Well, Whaddya Know

About five weeks ago, Florida Governor DeSantis  made it clear he wanted to pass Constitutional Carry in the state.  He even went so far as to call on incoming House Speaker Paul Renner, publicly making him responsible.   

He laughs and says, “well, we’ve had a majority this whole time. I’ll let Paul answer that because I’m ready. [looking over to incoming House Speaker Paul Renner] Are you going to do it?”

Paul Renner responded with a “yes.”

Let’s break down the Governor’s statement quickly. He didn’t just say he supports Constitutional Carry, he politically called out the Republican-controlled legislature for its collective failure to pass during prior sessions.

This morning brought an email from Florida Carry.  

 

In one little meeting, DeSantis demonstrated to the state that he knows that the population wants this, Stupid Party members campaign on delivering it, and once in office, the Stupid Party is the one that kills it.  He says it's time to cut the crap and do what they've promised.  He told the truth in the motto he uses frequently, "clear, concise, unambiguous" and called on the incoming speaker to be better than his predecessor.  

A Few Short Stories

Not all space news for once.

First item: This is What Leadership Looks Like

Florida Governor Ron Desantis made it clear again that he wants to sign constitutional carry.  At a press conference on the 15th, Desantis was asked again if he wanted constitutional carry in '23, especially with the Rs taking a supermajority in the legislature.  Non-Floridians can be excused for not knowing that they've had a majority for over a decade and almost everything pro-gun has been sat on by the legislative leadership.  It has been Republicans that have blocked the passage of pro-gun legislation like Constitutional Carry, Open Carry, Campus Carry, Red Flag Repeal, and Second Amendment Sanctuary.  Yet if you listen to the campaign ads, everyone supports these things.

He laughs and says, “well, we’ve had a majority this whole time. I’ll let Paul answer that because I’m ready. [looking over to incoming House Speaker Paul Renner] Are you going to do it?”

Paul Renner responded with a “yes.”

Let’s break down the Governor’s statement quickly. He didn’t just say he supports Constitutional Carry, he politically called out the Republican-controlled legislature for its collective failure to pass during prior sessions.

Video short of the exchange here.  

The Governor made it clear it was in the legislature's lap saying, “we’ve had a majority this whole time.”  He said, “make it so” without saying those words.  What I've heard is that positive gun bills were trashed the last few times by Wilton Simpson, who term-limited out as the President of the Senate and is now the incoming Commissioner of Agriculture - who oversees the Concealed Carry permitting process. 

Second item:  This is What Destroying the World Order Looks Like

I start this by saying I haven't gone looking for other confirmations on this, but the American Wire website's feature called the “TIPP Insights” reports that Japan has apparently lost faith in their agreement with the US since the end of WWII to depend on us for big defense protection and not have a military capable of first-strike actions.  In other words, the Post WWII World Order has been tipped over.

President Xi’s ambition to “unify” Taiwan is well known. Lesser known fact: beyond Taiwan lie a group of islands that China claims as its own. These mostly uninhabited atolls and isles are a bone of contention between Tokyo and Beijing. The rich marine resources and oil deposits make these specks of land coveted real estate. Chinese naval vessels have made their presence felt more frequently in the region.

Many believe that China now feels emboldened to move on Taiwan. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is seen as a rupture of the “world order.” Nations are paying closer attention to their territorial defense. The failure to present a unified front against the invader (Moscow) has made people aware of the need for robust national militaries and enemy strike capabilities.

Tokyo, for its part, believes that, after Taiwan, the contested islands will be next on President Xi’s agenda. Unwilling to be caught off guard, Prime Minister Kishida is making moves to shore up Japan’s defenses. Moving past its pacifist constitution that forbade Japan from maintaining a full-fledged military, plans are underway to establish a world-class force with first-strike capabilities. The island country recently announced a $320 billion defense plan, doubling the current spending to 2% of the national GDP over the next five years.

Note the skyrocketing spending on the right side of this plot, shown as % of GDP.  You can see it stops short of the 2% of GDP mentioned above. Blue is a conversion of the Japanese spending in Yen to US dollars.

Of course China is accusing Japan of provocation and destabilizing the region.  As we all learned in the cold war, we can only see the purely defensive uses for anything we have, while we can see offensive uses for anything they have. That's what China's playing here.  

Third item: This is What Leading the World in Space Access Looks Like

Since the last report, SpaceX has launched missions 57 - 59 for the year, with NASA's SWOT mission from Vandenberg on Friday morning (Dec. 16), the SES O3B Empower mission yesterday evening from the KSC here, followed by the Starlink 4-37 mission Saturday afternoon (Dec. 17).  In addition to the milestone of being the most launches in a calendar year by far (so far) this is the 15th flight for this booster making it the fleet leader in reuse.  

Strangely, I don't see the booster number in any sources.  I'm pretty sure it's B1058, due to overlap between missions cited here and here.  

NextSpaceflight shows two more Falcon 9 launches for this year: Starlink Group 5-1 on Dec. 28 @ 3:19 AM EST, and finally Eros 3C on Thursday Dec. 29 at 1:58 AM EST from Vandenberg again.  If all goes according to plan, that'll be 61.

This evening's landing.  It wasn't anywhere as clear at that over here, and that sky isn't clear.

What Was That About Not Stopping the Signal?

The quote from the movie Serenity in 2005 has become better known than the movie itself - although the exact quote varies depending on who wants to use it.  Quotes showing it vary from "You can't stop the signal, Mal" to "They can't..." and sometimes just "can't stop..." which happens to be the way the quote is reproduced at IMDB, as close to official as it gets.

We have a good example of this emerging related to the ATF's recent frame/receiver ruling, with story linked by Tom Knighton at Bearing Arms.  Tom links to a story on Vice which seems frustrated with the fact the laws didn't instantly shut down the ability of hobbyists to make their own guns. 

But barely a few weeks into the new regulatory regime, the firearms industry has already adapted and scored an early legal victory. And gun enthusiasts have created and released open-source blueprints for a simple plastic tool that offers a relatively quick, easy—and apparently legal—workaround for anyone who still wants to build an untraceable weapon.

Hmm.  A simple plastic tool that can serve as the drilling jig for an unfinished pistol.  Distributed open source, maybe for the 3D Printer fans.  Made to finish the "Mock Glocks" from Polymer 80.  Like this one at DefCad?   

A prototype two-sided jig.  As with everything you run into in the open source printer file market, there's always a chance it's not going to fit with the one you want to make, so look into it more. 

Almost from the start of reviewing the rules my gripe as been the law says "readily converted" but the way the ATF goes after companies, what they really mean is "convenient."  They went after Polymer 80 for selling a “Buy Build Shoot Kit” kit that could be assembled into a firearm with work and skill on the builder's part, declaring it to already be a gun.  Then they went further into the land of insanity saying Polymer 80 couldn't sell just the plastic frame and then sell you the other half of the kit later; you have to work harder than ordering two items from the same seller. 

