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It can also be argued that the AR15 lower receiver "provides housing for" the 'bolt carrier group' (or "bolt or breechblock") when the BCG is at full recoil, extending through the threaded ring at the rear of the lower receiver, and into the receiver extension ('buffer tube').

But, WIJohn Galt, when the gun is in full recoil, it is not then in a fireable condition, and is arguably not then a firearm. It’s only “housed” there when the magazine is empty, a temporary situation.

I could make the same argument about housing the “bolt or breechblock” being housed when it is sitting in a box on the workbench, completely removed from the firearm, along with the rest of the lower receiver. That does not make that box a receiver.

A firearm is a device being in a capable of firing condition not with the bolt locked away, essentially removed from that firing condition, requiring action from the user to be put back into operation, whether it is reassembly or loading and unlocking.

My point in the post above was that the registerable portion of the device was that minimum which can lock a projectile in the chamber and fire that projectile down range. That would be the bolt, bolt locking mechanism, chamber and barrel, and whatever ignition system the gun uses to ignite the propellant of the projectile. Trigger, magazine, supports, etc., are superfluous to those basic minimums. And it’s even possible to reduce those with some systems of moving a projectile at speed down range. Consider if you will the Gyro Jet system of the early 1970s. No block, no locking system, just a projectile, a barrel, and an ignition system.

At my gun shop, many years ago, we successfully fired a Gyro Jet projectile in a two-foot piece of aluminum conduit using a nail in a dowel bopped with a plastic mallet to pierce the back of the rocket. Hit the target too. I won’t say how accurately we hit. . . But it hit it. Psssst, don’t tell anyone but that piece of aluminum conduit didn’t have a serial number on it and we didn’t register it. I guess you could call it a Gyro Jet Zip Gun. . .

I have other problems with the legal definition as it listed in the law. . . For example is states “(including starter pistols) that may be easily converted to fire . . .” They still register starter pistols despite the fact that no currently manufactured starter pistols that fire .22 blanks are by any stretch of the imagination “easily converted” to fire regular ammunition. There is no way they can be modified to be fitted with a regular barrel or even a normal cylinder, yet they still register them. Again, overreaching on ATF’s part. Starter pistols are even less a firearm than an 80% lower. Even back in the 1960s, they were basically a revolver with a bored cylinder, a trigger mechanism, and an unbored barrel with no threads, pinned and welded into the frame, if they had one at all. They did not even have a bore. They are a noise maker that bore only a passing resemblance to a firearm. ONce more the Regulators and lawmakers demonstrated their total ignorance of firearms.

Actually, the bolt carrier group does not occupy "a box on the workbench" during the normal operation of an AR15. However, the BCG does occupy a portion of the lower receiver/receiver extension every time you fire an AR15, if it is functioning properly.

Really?? Perhaps you should tell that to the ATF, the next time you want to ship, or transfer ownership of, a stripped receiver. As a reminder, I think we are discussing a court case, and legal (rather than practical) definitions...