carrying of a firearm
in the home without a license, and the trigger-lock requirement
insofar as it prohibits the use of “functional firearms
within the home.”

3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to
self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban
on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire
class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful
purpose of self-defense.

In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession
in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its
prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home
operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. Assuming
that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second
Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register
his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the
home.

 

[44 AMP]

Of course its about killing internet sales, more so than actually doing anything about so called ghost guns.

Think about it for a moment, specific to the AR, the upper (which is just another part, legally -for now-) is no more a stressed pressure item than the lower. That's why aluminum alloy works for both of them. If you can home fab a lower, you can home fab an upper with the same equipment.

Now, serializing the upper (because it holds parts needed for the gun to fire- something they are proposing) turns the upper into a firearm all on its own, just as the serialized lower is. SO, to get that upper (if they get what they want) you'd have to go through the same process you do to get a completed lower, or a complete functional firearm with all the parts installed, physically visit an FFL to fill out the paperwork, get the background check and up the part. Oh, and if your state has a waiting period, that means 2 trips to the FFL.....to get what is today a part that even the Post Office can put in your mailbox...
is that progress???

Next point, are there people that make uppers and don't make lowers??? I think there are some, and those people who are not making lowers (which are legally firearms) MIGHT have to obtain a firearms manufacturing license (and anything else required) in order to keep doing what they're doing now, and THAT added hassle and expense might just drive some of them out of business.

Another point, the way their proposal is worded, it might be applied to many other guns, possibly nearly all the semiauto pistols made, and many rifles as well.

show me the semi auto sporting rifle that doesn't have its trigger group contained in some kind of housing, even its nearly all inside the actual receiver, the trigger guard is part of it and is visible from outside, to might "qualify" under the language of the proposal.

This is VERY BAD stuff posing as something mild and "harmless"....

Not as blatant as an out right ban, it's subtle, but the possible effects are chilling to consider.

 

[zukiphile]

True -- but he applied for a license so that he could keep an operable handgun in his home.

Correct. That's why the holding was that one is entitled to possess in the home.

 

[ballardw]

Would this also have an impact on "drop in trigger" units?

The cassette or plates or whatever you want to call the bits that hold the trigger, hammer, disconnector and springs are "holding parts needed for the gun to fire".

 

[FrankenMauser]

Would this also have an impact on "drop in trigger" units?

The cassette or plates or whatever you want to call the bits that hold the trigger, hammer, disconnector and springs are "holding parts needed for the gun to fire".

Ambiguous definitions are fun, aren't they?

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

Ambiguous definitions are fun, aren't they?

Indeed.
It could easily be argued that almost every internal part which has another part attached to it would meet that definition, based on the inane, "whatever I can ever sort of make it sound reasonable that a word could have ever been meant to mean" sort of reading applied by courts/lawyers.

Technically, "literally", an AR will not fire without the spring that's attached to the various trigger parts and flips the hammer forward. Therefore, whichever piece that spring is attached to (or even pressed against to create the tension?) in any particular trigger design is "holding parts needed for the gun to fire".

How does a lawyer arguing before a court try to define "holding"?

Really, the only internal parts in most guns not "holding parts needed for the gun to fire" are the safety pieces.... otherwise... why would those parts BE THERE in the first place? Firearms aren't exactly flush with extraneous internals which exist just to look neat.

 

[44 AMP]

Under the proposed rule, a “frame or receiver” is any externally visible housing or holding structure for one or more fire control components.

emphasis added

Under their proposal, as written, an internal housing holding fire control parts would not be considered a receiver. BUT, its quite likely that if the trigger guard (which IS externally visible) were part of or attached to the internal housing that would be enough for them to include that housing in their definition of "receiver".

Remember we need to look at two different though related things, the proposal as worded now, and likely interpretations of the rule if it is adopted as currently written and those could be significantly different.

ONE part, identified as the receiver has been sufficient to legally define the firearm for a long, long time. Changing the definition so that other parts, and more than one part are the legal firearm does nothing but complicate the matter and make was was just parts into firearms under the law, adding to the complexity, hassle and expense of legal firearms ownership, which i'm sure was all they intend it to do, no matter what kind of claims they make.

 

[Nathan]

It is now ope for comment at this LINK.

 

[brickeyee]

The "control" of 'gun control' is actually "people control."
Do not lose sight of this.