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? 

Predictably, the suits against the ATF started immediately and some of them have had rulings already. 

The ATF’s new rule has also faced legal challenges. On Sept. 2, a federal judge gave an early victory to a company called Tactical Machining, which manufactures frames for AR-style rifles and says they could be forced out of business because of the changes. The lawsuit, VanDerStok v. Garland, claims the ATF did not follow the proper rulemaking process. While implementation has been allowed to proceed nationally, Tactical Machining won a ruling that says they are likely to eventually prevail and that a “weapon parts kit is not a firearm.”

Tactical Machining has been impacted by the new ruling, but is working as best they can.  They have a letter from the ATF that says as long as they don't sell the jig to complete the receiver alongside the uncompleted receiver, they can continue to sell them.  

A gun of any kind is not a concept, it's a solid, very palpable thing.  Saying the same collection of components purchases together is a gun but bought spread out in time or from different vendors flies in the face of that.  It's illogical and stinks of them saying, "this is the definition because we say so."  Thankfully at least some federal judges seem to have a bit more sense about this.  Maybe these laws are going to be trashed.  It will be a long process, but this is encouraging so far.

A completed P80 pistol with the 3D printed jig.  Photo by the creator of the jig, Mr. Snow. Makes.

I Underestimated Just How Stupid the BATF Can Be

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.

 

 

My Favorite Story in the Last Month

Long time readers will know I have special contempt for junk science.  Maybe even hatred.  I've written many pieces on it (quite possibly the first).  Consider that background when I say my favorite story in the last month is about junk science. 

A quiet little story that got very little coverage broke on Reason.com on March 31.  It was about just how junky the science of gun control is.  The title was, "Do Studies Show Gun Control Works? No." The subtitle is an even better gotcha: "Out of 27,900 research publications on gun laws, only 123 tested their effects rigorously."  

Only 123 out of 27,900 - 0.4% - applied proper statistical testing of their results?  Yup.  Only it's not even really that good.  

First, let me grab their quote describing the study.

There has been a massive research effort going back decades to determine whether gun control measures work. A 2020 analysis by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, parsed the results of 27,900 research publications on the effectiveness of gun control laws. From this vast body of work, the RAND authors found only 123 studies, or 0.4 percent, that tested the effects rigorously. Some of the other 27,777 studies may have been useful for non-empirical discussions, but many others were deeply flawed.

and then the conclusion about those 123 studies. 

We took a look at the significance of the 123 rigorous empirical studies and what they actually say about the efficacy of gun control laws. 

The answer: nothing. The 123 studies that met RAND's criteria may have been the best of the 27,900 that were analyzed, but they still had serious statistical defects, such as a lack of controls, too many parameters or hypotheses for the data, undisclosed data, erroneous data, misspecified models, and other problems. 

And these glaring methodological flaws are not specific to gun control research; they are typical of how the academic publishing industry responds to demands from political partisans for scientific evidence that does not exist.

Let me rephrase that a bit: out of 27,900 studies on gun control, not one study conclusively showed that gun control laws change anything for the better.  Oh, and by the way, the same is likely to be true for studies on climate change, dietary recommendations, Covid, or anything else with a pronounced political component. 

It's a worthwhile read, especially as the drumbeat of more gun control gets louder and louder.  Over and over, you'll hear the same arguments about how much the studies prove, when the deep and long review of their studies show none of them prove anything.  Plus, it includes a pretty good 16 minute video if you look at the Reason article and say TL:DR. 

The Only News I'm Seeing Out of SHOT Show

The only news I'm seeing out of this year's SHOT show that means much to me, is that Defense Distributed has updated their Ghost Gunner 3 in anticipation of ATF outlawing home made guns in the coming months.   The upgrade allows the GG3 to produce full lower receivers from aluminum bar stock that can be bought from any metal dealer, which they're calling Zero Percent Receivers and highlighting with this color web site tagged, "The age of zero has arrived."

The video on the right is a commercial visible here.

The Ghost Gunner concept, and GG3 is really the third version of this machine, is a small CNC milling machine that has been specifically designed to machine bigger and bigger portions of a firearm receiver.  In making a dedicated machine, their emphasis was to make the machine require as little machining experience from the operator as possible.  The user puts the piece that's going to be cut in the machine and backs off while the machine homes itself, finds its starting points and goes through the G-code step by step until a receiver is finished.  The current website says it will produce AR-15, AR-308, AR-9 and 45, an AR00 (a new one on me), Polymer80, and 1911 receivers.  It will also do engraving and other common jobs for light milling machines.  

Let me show you a graphic from their GG3 page and point out something. 

Showing a square bar of aluminum alloy and three more steps in the machining process down in the front, you'll note that none of those have the general shape of the finished receiver shown in the machine behind them and that you're familiar with.  While I haven't seen it talked about explicitly, my conclusion is the work envelope of the machine isn't big enough to cut all of the features on a piece as big as the AR lower in the machine.  Looking around the website, I see that they sell kits of parts to complete your receiver, including one that looks like this:

There are two parts there; the big one appears to be the "lower part of a lower receiver" after it has been made into two pieces so that it fits in the machine's work envelope.  The bottom of that piece, on the table top, is the bottom of what you're familiar with as the receiver.  To produce the receivers they can produce, they could either make the machine bigger and more expensive, or they could redesign the receiver so that it can be done in two pieces and assembled with hardware.  (The other, smaller part is the buffer tube mounting ring, which apparently screws onto the other half.)

There's nothing wrong with doing this.  It might all be in the direction of a good compromise, but the elephant in the room here is that this isn't like any other AR lower on the market.  That means that you won't be able to get parts from any other source for this receiver.  Hopefully, they'll have designed it so that standard drop-in triggers, bolt carrier groups, and all those others will work with this.

Defense Distributed, the company behind the Ghost Gunner machines and all of this is the company originally founded by Cody Wilson.  Cody is still associated with the company, and while I don't know what his official title is these days, he's clearly high on the food chain based on the interactions in this 15 minute video released to be in time with SHOT.  This whole jump into producing firearms from metal bar stock is based on the belief that the rule making proposals BATFE was pushing through last summer are about to become law and the whole personally made firearms support industry is going to collapse while everything is reclassified.  At the time, many joked if they outlaw 80% arms then there will be 75% receivers, and if that doesn't work there will be 70% receivers and so on.  I can see sales being effectively outlawed until parts are reconsidered.

