Those same determination letters are what gave us, then took away, then gave us back again pistol arm braces.
Those same determination letters gave us echo triggers.
Those same determination letters gave us, then took away as machine guns, slide fire stocks.
Again, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, it is what it is, and it is how the ATF has worked for a very long time. I'm stating reality, not the correctness of that reality.
Your beef is not with me. I don't work for the ATF or any other part of the government. I'm a member of the NRA, GSSF, and MCGRO.
And it is our willingness to accept a mere bureaucrats LETTER as the Gospel truth as a RULING as if it were handed down from on high that gets us into these messes. They aren’t. That’s the problem. They do not have the authority to do this without a proper process which this Judge was CALLING THEM ON, and even a lowly lawyer can call them on by pointing out THEY DO NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO DO IT , by writing a letter, if only we would do it and stick to our, er, guns!
The ONLY person who can do this quickly without due process is the President of the United States by means of an Executive Order. . . and that is subject to review by Congress and reversal by the courts in D.C. That is why bump stocks were banned so quickly after the Las Vegas massacre. I think it was unconstitutional, but lacking Congressional will, and a court case to overturn the EO, it will remain the state of things.
However, absent a specific regulation on the topic outlining exactly what is being regulated, the ATF does not have the power to make these administrative determinations without announcing and publishing the proposed regulation, then publicizing a period of at least 90 days for public comment, publishing the proposed agreed upon regulations which have to be submitted to the DOJ and Attorney General for approval, finalization, and then publication of the final regulation in the Federal Registry at which point they become active on the date they are listed.
An ATF agent or bureaucrat CAN only make a determination based on EXISTING law and regulations. . . Which is what a determination letter is supposed to be for. They cannot just pull one out of their ass and claim it is the legally binding without doing all of that and proclaim it is a determination, which is an expert’s INTERPRETATION of a specific case compared to how the law and regulation are written. They can’t just make up a new rule, such as telling someone what tools and techniques may be used to manufacture a firearm, because there IS NO SUCH REGULATION ON THAT SUBJECT. That is not at all within their purview, never has been, never will be.
Our government servants are simply not allowed to go into a worker’s shop and say, “You can use that tool but not that one, that’s OK, but that one’s off limits. Hand tools are on our approved list, but power tools are verboten! No! You are not permitted to use anything programmed for any reason, NICHT! WHAT?! You have that one LEASED??? That is forbidden! You must cease and desist using that immediately! You are permitted to use tools only owned personally by you to produce things only you use.”
Do you get the absurdity of that position?
My expertise here besides being an NRA Endowment Member, is as a past Federal Firearms License holder, with a class C endorsement for machine guns and other schedule C weapons (we were a police supply house). . . We were applying to also manufacture them, although we only repaired them, because occasionally repair included making new receivers to replace receivers that were not available. We also held a Federal Firearms Importer’s license.
I was at one time—about 40 years ago—qualified to testify in California Courts as an expert witness in these matters and I turned down a job I was offered to go to work with the ATF in the early ‘70s as a firearms identifications expert technician because I didn’t like what I saw happening in their approach to gun control.
I got out of the firearms industry in the mid-‘70s, and was entirely out by the early to mid ‘80s, opting to work for the United States Chamber of Commerce, and later for the National Federation of Independent Business.
Although a lot of my expertise is out-of-date, I do know very intimately how the government regulatory agency model works because we were very regulated out the ying-yang, and that has not changed, except they’ve gotten very much more out of control and are more arrogant, and they’ve gotten more confrontational and adversarial about it.