Last August, when I wrote my comments to the BATF NPRM 2021-R05 on frames and receivers, I emphasized that they said they were going to clear up the definition of "readily converted" but did nothing remotely of the sort. In every single place where they could have clarified it, they refused to do so. I told them they could substitute the word convenient and it would seem to cover what they were trying to do. Of course, they didn't define convenient, either.
The whole NPRM, at least as related to Privately Made Firearms, could be
summed up in a cliche'. I concluded my comment to the rule with:
In a now famous 1964 Supreme court ruling, Justice Potter Stewart declared, “I can’t define pornography, but I know it when I see it” (Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 US 184). The Bureau has moved the definition of pornography into Privately Made Firearms.
You have to do better.
In my comments here on the blog, I was a little more prosaic, spending more time on the ruling being aimed at making the whole process less convenient. I said.
This turns the question into how inconvenient does ATF want the process to be? Is it acceptable to order the frame from Polymer80 and the parts to complete it from Midway USA? Do we need to order the internal parts as one part per vendor; buying from 10 or 20 vendors instead of just one? How about if between every step we have to go run around the block? What's that, ATF? Between every step we need to crawl across Death Valley on our hands and knees?
Conveniently packaged is just as nebulous a concept as readily converted. We should get precise, repeatable definitions. Instead, for everything we get the crutch of tyrants everywhere: we'll know it when we see it, because we're the experts.
Like the headline says, I underestimated just how stupid they could or would be. In a story that didn't get much coverage, the BATF this week served a Cease and Desist order on a supplier of uncompleted frames called JSD Supply in the Philadelphia area. Reality came up between my hypothetical examples of ordering the frame from Polymer80 and the parts to complete from Midway USA or requiring us to buy parts from 10 or 20 different suppliers.
The order originated from the ATF’s Philadelphia field office. It stated that JSD Supply could not sell both unfinished frames and firearms parts to the same person no matter if they were purchased at different times. If JSD Supply sold a frame to someone, then the customer comes back to the site and buys a gun part; then, according to the ATF, the company sold the customer a complete firearm without a federal firearms license (FFL) in violation of the Gun Control Act (GCA). [Bold Added: SiG]
They're saying we can buy all of the parts to complete a frame from one supplier as long as
we didn't buy the frame from the same company, but in no case can a company
that sells a frame EVER, AT ANY TIME sell that person the rest of the
parts. While the article doesn't use those words, the ATF doesn't say in
anything they've said about this case that there's a waiting period after
which the company can sell both the frame and the parts.
Furthermore, the ATF maintains this has nothing to do with NPRM 2021-R05.
The ATF claims this action is independent of the new rule change that was unveiled last month during a White House Rose Garden ceremony and is due to go into effect this August. The order claimed it has always been Illegal under the GCA to sell parts and frames to the same person even if the transactions were separate.
It has always been illegal, but just now, in May of '22 have we decided to enforce this law? Yeah, right. Made up, pulled out of the depths of their asses. They have the Fed.gov's infinite checkbook. A small business like JSD Supply has a budget they need to stay within. They have the entire Fed.gov military to call for backup. JSD has exactly none.
Like me, you might have heard of JSD Supply as the target of an NBC TV attack. A New York-based reporter named Vaughn Hillyard went to a gun show outside of Philadelphia and purchased two unfinished kits. After he bought the two kits from the JSD Supply booth, he ambushed JSD Supply owner Jordan Vinroe in the parking lot for an interview. As is virtually always the case, the interview was selectively edited to smear Vinroe.
This is where the story turns to whether NBC News committed felonies. After the interview, Hillyard took the two kits to the PA AG’s Office, where employees finished the kits for him. If a frame and parts kit isn't a firearm, but a buyer has someone else complete it (turn it into a firearm) for them, that's illegal. If the frame and parts kits are firearms, then Hillyard transferred a gun to the Attorney General to complete it for him. Plus, it appears Hillyard broke the law as a New York State resident buying a firearm in Pennsylvania without transferring it back to New York through an FFL on both ends.
Of course, you know the chances of a mainstream media agency or their reporter being charged with a crime they committed are pretty much "zero point zero" - to quote Dean Vernon Wormer.
One of the arguments over whether they were going to clarify their positions on what constitutes being readily converted was that they can't tell us where the line is because in replacement for today's 80% frames would instantly be "79% frames" - or 70, 60 or whatever. They don't want people to know what's illegal because they want to redefine "illegal" to fit the whims of whomever is in charge. Which is what's happening now.
It looks to me like the Defense Distributed idea of a way to make functional receivers out of square aluminum bars - "Zero Percent Lowers" - won't be affected. They aren't selling frames, they're selling CNC milling machines which you can use to make lowers or anything else in its work envelope. Put in a square bar of aluminum and make a frame. If they sell you a parts kit (I haven't even looked to see if they do that), they're like a business that just sells parts kits. The impact will be bigger on the companies that sell both frames and parts. Those places will need to track who bought what, and when they bought it.
Yeah, it's Homer with a drill! OK, he's working on a camera and not an AR
Lower, but last August I referred to the difference between a skilled machinist and
Homer with a cordless drill, and found this picture. Even though the drill has a cord.
The BATFE (the "E" is silent, shhhhhhh...) has always interpreted things as they wished to, for their benefit, in order to justify their existence and to kowtow to their political and social masters.
ReplyDeleteIt's all bullscat.
Like everything. Bump-stocks, super-triggers, whatever. It's all unconstitutional. Only highly paid idiots or people with no brains can not see that any of this is a clear violation of the 2nd Amendment.
Gah.
Abolish, with fire, the BATFE. Scourge all their leaders out of the building (or into the building) and burn it all to the ground.
Stupid garbage like this is going to end up going way too far and start catching 'average male and female' into their traps.
'Vaguely written, strictly enforced' has been de facto policy for decades now.
ReplyDeleteI say we ride at dawn.
None of this is accidental, nor is it based on incompetence or stupidity. It is deliberate and planned. BATFEces exists NOW as an agency seeking to end the private sales of firearms and firearm accessories. Part of that agenda is the destruction of the people who sell such goods. By rendering insane, arcane, contradictory and inscrutable rules they magically turn honest people into criminals. And that is the ultimate goal....to make EVERYONE in America a criminal and thus someone the criminals in power can wield control over. We are way way way way way past the point where the 'Tree' requires watering.
ReplyDeleteThey're is nothing about the BATFE that doesn't prove that the most righteous response to them was the Branch Davidians opening fire and shooting them from the get-go.
ReplyDeleteThe pity was them letting them collect their wounded unmolested; they should have killed the lot, scalped them, and left them at the gate with their severed genitals inside their own mouths, and their heads cradled in their laps.
WeaponsMan used to say words to the effect that no one in the TSA ever performed any useful work ever, and none of their employees were either good, nor competent. The same is obviously true of the BATFE, and the sooner the agency is stricken from the list of agencies that exist, the better for the republic. They have clearly drawn their example from the regulations of the Wannsee Conference, and substituted the word "firearm" for "Jews".
They know them when they see them.
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ReplyDeleteVERY well said. And THAT is by intent!
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that the ATF says it is illegal to sell both together, but doesn't say where that is defined in law or regulations...
ReplyDeleteWhat is to stop JSD from selling frames and a sister company from selling parts, possibly with links to each other and the same payment processor?