Somewhere in there, it assumes there's some reasonableness in the agency, which isn't a safe bet.  After all, what the whole push seemed to be about was outlawing anything that's convenient.  If buying a Polymer80 "Buy Build Shoot kit" was a problem but buying the Polymer 80 body from one place and the Glock parts from somewhere else wasn't, they just wanted to make your life difficult.  Wilson is jumping over that hurdle by assuming there will be no such thing as completing an 80% lower again.  In which case, get a small milling machine and be prepared to make everything.  I'd like GG3 to be a bit bigger and more powerful, but there's that whole "picking a price point" argument that says the more expensive they are, the fewer people will get one.

ATF NPRM on Redefining Everything - Comments Close 19th

I'm falling down on the job in not reminding everyone who might want to comment on the ATF's Notice of Proposed Rule Making 2021-R05 that the deadline is August 19th - today for most of you who will read this on Thursday.  

This is the one that claims it's going to clarify the definitions of receivers, frames, and firearms, as well as the definitions used with incomplete guns finished at home; the so-called "80% guns."  That number is PFA and has nothing to do with the number of operations left to do as opposed to how many there are starting from chunks of metal.  

My emphasis from the start back in May has been on the Personally Made Firearms (PMFs) or 80% guns.  The introduction to the NPRM promises to clarify what "readily converted" means in their allowing these to be sold as long as they can't be "readily converted to fire a projectile."  

It clarifies nothing.  It simply provides us a matrix of things that go into determining what the word means but with no specific numbers for what constitutes “readily.”  They include a long footnote including different rulings from courts on guns that were "readily converted" that ranged from taking less than an hour for a person with no specialized knowledge up to "eight hours in a properly equipped machine shop."  I can agree that if someone who can barely handle a battery powered drill can do it in less than an hour, that's readily converted, but the other extreme is light years from "readily" to me.  

Exactly where the line should be between the number of minutes it takes Homer Simpson with a cordless drill and an eight hour day in a well-equipped machine shop is what they should be telling us, but they don't. 

The only legal case they mention that was not ruled as not readily converted was done by a Master gunsmith with $65,000 worth of tools.  I'm not sure what qualifies one as a Master, but does five years sound reasonable?  Full time (40 hour weeks) for a year is 2080 hours so round five years to 10,000 hours of experience, plus maybe another 2000 hours of training, and a commercial investment in tools.  I can agree that's not readily converted, but if the tools get cheaper, where's the line?  $50k?  $35k?  Again, they don't say.  

In last December's action against Polymer80 for selling a "Buy Build Shoot Kit," it seems that ATF used "convenient" as the working definition for "readily converted."  According to the Wall Street Journal:

The probe focuses on Polymer80’s “Buy Build Shoot Kit,” which includes the parts to build a “ghost” handgun. The kit, which Polymer80 sells online, meets the definition of a firearm, ATF investigators determined according to the warrant application. That means it would have to be stamped with a serial number and couldn’t be sold to consumers who haven’t first passed a background check.

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. 

The rest of the NPRM is just as bad.  The Gun Owners of America puts up a video arguing that a strict interpretation says that a plain old, stock, Glock 40 can be interpreted to contain 16 ATF regulated firearms.  That means that in the event you need to replace a part in any one of those subassemblies that you'll need to fill out a form 4473 and pay for a background check.  It sounds to me that means that if you need to replace a $1 part, you will be paying around 30 to perhaps $50 to get the part shipped to an FFL and your background check. 

Which, of course, is the point: to make gun buying and ownership so onerous that many people will just refuse to take part.  That's been the trend since at least the 1968 Gun Control Act, if not the 1934 NFA.

Commenting is easy.  Go to Regulations.gov and enter the NPRM number (NPRM 2021R-05) in the search bar at the top.  I think there were two items returned but one wasn't the actual NPRM.  Once you click on the NPRM, you get a form where you can either enter a comment or attach a document you've written already.  It's said that polite, original comments matter more than things that they've seen copied a hundred times, but that option is also available at a GOA Comment Site, too. 

Hey, it's Homer with a drill!  OK, he's working on a camera and not an AR Lower, but I worked my reference to him into the picture. 

Looking at BATFE's "Ghost Guns" Rules

Back on May 8th, when I posted about a rule drop from BATFE on the proposed rule changes, it seems that was an unofficial drop from them.  80% Lowers notified everyone by email yesterday that the NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) was just released yesterday, so I downloaded that one and compared it to what I have.  I didn't go page by page, but everything I've been looking at hasn't changed.  If you missed it, the NPRM can be found here.

I'm going to excerpt a small portion of the alleged purposes of the regulation and the section that I'm most concerned about, which is just what constitutes "readily converted," which they specifically say they want to clarify.  Excerpt from page 1 of 115.  

SUMMARY:
The Department of Justice (“Department”) proposes amending Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF”) regulations to provide new regulatory definitions of “firearm frame or receiver” and “frame or receiver” because the current regulations fail to capture the full meaning of those terms. The Department also proposes amending ATF’s definitions of “firearm” and “gunsmith” to clarify the meaning of those terms, and to provide definitions of terms such as “complete weapon,” “complete muffler or silencer device,” “privately made firearm,” and “readily” for purposes of clarity given advancements in firearms technology. Further, the Department proposes amendments to ATF’s regulations on marking and recordkeeping that are necessary to implement these new or amended definitions. [Bold added: SiG]

And here's where they clarify the meaning of “readily.”

Readily. A process that is fairly or reasonably efficient, quick, and easy, but not necessarily the most efficient, speedy, or easy process. Factors relevant in making this determination, with no single one controlling, include the following:
(a) Time, i.e., how long it takes to finish the process;
(b) Ease, i.e., how difficult it is to do so;
(c) Expertise, i.e., what knowledge and skills are required;
(d) Equipment, i.e., what tools are required;
(e) Availability, i.e., whether additional parts are required, and how easily they can be obtained;
(f) Expense, i.e., how much it costs;
(g) Scope, i.e., the extent to which the subject of the process must be changed to finish it; and
(h) Feasibility, i.e., whether the process would damage or destroy the subject of the process, or cause it to malfunction.

That isn't clarifying the definition, it's a list of factors they'll use to decide “readily” without giving any quantifiable definition of the word.  There is no guidance there whatsoever.  As always, their answer is "because we say it is."  Take listing (a) Time.  Is five minutes readily?  An hour?  A day?   There's a combination of time, ease, equipment and expertise that I can see as scales, such that the more of those the builder has the more readily the conversion can be completed.   

I suppose they don't want to give numbers for time because they're afraid if they say something specific people will simply avoid their limits.  Let's say the ATF defines that finishing a firearm in under eight hours of work is too little time, they see that as telling hobbyists to work slowly completing their firearm and if they were going to finish in six hours, people would know to slow down and take more time.    

