Posted on 10/14/2019 1:04:19 PM PDT by Black_Rifle_Gunsmith
According to the judge's ruling, a firearm frame needs to contain the hammer, the bolt or breechblock, and the firing mechanism in order to meet the letter of the law. An AR-15 lower only contains two of those three items, so according to the judge, cannot be a firearm as defined in the law.
By that same reasoning, a 1911 has no frame that can be considered the firearm, either, because the 1911 has no bolt or breechblock in the frame. The breechblock is part of the slide.
And striker fired pistols such as the Glock don't have hammers at all, in addition to the lack of a breechblock in the frame.
And many bolt action rifles are striker fired, so there is no hammer in the frame.
It is a stupid ruling.
The emperor has no clothes. oops. What should we expect from stupid laws that we can't get rid of?
Where did a judge change the ATF’s definition of tye AR-15?
bfl
I guess it’s stupid if you’re not on the side of the 2nd Amendment.
Yet it IS the law.
Your conclusion that it is a “stupid ruling” is wrong on its face. The ruling is absolutely correct. The stupidity is that the wrong thing is being serialized and regulated on guns of this type. The things that actually hold, lock the ammunition in place, and ignite it, are the barrel, the breech, and the firing mechanism, regardless of where they are. In the case of semiautomatic weapons, that usually means the barrel and chamber, the chamber locking mechanism, and a firing mechanism, whether a firing pin or some other means of firing the propellant, regardless of whether it is struck with a hammer, ignited with fire, or electrical spark, or other means. The human operated trigger mechanism is essentially irrelevant unless it is legally regulated between semi and full automatic firing and in fact can be located remotely from all of what makes a gun fire a projectile down range. Is those parts that should have the serial number that can be traced.
In the case of the AR-15, that would be the UPPER receiver which holds the bolt, firing mechanism, gas block and tube, barrel, etc., not the lower receiver which only holds the trigger assembly group, magazine, and recoil spring, with shoulder stock and handgrip, all of which are mere incidentals to sending a bullet down range.
“...in the Gun Control Act of 1968: One section of the Act allows any private individual to build a firearm at home for personal use if they can otherwise legally own a gun.”
Does the statute actually say “at home”? (If you know, please tell me where to look. I’ve scanned a LOT of the text and haven’t found the relevant part yet).
If the law does stipulate “at home”, how does building your rifle in some guy’s warehouse qualify for the exception. I assume the warehouse is not the customers’ “home” (but in CA, who knows...).
You sure about that?
Federal authorities preferred to let Roh go free rather than have the ruling become final and potentially create case law that could have a crippling effect on the enforcement of gun laws.
No there’s where you are wrong. It’s not the law, it’s the in house regulation, and apparently not at all ever offered for public hearing, as required by law for comment and revision, just “secretly decided” by some Bureaucrats the ATF&E. At some point in the design of the AR-15 the designers were told where to place their serial numbers by the ATF (no E) back then. . . And they were told wrong. The regulation does NOT meet the explicit definition as laid down in the statute for regulating firearms. Now perhaps the statute was poorly written, and I believe it was not only poorly written, but unconstitutionally written, but that is because it was written by idiots who do not at all use or understand guns, much less understand them constitutionally, but that is ALSO a question we need to address at the same time as we call these guys on the carpet about the whole mess.
Right.
But the sear and whatever parts that make the rifle automatic or semi-automatic are in the lower. What a dilemma for the ATF! May their suffering never end!
No, it doesn’t specify “at home” that’s been added by the gun grabbers. You do not have to build your gun at home. You can build it in your work shop, at a friend’s house, or at your work. IT only specifies you have to do it yourself, individually. You cannot buy it from pre-made by another person. It says nothing about getting help from someone, either. Interstate Commerce is the justification for the US Government having anything to say about any of it. . . in fact, the argument could be made they have no business regulating ANY gun business that has nothing to do with intra-state commerce, until it crosses a state line. Technically, and legally, if I wanted to build a gun and sell it to my next door neighbor, it should be no business legal of the US Government to regulate that sale. It has NOT ONE WHIT TO DO WITH INTERSTATE COMMERCE! The US Government is overstepping its constitutional mandate to try to regulate such a transaction.
Abolish the ATF. Abolish Federal agencies that are redundant of state agencies. Every state has an “agency” to license and otherwise regulate firearms. The same is true of Alcohol and Tobacco.
The Federal government has too many priorities. It shoud cease activities that are redundant of state activities and focus on a few priorities and do them well.
There is no way Congress and the President can govern effectively when so many priorties means nothing is a priority and nothing is done competently or successfully.
That is true regardless of whom is in Congress and who the President is.
Most of what the federal government does to restrict Second Amendment rights is overstepping its constitutional mandate.
But that hasn’t seemed to stop the government from doing it.
That’s irrelevant. Many guns these days are controlled electronically and actually have no sears. They are kept from firing by electronic means. . . And the triggers are in a cockpit somewhere many feet away from the actual firing mechanisms. How do you define a rail gun under the law? Where are those parts in that projectile system? It is entirely possible to build a small capacitor driven, hand-held rail gun that could impel a projectile fast enough to kill. Practical? Someday, most likely yes. Today, not so much.
“Hold on, Mr. Burglar, while I plug in, charge up, and load my railgun. . . It’ll take about fifty seconds or so and please don’t mind the high pitch whining sound. . . and would you mind standing over there, please, aiming is a bit tricky.“WHACK!!!
THUD!“DANG IT, HON! I woulda got him. Why’d you have to hit him with a rolling pin while he was a laughing his dang fool head off? I had this...“
I once designed a firing mechanism for a Science Fiction story I was writing that fired a bullet and rifle mechanism that was based on the early 1970s Daisy caseless ammunition system where the propellant was house in a hollow base of the projectile. The propellant was ignited by the firing of a CO2 (or more efficient) laser beam from the breach which also burned the barrel clean with each shot. It could use a binary fuel that was perfectly safe away from the ignition system, and was sealed until the laser burned through the seal.
Apparently the judge did not change anything, he just challenged the ATF’s definition and they backed off. Pretty simple.
This is common practice for the ATF and is proof positive they only care about control and retaining their power. ATF knows many of their rediculous rulings and arbitrary pronouncements would never withstand any legitimate court and defy logic and reason. So the second they fear they will lose and possibly have to give up one of their pet unconstitutional laws or clown suit rulings they drop the charges and railroad some sort of other legal peril for the accused. It’s way past time to completely remove the F from this agency.
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