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BATFE Drops 80% Receiver Case in California; Fears Precedent
Ammoland ^ | 13 October, 2019 | Dean Weingarten

Posted on 10/15/2019 4:49:50 AM PDT by marktwain

BATFE Drops 80% Receiver Case in California; Fears Precedent

BATFE Drops 80% Receiver Case in California; Fears Precedent

 

Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- In 2014, Joseph Roh had a business that dealt in firearms parts. As part of the business, he facilitated the production of lower receivers for AR-15 type firearms, from 80% receivers, in California. In the business, he or his employees would set up the 80% receiver in a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling machine. Then, they required the customer to “push the green button”. BATFE believed this made the business one that was manufacturing firearms without a license. Roh was arrested in 2014. From fbi.gov:

Through his business, ROHG Industries in La Habra, Roh allegedly started with unfinished lower receivers for AR-15-style firearms. A lower receiver is the frame of a completed firearm that holds the trigger and hammer. An unfinished lower receiver, when machined further, constitutes a firearm. Roh and his employees would finish the lower receivers by machining the devices with a computer-numerically-controlled—or CNC—machine and drill presses that Roh maintained at the La Habra warehouse.

Roh attempted to avoid the licensing requirement by requiring that each customer play a token role in the manufacturing process, which often meant merely pushing a button on a CNC machine, while company employees did the vast majority of the work.

While the sale of unfinished lower receivers is not regulated, the manufacture and sale of completed lower receivers—which are considered firearms under federal law—requires a proper license.

Additionally, Roh would, if the customer wanted, assemble the


(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 80receiver; ar15; banglist; batfe
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This case leaves the definition of a firearm in doubt.
1 posted on 10/15/2019 4:49:50 AM PDT by marktwain
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To: marktwain

We’ve had a couple of threads on this topic in the last several days.
This was the most recent, I think:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3786135/posts


2 posted on 10/15/2019 4:53:56 AM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplaphobe bigot!)
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To: marktwain

Here was the other FR thread on this topic. . .

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3785660/posts


3 posted on 10/15/2019 4:56:15 AM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplaphobe bigot!)
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To: marktwain

Seems there should be a way to force the issue. And how does Roh recover legal costs, lost business, etc.?


4 posted on 10/15/2019 5:01:08 AM PDT by Reno89519 (No Amnesty! No Catch-and-Release! Just Say No to All Illegal Aliens! Arrest & Deport!)
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To: Reno89519

He settled.

It was a good deal. There were other issues.

One year, non-supervised probation, no record...


5 posted on 10/15/2019 5:07:10 AM PDT by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: Reno89519
And how does Roh recover legal costs, lost business, etc.?

I don't think he does, since he took a deal.

He's walking free, and probably glad of it.

Fearing the ruling would create such a precedent and draw publicity, the government struck a deal with Roh. He would have to plead guilty to the charges against him, but he would be allowed to withdraw his plea and have the charges dropped after staying out of trouble for one year.He accepted the deal to avoid permanent conviction and prison time.The ATF got their wish of avoiding that agency-breaking precedent.

6 posted on 10/15/2019 5:07:24 AM PDT by grobdriver (BUILD KATE'S WALL!)
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To: marktwain

This should be (but won’t) a clear message and warning to the entire 2020 Democrats & their ‘Gang of 4+’. People, when made subject to arbitrary but cloudy laws, will become VERY ingenious in circumventing the same!

Then, when the natural authoritarian reaction is to jack up the penalties, the law of consequences will come into play. The old Chinese parable about the penalty for being late to report to the army being the same as for revolting, ie. death, guess which looks better?

Query: who will be better armed?


7 posted on 10/15/2019 5:21:17 AM PDT by SES1066 (Happiness is a depressed Washington, DC housing market!)
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To: marktwain

I’ve been searching the United States code and cannot find the language that defines a “frame or receiver” that this judge found unconstitutionally vague.

I also wonder if the ATF failed to follow the rulemaking procedures in defining a firearm frame or receiver, did they also fail to follow procedure when defining what constitutes 80% complete?