There's a massive footnote spread between pages 36 and 37 that gives some hints at how various courts have interpreted “readily.”  These range from five minutes (pretty obvious) to “a two-hour restoration process using ordinary tools, including a stick weld, is within the ordinary meaning of 'readily restored'” (from the 9th Circus).  There's the famous ruling that a “machine gun that would take around an eight-hour working day in a properly equipped machine shop was readily restored to shoot” which sounds to me nothing like “readily restored.”  There's also the opposite “weapons could not be “readily restored to fire” when restoration required master gunsmith in a gun shop and $65,000 worth of equipment and tools.”

I think it's worth pointing out in any comments you make how insignificant this whole thing is.  They say (note that PMF means Privately Made Firearms, the proper term for what the zealot gun controllers call ghost guns):

In recent years, the number of PMFs recovered from crime scenes throughout the country has increased.¹⁷ From January 1, 2016, through December 31, 2020, there were approximately 23,906 suspected PMFs reported to ATF as having been recovered by law enforcement from potential crime scenes, including 325 homicides or attempted homicides, and that were attempted to be traced by ATF, broken down by year as follows: 

2016:  1,750
2017:  2,507
2018:  3,776
2019:  7,161
2020:  8,712

According to Gun Facts, in 2019 those 7,161 PMFs recovered turn out to be 1.3% of the guns used in crimes.  Perhaps 2% at most, if "outlier agencies" are included.  As always, those guns are most likely from gangs fighting each other. 

With a 115 page bill, it would take a team of experts to respond to every point.  Based on how popular my little series on my AR-15 from an 80% lower is, I thought some of you might find this worth reading. 

 

 

BATFE Does Friday Drop on Proposed “Ghost Gun” Rules

In keeping with the longstanding tradition of releasing heinous laws late on Friday, when the press has gone home (as if they'd report it anymore), the BATFE announced NPRM 2021R-05, called "Definition of a "Frame and Receiver" and Identification of Firearms."  Except the NSSF Ammoland News did report on the rule drop.  BATFE says the rules

• Provide new definitions of “firearm frame or receiver” and “frame or receiver”
• Amend the definition of:
  • “firearm” to clarify when a firearm parts kit is considered a “firearm,” and
  • “gunsmith” to clarify the meaning of that term and to explain that gunsmiths may be licensed solely to mark firearms for unlicensed persons.
• Provide definitions for:
  • “complete weapon,”
  • “complete muffler or silencer device,”
  • “privately made firearm (PMF),” and
  • “readily” for purposes of clarity given advancements in firearms technology.
• Provide a definition of “importer’s or manufacturer’s serial number”
• Provide a deadline for marking firearms manufactured.
• Clarify marking requirements for firearm mufflers and silencers.
• Amend the format for records of manufacture/acquisition and disposition by manufacturers and importers.
• Amend the time period records must be retained at the licensed premises.

I can give you the short answer to any bullet point that refers to definitions: it's whatever we say it is. 

More seriously, I think the rules are arbitrary and don't really define the things they claim to define.  They clarify nothing.  They're saying, more than ever, "whatever we say is a firearm is" and "whatever we say is readily converted is." 

“More than one externally visible part may house or hold a fire control component on a particular firearm, such as with a split or modular frame or receiver. Under these circumstances, ATF may determine whether a specific part or parts of the weapon is the frame or receiver, which may include an internal frame or chassis at least partially exposed to the exterior to allow identification.”

Got that? Any and all parts visible from the outside of the gun which may "house or hold" a fire control component is a gun.  ATF alone may determine whether any part or parts of the weapon may be frame or receiver, and the only thing they seem to say is not a frame or receiver is something only visible by disassembling the gun.  The direct reference to a "split or modular frame or receiver" is apparently trying to fix the problem that their definition of a receiver has been ruled by judges as not applying to an AR-15.  This opens the door to them declaring that AR upper receivers are guns and require a background check.  Which further opens the door to one upper and one lower being associated with each other and You Shall Not swap different uppers onto your lower receiver.  You must buy both. 

Note that in the webpage description on the ATF web page, there is no definition provided for the statement above: “readily” for purposes of clarity given advancements in firearms technology.  The previously discussed version of "readily" included eight hours work in a well-equipped machine shop, which is beyond absurd.  That means blocks of aluminum bar stock are readily converted guns.  I can't see how that could stand a challenge.  In searching the text of the regulations (pdf here), I see no definition of "readily be converted" or "readily be completed."  It's all just jargon that reduces to "when we say it is."  On page 108 of 115 there is a list of eight things that go into consideration of "readily" but offers no clues to what they consider readily or not readily.  

I understand that they want it to be loosely worded enough that they have the ultimate power of life or death over anyone who wants to make their own guns, but being that loose - just creating the term without defining it precisely - is just wrong.  This is the way it has always been, and their line about clarifying the term is bullshit.

The fine folks at 80% arms list this 0% AR-15 lower receiver - I'm guessing that's done as a joke.  That said, at $28.99 (today) they're cheaper than Online Metals, who sells to us low quantity buyers. 

ATF Proposed Rulemaking on 80% Firearms Leaked

The Federal Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, require agencies changing Federal laws to go through a process.  That process requires the agency present a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to anyone interested in the change, allowing 60-90 days for comments.  After some period of reviewing the comments and typically allowing some period for commenters to respond, the agency then announces the ruling and any changes made in a Report and Order.  In today's NSSF Ammoland News, they report on a leaked copy of the draft NPRM for the BATFE's rules for so-called Ghost Guns. The document is on Scribd, can be read from the article or downloaded.

The Ammoland article summarizes it this way:

According to the report, any random part that the user could “readily” convert into a firearm would be subject to ATF regulations. As in the past, the document doesn’t define what the term “readily convertible” means. This term could be that any block of metal could be “readily convertible” into a firearm. In fact, the document shows that the ATF used a court case where it took the user eight hours to covert a kit into a gun. The document does highlight the need for a complete machine shop, and qualified workers to complete a firearm would not fall under the proposed rules.

That last sentence leaves out home hobbyists with a reasonably good shop but with no "qualified workers" working for us, leaving us in limbo.  Many of us could make an AR-15 lower from a hunk of raw aluminum bar, but using metal that's already part way toward a finished receiver, like say, an 80% lower, next year's 50% lower, or a "0%" forging simply means our shops can generate fewer ounces of metal chips and finish faster.  

Inadvertently, the BATFE shows just how small this problem is. 

The document makes claims that in the past four years that so-called “ghost guns” have been used in 325 homicides. Their definition of homicide includes justified killings as in self-defense. It does not separate out murders from the total homicides. Even if all 325 homicides included in the report were murders, this number is incredibly small. There are approximately 17,000 murders per year in the United States and that averages out to 46 murders per day. The reported small number they are trying to tie to so-called “ghost guns” highlights that there is not a problem.

