This may not be the clearest damn gun thread I’ve ever started/read, but it sure is illuminating...
Here I am on one of the most conservative sites I visit, and the range of responses I’ve received range from “Where do intend to spend your prison time?” to “Just go ahead...you’re good”.
What’s the matter with our country, where well-meaning Americans don’t even know which way to go to stay “out of trouble” or to stay within the law?
I just want to have my guns all being “under the radar”...I’m not trying to break any laws.
This is very interesting. This is very instructive. This is very disturbing.
I just wanted some advice on the best way to build one. I heard more about the trouble I could expect to get into.
I guess more than anything, it proves out my sense that I need to find any way possible to keep my stuff as my stuff.
Guns are like taxes. You can follow the rules to be best of your knowledge and still end up in jail if they want you bad enough. And no...the rules aren’t applied to everyone equally.
Like the others wrote: AR15.com. He has a legal section and a listing of parts to stay clear of.
The problems arose when someone built a AR-15 lower into a pistol and sold it. Once that line was crossed, the BATF had a whole set of rules that suddenly came down onto AR’s.
Therefore, even a stipped receiver that had not previously been assembled into a rifle (and sold as such) is now potentially a pistol.
Where you could get into trouble transferring a lower between two private individuals is if they reside in different states *and* the lower has ever been sold or assembled as a pistol.
Here’s the BATF FAQ on private transfers:
http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/unlicensed-persons.html#gca-unlicensed-transfer
Now, on the issue of incomplete lowers, what constitutes “incomplete” lowers, etc - those require BATF letters of finding. The “80% or less complete” that I mentioned above is an industry/market term, NOT a BATF term or policy. The BATF has held, for example, that merely prick-punching the centers where the pins should go constitutes drilling the holes all the way through. A solid slab forging, casting or billet with no holes, no punch marks, no layout for the machining is, for all intents and purposes, a paperweight.
Welcome to the world of modern American, where we’ve been over-run with goddamn lawyers.
Next time you get to talk to a politician - any kind or party - ask them "How many laws are enough?"
Thanks to all for an illuminating thread.
Pay attention. The people here are trying to help you but none of them will volunteer to serve your time for you.
Under the radar? Going on FR is not exactly stealth posting and legal problems are always expensive so either be very legal or very quiet.