I still see frames for sale through the internet. I'd only buy one now-a-days with cash, in-person.
I guess this is because the founders did not define “shall not be infringed” in the Constitution........./s
It’s buy a gun week in America. Buy American made products. American made guns and ammo.
The infringing won’t end until it’s forced to end.
I wonder if this will be retroactive?
Asking for a friend.
The funny thing is they sent the letters to FFLs inquiring about unfinished frames. But since they are not firearms, they can be sold by anyone so their can be hundreds of thousands floating around elsewhere.
—added “banglist” as keyword—
If they’re going to regulate X (intent: into oblivion), they must precisely articulate what constitutes an X. There will always be someone to build and sell something that is almost, but not quite, X.
Pushing the regulations to the edge of raw materials pushes the technology to other solutions. CNC and 3D Printing machines are widely available: insert raw material, load program (protected as free speech), press Go, get prohibited product.
ATF need realize this does not end well for them.
Many if not most gunsmiths (all of the ones I know) are reluctant to touch a botched 80% build because by the time it's botched it's more than 80% complete, hence legally requires a serial number and a 4473 transfer to return to the customer, not to mention that it's very likely to cost more to fix an off-center hole, for example, than it is to purchase an entire new receiver. The ATF is barking up the wrong tree here and probably knows it.
I wonder why you couldn’t just engrave any ol’ number in there?
ditto.
It has been known for decades that guns are easy to make at home. The hard part is getting the tools and jigs and set up. Anyone remember the FIREPOWER MAGAZINE from the 1980s?
The Polish Underground in WW II used homemade sub machine guns against the Germans.
Same in SE Asia in the 1960s.
https://homemadeguns.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/homemade-semi-auto-pistols-part-1-vietnamese-copies/
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/viet-cong-handmade-luger-lookalike/
I remember an article in GUNS AND AMMO magazine back in 1970 talking about the problems of semi-auto guns, and ammo, being made, by prisoners, behind California Prison walls.
I would wager that there are lots and lots of frames and receivers as well as kits owned by people but not yet assembled.
One of my fears from reading the article, is that the ATF might want to return to the good old days of firearm manufacturing. What I mean by that is that it use to be that many rifle parts or pistol parts would have serial numbers or at least the last 4 or 5 digits on several parts to show that the firearm had been properly hand fitted.
If in say an AR, one needed to have a matching set of serial numbers on the lower, on the bolt carrier group, on the upper, the barrel and maybe the buffer tube, then that would be time consuming and costly. To say nothing of creating a nightmare when changing parts out.
P.S. The government, under the Bill of Rights is suppose to pay for the taking of private goods. If implemented, the ATF could be on the hook for a lot of products they effectively took by making illegal. Of course the Supreme Court could be stacked so that the Bill of Rights is meaningless.