Note that they're claiming 325 homicides in four years.  Out of the 17,000 murders per year, they're worried about 41? 

A website new to me, called The Reload, offers an interesting take that Ammoland doesn't go near.

The document also proposes the creation of a definition for “privately made firearms,” which would apply to any gun without a serial number made by somebody who doesn’t have a federal gun-making license. Making guns at home for personal use with devices like 3D printers will not be affected by the definition. However, any privately made firearm sold to a licensed gun dealer would be required to be permanently marked with a serial number by the dealer before it could be sold.

When I made my AR-15 from an 80% lower, I added a serial number that meant essentially nothing; I just figured it was easier to engrave a number than to explain to a potential Officer Friendly in a traffic stop why my gun didn't have a serial number.

I've downloaded the draft NPRM.  It's likely to change before it's released, and it's 107 pages long so I haven't had the time to read the whole thing yet.  One thing I noticed in the few pages I've read is that they seem to be trying to address that nasty little problem they have that an AR-15 lower doesn't match the legal definition of a receiver they're working to, and has made the BATFE drop cases they've been involved in.  Back to The Reload:

The document also lays out plans to broaden and update the federal definition of firearms receiver to correct a problem with the ATF’s interpretation of the current definition. Courts have begun questioning the ATF’s long-running determination that an AR-15 lower is a receiver despite not including several of the parts required in the current definition. Prosecutors have been forced to drop cases involving the ATF’s determination in recent years.

The ATF admitted in the document that “neither the upper nor the lower portion of a split/multi-piece receiver firearm alone falls within the precise wording of the regulatory definition” but lashed out in the document at the “erroneous district court decisions” that employ a “narrow interpretation” of the definition.

I've got to admit that seeing ATF incensed at courts for reading definitions as they're written brings a little bit of schadenfreude here.

The first video I ever put up on YouTube, one pass around the fire control group pocket in my 80% lower, back in 2010.

The columns are saying that DOJ has until May 8 to publish the NPRM, and then the comment period starts.  It's hard to know just where this is going, but I think that at the very least that building a gun will be made harder.  What they seemed to object to in all their actions against Polymer80 is the convenience factor of the company selling the kit of parts to complete the gun alongside the 80% frame.  Fixtures that help you drill the holes for the trigger and safety, like the one in my video, might be made harder to come by because they add convenience. 

The 80% Gun Kits From A Different Angle

Of course the big story is the handful of executive actions that Dopey Gropey announced Wednesday.  As an aside Ammoland, the National Shooting Sports Federation newsletter pointed out that these are Executive Actions, not Executive Orders and like everywhere else lawyers run the world, words make a difference. 

In a 2018 article at ThoughtCo., writer Tom Murse noted, “(M)any critics [misunderstand] the definition of executive actions and the difference with legally binding executive orders.”

Executive orders, he explained, are “legally binding directives from the president to federal administrative agencies.”

Executive actions, ... carry none of the weight executive orders carry,” he wrote.

It should be remembered that none of the things Dopey talked about are executive orders.  They're the pResident telling the DOJ to do something.  I want to focus on the action related to "80% of a gun;"  Dopey McUnity wants the DOJ to sketch out a regulatory framework for requiring background checks on purchases of 80% frames, lowers and build kits (he wants them serialized).  Ignoring the obvious jokes and quips about just shifting to 79, 75 or 70% guns (80% is an arbitrary, made-up number) assume these actions to the DOJ become some sort of legally binding orders, in the next six months. 

As virtually everybody knows, 80% guns are a hobby of their own, a hobby that attracts people who like to play with tools, and like all sorts of other Do It Yourself (DIY) hobbies.  To me, though, it gets back to something I've been following with interest for quite some time, the right to repair your own equipment, as talked about in the iFixit manifesto. 

How does a move by a bunch of millennials to be able to fix smartphones or stick an off-the-shelf hard drive in their TiVo intersect with guns?   When you buy a gun, you have the right to repair and modify it.  There are millions of people who work on their own guns, replacing a spring, changing some piece of hardware or something.  Think your 10/22 could be a better competition rifle with a new barrel and trigger?  Go buy yourself the new parts and swap them out!  If you buy a 40 S&W pistol and decide you'd rather have 9 or 10mm, most of the time you can just buy a different barrel.  How many people have you come across who converted a rifle to a different caliber?  All of those are Right to Repair. 

My understanding of the origin of the "not quite a gun" regulations that give rise to the "Ghost Guns" is that it began with simply asking at what point does a gun become a gun.  They started from accepting that we have a right to repair our property and named just the one part that is the gun and can't be replaced without a background check.  It led to ideas like the receiver is always the gun, and you can replace the barrel or put in a new trigger, and every other part, but as long as it's the same receiver, it's the same gun.  Those of you familiar with the rulings on AR pistols know the oddity that a receiver that has never been a rifle can be used as an AR pistol, but if a rifle receiver is used, that makes the pistol a short-barreled rifle, an NFA item.  That's because the receiver is associated in some paper trail with being a rifle, and it will always be a rifle.  While you can repair things attached to that receiver, perhaps replace an 18" rifle barrel with a 20" barrel, you can't make a rifle a pistol. 

The thing the Biden rules are doing is attacking convenience.  They're concerned about it being too convenient to buy a plastic 80% pistol in one package and the parts to assemble it into a pistol at the same time.  Even worse, you can order or buy them at the same time and go home with everything you need to make that pistol.  It's like they'd prefer the 80% plastic gun and the rest of the parts be in different zip codes. 

How about if we give Dopey a kit and time how long it takes him to make a gun out of it?  How about we give everyone on his staff the same test?  If it takes them longer than it would take to buy a gun, they don't need to treat them as fully assembled guns.

In serializing the 80% plastic pistols, which are not guns, they're starting down the slippery slope to no right to repair, and every part in every gun needs to be serialized.   

Surprise Bill in Florida House; Second Amendment Preservation Act

I learned today that this week a new bill has been submitted to the Criminal Justice & Public Safety Subcommittee in the Florida House of Representatives.  HB1205 is a "2nd Amendment Preservation Act" much like the laws passed in other states.  The full text of the bill (pdf) is online.  The bill was introduced by Kaylee Tuck, a young representative from south central Florida; district 55 which covers parts of Okeechobee County just north of the Lake. 

I don't know what the chances are for bills this time in the session, but I'll go ahead and email everyone on the committee anyway asking they pass the bill and send it to the full House.  My representative isn't on this committee but he's a Rino and a shining example of the problem with Term Limits - people who have been in office get name recognition, so when they limit out of one office, they run for the one down the hall or on the other side of the capital and move over there.  Still a lifetime career politician just with varying titles.  