8 posted on 10/15/2019 5:24:30 AM PDT by Yo-Yo ( is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: marktwain
This case leaves the definition of a firearm in doubt.

If the definition of a firearm is in doubt.... and if the Shockwave is not a shotgun, but a firearm.... does this case jeopardize the legality of Shockwaves?

9 posted on 10/15/2019 5:27:09 AM PDT by Lazamataz (We can be called a racist and we'll just smile. Because we don't care.)
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To: Yo-Yo

If we win back the House, I hope they decide to wipe 90% of the gun laws off the books. They are all unconstitutional on their face.


10 posted on 10/15/2019 5:27:18 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (If White Privilege is real, why did Elizabeth Warren lie about being an Indian?)
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To: SES1066

I believe that’s called “The Law of Unintended Consequences.”


11 posted on 10/15/2019 5:37:18 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (The media is after us. Trump's just in the way.)
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To: Alas Babylon!
I believe that’s called “The Law of Unintended Consequences.”

Which is also a good book by John Ross. Read the chapter "War" for a rush and some good ideas.

12 posted on 10/15/2019 5:47:00 AM PDT by DCBryan1 (Quit calling them liberals, progs, socialists, or democrats. Call them what they are: COMMUNISTS!!!!)
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To: marktwain
Guess they (F Troop) would consider these 0% complete lower receivers "firearms" if they could get away with it:


13 posted on 10/15/2019 5:48:23 AM PDT by DCBryan1 (Quit calling them liberals, progs, socialists, or democrats. Call them what they are: COMMUNISTS!!!!)
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To: marktwain

I’ll tell you what a firearm is to a Democratic crook, anything in a conservatives hand they can demonize you with. Plenty of D-voters own what we consider firearms but the D crooks at this point don’t care about it.


14 posted on 10/15/2019 5:52:57 AM PDT by junta ("Peace is a racket", testimony from crime boss Barrack Hussein Obama.)
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To: marktwain

Given the tendency if Murphy’s Law to intervene in legal situations, I suspect the outcome will not be beneficial to freedom-loving Americans. Based on the existing definition of a receiver (“That part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel”, posted elsewhere), we could well end up with a determination that an AR15 “receiver” is an assembly composed of the upper & lower receiver ‘halves’, and a legal requirement that both have matching serial numbers. New gun laws and regulations have not very often been less burdensome on gun owners...


15 posted on 10/15/2019 6:28:47 AM PDT by Who is John Galt? ("He therefore who may resist, must be allowed to strike.")
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To: marktwain

The very fact that in the Year of our Lord, 2019, subjects such as this are even up for debate demonstrate that we are no longer the land of the free. We are the land of the regulated.


16 posted on 10/15/2019 6:41:02 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: ClearCase_guy
If we win back the House, I hope they decide to wipe 90% of the gun laws off the books. They are all unconstitutional on their face.

I wouldn't get my hopes up too high. We had majorities in both houses from January 2017 to Janurary 2019, and did nothing to advance Reciprocity, enacting the Hearing Protection Act, or any other meaningful firearms legislation.

17 posted on 10/15/2019 6:44:39 AM PDT by Yo-Yo ( is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: Yo-Yo
Look for the definition of firearm.

It would be in BATFE regulations.

18 posted on 10/15/2019 6:51:37 AM PDT by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

“If we win back the House, I hope they decide to wipe 90% of the gun laws off the books.”

One can always hope. As far as GOP led Houses are concerned, I have yet to see anything but a bunch of thumb sitting by the elected leaders of a GOP held House. Never any reversal of the progressives evils.


19 posted on 10/15/2019 7:23:57 AM PDT by Blue Collar Christian (I'm a nationalist.I'm white.Does that mean I'm racist?)
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To: marktwain
Look for the definition of firearm.

It would be in BATFE regulations.

Thanks, I knew it was in 27CFR §479.11, but the way the articles were worded I thought the definition was also in statute somewhere.

20 posted on 10/15/2019 7:31:48 AM PDT by Yo-Yo ( is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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