Posted on 01/13/2020 2:01:46 PM PST by Black_Rifle_Gunsmith
What if you were to shop at your local Home Depot in Pennsylvania, pick up a few plumbing parts, some pipe, solder, and a few screws? Should you have to submit to a background check, or check out at the register through an FFL licensee to buy that stuff? All because the stuff you bought could be used to build a gun? While it's entirely unlikely (and unrealistic), that's the kind of precedent which could technically be set, if Governor Tom Wolf’s and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s new legal opinion is interpreted literally, as the Governor and AG clearly intend.
In yet another example of unconstitutional anti-gun decision-making, the state’s highest lawyer issued the above opinion letter declaring 80% lowers – non-functioning receiver blanks commonly used by gun owners and enthusiasts to build firearms at home, which is entirely legal by the ATF’s policy and federal law – as firearms. Except these units are not, in any way, shape or form, legally considered firearms. The ATF says so.
What gives?
Josh Shapiro appeared to take the route of “clarifying perceived ambiguity”, taking advantage of the existing law’s language clearly intended for one thing, and using it to justify his reasoning. Shapiro states:
“A receiver does not need to be fully manufactured to be a firearm as defined in the Applicable Sections. A receiver is a firearm under the Applicable Sections if it is: 1) “designed” to expel or 2) “may readily be converted” to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive. Given the [Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act] does not provide a statutory definition of these terms, [Pennsylvania State Police] shall utilize the legal framework set forth in this Opinion when enforcing or issuing interpretative guidance regarding the Applicable Sections of the UFA.
Along with direct enforcement of the UFA, PSP has the ability to issue interpretative rules through internal documents, manuals, or policy statements; while not controlling, these interpretations would be entitled to deference. Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 140 (1944). Additionally, PSP can further interpret the definitions through formal rulemaking. 18 Pa. C.S. 6111.5 Any regulation properly promulgated by PSP is entitled to deference, unless clearly erroneous.”
To cement his position, Shapiro even says, "Under the statute, it doesn’t matter that these are not fully finished products. They are receivers and, therefore, they are firearms. Pure and simple.” They are not receivers, though. Again, federal law and decades of ATF policy say otherwise. By his own logic, a box of hardware from your general store could be labeled a gun, too. Shapiro has yet to clarify how he would effectively prevent this from happening.
Suddenly deciding things that clearly aren't guns are, well, suddenly guns (and giving the authority to decide such a thing to the State Police, who are certainly not the appropriate legal experts) is all well and good in Shapiro's eyes. Except he and Gov. Wolf seems to forget that only the state’s General Assembly can write such laws, and that the General Assembly cannot delegate its authority to the Attorney General or the Governor to implement wanton rule-making in such a fashion.
Shapiro’s entire brief is also misleading. Although his own words mention attempting to target receiver blanks for guns like the AR-15, nowhere does his “opinion” state that “80% lowers shall be considered firearms”. Instead, the Attorney General and Governor Tom Wolf are effectively passing that responsibility onto the State Police. Giving law enforcement carte blanche to decide whether something is illegal in this context, without any official law on the books, is sure to ignite a number of court filings and it will certainly spur even more opposition to Pennsylvania’s anti-gun movement, as we’ve recently seen.
Counties across Pennsylvania are beginning to declare themselves “Second Amendment Sanctuaries” just as so many have in Virginia, with Commissioners in Bradford County being the latest to take a stance against more undue gun control.
Old truism:
A competent gunsmith can turn a VW Bug into a machinegun within 8 hours.
josh is quite the agenda-driven nitwit. Has this loon leftist ever read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
He sounds like a guy that needs a SWAT TEAM RAID for the ILLEGAL Chemical Weapons precursors he is Storing at home for Future Use!!
Got Bleach?
Got Vinegar?
So are carbon atoms. Leftists are your enemy, folks. They want you dead.
Buy weapons and ammo.
JoMa
Got Draino?
When screws are outlawed, only outlaws will have screws.
According to him if you steal a steering wheel, it’s the same as stealing a car.
I figure I’ll get noticed buying plumbing parts because they could be used to make a spud GUN that would be undetectable by xray.
The only thing they could do to make this more scary is paint it black.
https://www.80percentarms.com/products/0-billet-ar-15-lower-receiver/
josh is quite the agenda-driven nitwit. Has this loon leftist ever read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
Every time he wipes.....
Only the legislature can make firearms laws in PA This will eventually b thrown out as it is unconstitutional under PA law.OnLY HIS opinion.
By that logic, a fetus is a person.
“Leftists are your enemy, folks. They want you dead. Buy weapons and ammo.”
True dat.
Remember the old adage: To enslave a people you must first disarm them.
Leftists (i.e., Progressives, Democrats, or whatever the hell label in which they may wrap themselves) seek total and complete control, and domination; they are the clearest enemies of freedom.
Just look at the poor unarmed protesters in Iran getting shot. No ability to shoot back.
Demagogic Party a-holes update.
When we elect these goofballs, they have not expressed these stupid ideals. If they would have, we would not have voted for them. We will not next time.
Don’t you get it? It’s not that they have not read the Constitution or BOR - they probably haven’t. They just don’t care.
OK, good. Then they are protected by the 2nd Amendment then John. So BTFO.
I think this is them trying to make the water murky enough that people will be unwilling to sell 80% lowers at all.
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