The forum where I found out about HB1205 had this video by a channel called Guns&Gadgets describing the bill and going through some of it page by page.  It's a 10 page bill; the first four are "Whereas" statements and the last five are the actual rules.  It seems like a good bill to me. 

It's Time for That Cliche' Again - Reasonable Gun Laws

Here we are two months into the administration of Jo and the Ho and - whaddya know? - they suddenly have justifications for those gun control moves they talked about for the entire year of the Evil Party primaries.  It's a miracle of miracles!  Suddenly, after many quiet months, we have a group murder of "sex workers" at a "massage parlor" and a group murder in a food store by either a sufferer of Sudden Jihad Syndrome or simply the common Muslim hatred of Jews.  

Since no one on the left seems to be capable of an original thought, it's time for them to trot out the old trope of "reasonable gun laws."  And since I've written about that term and my views of it at least a dozen times, I'll take my privilege of having the pilot's seat and reprint some of the things I've written since 2010. 

Are you as sick as I am of hearing the phrase "reasonable gun laws?"  It's not just in the last few days, it's always there to some degree.  I'm sick of explaining there is no such thing as a gun show loophole; there are no laws that don't apply at gun shows or to internet sales.  I'm tired of explaining that we already have background checks on all new guns, we don't do them on private sales because it's an individual selling their own property and the Federal Government doesn't seem to get involved in private sales of private property.  States do; if I sell a car, boat or whatever, I have to do a bill of sales and the buyer pays sales tax.  I know of no place where the Fed.gov does that.  I'm really sick of the "why does anyone need (fill in the blank)??" nonsense that we hear from an alarming number of people who are nominally on our side.  The ones called Fudds.  Why does anyone need 42 guns?  Why does anyone need 30 round magazines?  I want to ask why does anyone need 42 books? That's also a constitutionally protected right.  Why does anyone need a TV in every room, or a muscle car or you name it.  BFYTW!  It's None of Your F**king Business.

What would constitute real "reasonable gun laws?"  Let's start here: any adult with normal rights can walk into a sporting goods store in most places and walk out with a shotgun or a rifle with no waiting period.  But if they wanted to buy an AR-15 or a Mossberg 500 from the factory or from a store in another city, (like I've done) why does it have to go through a local FFL's hands?  Why can't anyone order a rifle or shotgun from a gun store in another city, their favorite Big Outdoor Store, or even an Amazon.com kind of "online superstore", and have the gun shipped to their house?  It was sold by an FFL that can do the NICS check, so why does another FFL have to get involved?  It used to be that way, until the Gun Control Act of '68.  What advantage is there to society from shipping it to an FFL?  It's not like the second FFL prevents someone from stealing it in transit - that's on the shipping company.  It does nothing but give money to local FFL holders. All they can do is look at the buyer's ID - which can be done digitally with encryption when the purchase is made. 

We all know there's no such thing as a "gun show" loophole, and that you can't just order something online from a gun store. I say, "why the hell not?"  It's the freaking 21st Century, for God's sake.  We have the technology.

In consumer goods, your local camera shop, say, really does have to compete with the big guys in New York. Gun shops don't have that. I can see how local gun shops might really like these laws. They get an easy 35 bucks (or whatever) for filling out the forms and "receiving" the shipment, but I don't see any value added to us or society.  There was certainly no value added to me.

If there's a mandatory 3 or 5 day waiting period for a handgun where you live (Florida waives that for Concealed Carry licensees), why can't you order handguns online?  What's the difference between waiting 3 or 5 days for UPS to deliver it and waiting 3 or 5 days to pick it up at your gun store?  Again, with today's computer security, you could verify age, do a NICS check - anything the local shop can do - online.  I think the waiting periods are all bullsh*t anyway, just another way for government to yank our chains and make it harder than it ought to be.  I've never seen any data that waiting periods have ever done anything except inconvenience legal purchasers.  But, fine, we'll play your infantile waiting game. 

The whole idea of a wait was a "cooling off" period, so that a hothead doesn't go buy a gun in a moment of anger and then go kill someone, but I personally have never seen data that those waiting periods do anything.  I know they started with the GCA of '68 ban on Saturday Night Specials, which (as far as I can tell) only had the effect of removing cheap, reasonably functional guns from people who couldn't afford better ones, and caused some smaller arms companies to either fold or change their product line.  Another government penalty on the poor.

What possible arguments are there against this?  That we can't guarantee security, we can't guarantee that criminals won't order guns online?  Nobody can guarantee security.  Criminals don't have any problems getting guns now while staying out of the system entirely.  If we use strong security, it's as good as what we have.  One time I posted something like this and a commenter said,  "what if your kids used your ID?"  I wouldn't want my kids buying anything under my ID on my computer.  If you can't control your own kids in your own house, I think that's a bigger problem than just what they're buying.  Maybe you should be making sure they don't know the combination to your safe and don't know where to find matches. 

Why are silencers - glorified mufflers - regulated as if they were machine guns?  Why are we required to have a muffler on a car, motorcycle or lawn mower, but we're required to not have one on a gun?  This was originally to keep people from shooting the King's deer (poaching game), but I think the problem today is Hollywood.  They created this illusion that a silencer reduces the 155 to 160 dB of a gun shot down to a barely audible, and it just isn't so.  Silencers should be completely deregulated - not even the $5 "any other weapon" class - just over the counter at your local store.  Did you know that there's nothing like an 80% lower in the construction of a silencer; no stage that's legal?  If I have a lathe (like I do) and they find pieces that someone thinks could someday become a silencer, I've broken the law.  The ban is total. 

This one actually is for the children.  And for anyone who moves next door to gun ranges or clubs and gets disturbed by the sounds.

Get rid of the stupid “sporting purpose” tests for firearms. The Heller decision makes it very clear that the Second Amendment isn’t about duck hunting. This particularly affects imports. No restrictions. Get rid of the stupid laws on short barreled rifles and shotguns. The idea that a shotgun barrel 18.05" long is fine, but one that's 17.95" is some sort of killer monster weapon is just silly. It's there simply to create law violators. It's also one of their most enforced laws - probably because it's really easy to measure barrel length.

The last time I did some looking at John Lott's data, his studies had been peer reviewed 30 times and never refuted.  There was one author who said Lott couldn't prove "More Guns Equals Less Crime"; but neither could he (the reviewer) disprove it.  Lump this one under the rule for reading medical studies: correlation does not equal causation.  However, and this is important, there can't be causation without correlation.  When you look at global rates of gun ownership vs homicides, there's almost a perfect lack of correlation, almost perfect inverse relationship between the number of guns in private hands and murder rate, across the globe.  More guns can NOT equal more murders. 

This is fairly old - the closest I can tell is that it dates from early 2013. 

A Little More on the BATFE Attack on Polymer80

Hey, at least no kittens were stomped to death.  That's an improvement for the BATFE.

I regularly listen to Michael Bane's weekly podcast (currently Michael Bane TV on the Radio) and this week's final podcast of 2020, episode 50, found Michael going into the topic of the ATF going after gun parts.  He has been on this bandwagon for months and has a few "I told ya so" lines in there but it's worth it.  He also covers it in his blog and uses legal input I was unfamiliar with. 

I’m thinking that the thugs at ATF are going to hang their hats on the concept of “constructive possession.” Read NFA lawyer Joshua Price’s (who I turn to for legal information on NFA issues) piece on the issue here: https://blog.princelaw.com/…/florida-man-arrested-for…/

“As I stated before, one must be very careful when entering into the NFA realm, even where an individual does not assemble the firearm into a NFA configuration because of the legal implications under the doctrine of constructive possession. Constructive Possession exists when a person knowingly has the power and intention at a given time to exercise dominion and control over an object, either directly or through others. US v. Turnbough, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 11886, *6. The government may establish constructive possession by demonstrating that the defendant exercised ownership, dominion or control over the premises in which the contraband is concealed.”

This would represent a huge expansion of how constructive possession has been construed. It was, I believe, originally aimed at drugs (natch) and illegal weapons possession in the sense that a forbidden person was in the presence of a firearm. ATF expanded that to include possession of the parts to complete an NFA weapon.

This goes a long way toward explaining the next phase of the war on guns.  Don't get hung up on the reference to the NFA; it's bigger than that.  The reference to the NFA is more applicable to the pistol brace front in the battles that are starting.  The reference is a court case in which ATF argued that if someone had all of the parts to make an NFA item, the only reason they had those parts was to make it.  That view was rejected in a 1992 case against Thompson/Center Arms in which the court ruled that the “rule of lenity” applied (i.e., any ambiguities in criminal statutes should be resolved in favor of the defendant).

A way of thinking about that NFA reference might be helpful.  Imagine you have no AR platform guns except a single carbine you've bought.  You decide you would really like to build an AR pistol and you buy a nice 8 inch barrel as the first part.  Totally innocent, right?  The BATFE could argue that since you have only one lower receiver, which is a rifle, the only thing you could want to do with that barrel is build the NFA short barreled rifle (SBR).  A better approach would be to get the lower receiver first.  It doesn't have to be a receiver for a pistol, as long as it isn't paired as a rifle.  (There's that odd old rule that if a receiver is considered for a rifle, you can't make it a pistol and vice versa)  Constructive possession says that if you have the 8" barrel in a storage place you rent and the carbine in a safe in your home, they're still yours so your intent is to make the NFA firearm.

Where this gets odious is the anti-gun side absolutely hates the idea of being able to put together a gun from parts.  Being able to build you own gun has been US law (and custom) for as long as the country has existed.  In the early days of gun control, more people thought buying parts to repair, or build their guns was a normal thing, and the ATF took a relatively light touch.  They defined a particular part of the gun to be the gun.  In more restrictive countries, there's no such thing as buying a part from a place like Midway or Brownells to improve your gun.  Every single part is regulated and gets the buyer the equivalent of the rectal exam they'd get for a complete gun.  The anti-gun left wants that for the US.  No 80% receivers and certainly no kits of parts to complete one prepackaged with an 80% receiver. 

John Richardson over at No Lawyers - Only Guns and Money put up a leaked version of the BATFE's "Guidance on Pistol Braces" today.   It's 16 pages of legalese and John includes a summary from the Firearms Policy Coalition.  The key finding I see, because it's the kind of thing that "triggers" me is:

2) The draft document instead purports to be intended to inform the public on how brace-equipped firearms will be examined in the future. Based on the criteria set forth in the draft document, it appears that the ATF would take something of a ‘totality of the circumstances’ approach in determining whether a specific brace-equipped pistol is a ‘short-barreled’ firearm regulated under the NFA. These criteria include: the firearm’s type, caliber, weight, and length, the design of the brace itself, whether the firearm can be properly aimed when using the attachment as a brace, and whether an optic that cannot properly be used one-handed is present (i.e., something that suggests intent). The agency also indicates that it will observe the marketing of firearms and accessories, as well as other more subjective factors.

“Totality of the circumstances” reminds me of the old, “I can’t define pornography but I’ll know it when I see it” definition.  There's nothing specific, so people can never know how they will be viewed.  That allows the agency to make arbitrary rules, and sets up judges to always have the last word.  The rulemakers make it impossible for individuals to decipher what's acceptable and what isn't.  More importantly, there doesn't have to be the slightest bit of consistency in their rulings.  This is why every company that wants to market an 80% receiver has to submit them to the BATFE to get approval to sell them.  There are no objective standards.  Tyrants and other control freaks want it that way.  

The "Totality of Circumstances" approach combined with constructive possession is how they can rule that a Polymer80 plastic “Mock Glock” can’t fire and isn’t a firearm, but their Buy Build Fire kit which puts the parts needed to make it work in the same box with that plastic chunk makes it a firearm. It still can't fire anything because nobody has done the machine work to transform the chunk of plastic into something those parts can be put into.  Someone less determined to stop people from working on guns could look at the same circumstances and reach the opposite conclusion. 

If anything constructive possession means that if you don't buy the kit with the parts to complete it in one purchase, but buy them separately from another seller, they can still argue that there's nothing else you would do with that other than build a gun.  One step closer to getting rid of gun part sales completely.  Which would make working on your own guns a federal crime.

If anything, Michael Bane thinks it's part of a big picture attack by the big names in the anti-gun world.

One of the Left’s key goals has been not just the passage of antigun laws, but the elimination of the Gun Culture. As we have discussed at great length here and on the podcast, the “Bloomberg Model” laws adopted by so many states, including Colorado, were primarily focused on making illegal common practices within the culture, such as loaning a firearm to a friend for a hunting trip or competition, or passing guns down to children and other relatives. The laws themselves were far less consequential than their intent…making minor interactions between firearms owners harder and harder, thus weakening the bonds that weaves together what we call the Gun Culture.

Completed Polymer80 guns; photo from Michael Bane.

BATFE Going After 80% Receivers Again - Revised

The BATFE has apparently decided to start going into regulatory expansionism again, with a perceived change in administration coming to someone who's more likely to grow the Bureau's budgets again.  Back in October they started going after pistol braces in an apparent attempt to outlaw AR pistols - or start down that road.  According to TTAG (The Truth About Guns), on Thursday the 10th the BATFE raided Polymer80, one of the largest makers of 80% lowers and pistol frames.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

The raid target, Nevada-based Polymer80, is suspected of illegally manufacturing and distributing firearms, failing to pay taxes, shipping guns across state lines and failing to conduct background investigations, according to an application for a search warrant unsealed Thursday after the raid took place.

The probe focuses on Polymer80’s “Buy Build Shoot Kit,” which includes the parts to build a “ghost” handgun. The kit, which Polymer80 sells online, meets the definition of a firearm, ATF investigators determined according to the warrant application. That means it would have to be stamped with a serial number and couldn’t be sold to consumers who haven’t first passed a background check.

TTAG supplied this product photo of a “Buy Build Shoot Kit.” From what I know there isn't one gun in this photograph.  Nothing that requires a serial number or a background check.  It's no different than if you bought a bar of metal and some hunks of plastic.

Like everyone who sells these so-called 80% receivers (the percentage, though widely used, has no correspondence to reality), Polymer80 submitted their designs and products to the BATFE for a ruling on whether they met the criteria for not being a gun.  The Feds ruled that they're not guns, yet somehow the BATFE is saying when they sell a hunk of plastic that's not a gun with handful of small parts that aren't a gun in a common package, it becomes a gun.  Non-gun + non-gun = gun  

But the Buy Build Shoot Kits, which are advertised as having “all the necessary components to build a complete…pistol” weren’t submitted to the agency for approval, according to the application for the search warrant. These kits can be “assembled into fully functional firearms in a matter of minutes,” the warrant application says.

There was no reason to submit it to the agency for approval.  Nothing was a gun and nothing about what they were selling was new except being in one package.  Convenience makes it a gun?  This reminds me of the BATFE vs. Ares Armor case in 2014 in which the BATFE argued Ares Armor was illegally manufacturing guns.  What they were doing was making a plastic lower with a different color plastic in the fire control pocket, which would be removed when making it into a gun.  BATFE said the second plastic had to be added to a complete receiver which was turning a gun into "not a gun" and during the brief existence of the gun, it needed to be serialized and treated as a gun thereafter.  Ares Armor said their process documents proved that it was made all at once and a finished receiver was never present. 

As an aside, the absolute coolest trick in the world, and I've never heard anyone else ever talk about doing it, would be to mold this out of two grades of plastic. Wouldn't it just be the coolest thing you've ever seen if the body of the lower melted at say, 400 degrees, and the part that needed to be removed melted at 200? So that all you'd have to do to turn this 80% lower into a finished one would be to soak it in boiling water? I wonder if that could be done.

Of course, the BATFE is not a group to be all sophisticated about "dat legal shit."  They're much more interested in the "control" part of gun control.  I'm just surprised that they seem more than happy to open a can of worms that just a year ago they didn't want to get near.  Last October, the BATFE dropped charges of manufacturing guns against a guy who had set up a gun club so that any member could pay their $25 dues to join, put their lower receiver in a fixture he had designed, press "GO" on the CNC controller and let it turn an aluminum lower into a gun for them.  Considering that the BATFE had previously said if someone so much as marked where to drill a hole on an 80% lower that they had manufactured a gun, that seems like a pretty open and shut legal case, so why did they drop the case and let the guy go?

The judge in the case had given an opinion that completing a lower receiver still didn't turn it into a gun!  BATFE's laws don't do what they're intended to do, and if BATFE lost the case firearms law would collapse into a black hole of nothingness.  BATFE is terrified that they created a situation where there is no definition for which part of the AR-15 is the gun.  Their definition of a receiver is spread across both the upper and lower receiver in an AR-15. 

As I like to say, "don't worry; it's not that bad. It's worse." That ruling last October isn't the first. There was another case in 2016 in which BATFE dropped the case because the Judge read the law and said the guy wasn't manufacturing guns because a completed lower isn't a gun. To borrow a quote, BATFE is muy FUBAR.

As I said in my conclusion last October:

What the rulings seem to be saying is that the AR platform with its regulated lower and unregulated upper is inconsistent with Federal law. Since it's impossible to redesign the platform with millions of them already in peoples' hands, the solution is for congress to come up with a definition for the lower receiver that's workable. That's going to be a giant ball of fail; congress never writes laws that require technical details because none of them are qualified. On the other hand, if someone was to do things that the BATFE frowned on with some lower receivers, we have two cases that say they're going to quit before they get ruled against for all the marbles. In the words of Dirty Harry, "do you feel lucky?"

In this case, the polymer pistol isn't an AR, so I wonder if Polymer80 can argue the precedent set in 2016 and 2019, that nothing they're selling meets the federal legal definition of a gun? 

EDITED 12/12 1200 EST to add:

Today's Ammoland Shooting Sports News adds some context to this story.  This is wider than just a raid on Polymer80. 

This week ATF has shown up at multiple shooting-sports-related companies and retailer's door to demanded customer information about those American citizens who legally purchased 80% pistol frames.

They make the point that BATFE has demanded that Polymer80 turn over lists of buyers of the BATFE's targeted Buy Build Shoot kits, to do background checks on buyers to find prohibited persons.  Again, the problem with the kits appears to be convenience, and BATFE is essentially saying that anything a company sells that is based on the incomplete receiver concept needs to be submitted for their review.  Just as anything using the pistol brace concept needs to be submitted for their review. 

Rob Pincus of the Personal Defense Network has a worthwhile video here - there are two, the top one is nearly six minutes long, but worth the time.

Ammoland also points out that the BATE also "paid a visit" to Brownells to ensure they were not selling the convenient Buy Build Shoot kits, and found they were not (which they could have determined by visiting their online store and searching for them). 

“The ATF did visit our facility on Thursday, December 10, 2020,” said Ryan Repp, Brownells VP of Marketing. “It’s my understanding they inquired about our sales of the Polymer 80 ‘Buy, Build, Shoot’ kit. Brownells has not and does not sell that kit. Polymer 80 continues to be a great partner for Brownells. We proudly sell their 80% products and other parts.”

The ATF did raid or show up at other companies that sell other kits that include 80% part kits, barrels, and slides that are not Polymer80. AmmoLand News sources inside the ATF say that the agency is now considering 80% kits with all the parts needed to finish a pistol as a firearm. None of the companies had any warning on the change to ATF’s regulations before actual agents showed up making attempts to retrieve customer information.

The ATF is interested in the customer records, and this seems to be a nationwide crackdown. The agency’s intent on acquiring customer's personal records and run criminal background against the list to see if any felons have purchased the 80% frame. The ATF is making a de facto 80% gun registration. [I would add bold for emphasis, but it would take up the entire second two paragraphs: SiG]

This is a fast-developing situation.  I'll try to keep updates coming as I read about them.