NPRM - Definition of Frame / Receiver

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  • euler357

    ,
    Industry Partner
    MDS Supporter
    Apr 6, 2011
    584
    Odenton, Marylandistan
    This seems to be the relevant sections regarding 80% lowers:

    4. Partially complete, disassembled, or inoperable frame or receiver

    This third supplement would define “frame or receiver” to include “in the case of
    a frame or receiver that is partially complete, disassembled, or inoperable, a frame or
    receiver that has reached a stage in manufacture where it may readily be completed,
    assembled, converted, or restored to a functional state.” To determine this status, “the
    Director may consider any available instructions, guides, templates, jigs, equipment,
    tools, or marketing materials.” For clarification, “partially complete” for purposes of this
    definition “means a forging, casting, printing, extrusion, machined body, or similar article
    that has reached a stage in manufacture where it is clearly identifiable as an unfinished
    component part of a weapon.”
    This supplement addresses another core challenge of the existing, definition of
    firearm “frame or receiver;” namely, that it does not address the question when an object
    becomes a frame or receiver. While the GCA and implementing regulations define a
    “firearm” to include the “frame or receiver,” neither delineates when a frame or receiver
    is created. The crucial inquiry, then, is the point at which an unregulated piece of metal,
    plastic, or other material becomes a regulated item under Federal law. ATF has long held
    that a piece of metal, plastic, or other material becomes a frame or receiver when it has
    reached a critical stage of manufacture. This is the point at which a substantial step has
    been taken, or a critical line crossed, so that the item in question may be so classified
    under the law. This “critical stage of manufacture” is when the article becomes
    sufficiently complete to function as a frame or receiver, or may readily be completed,
    assembled, converted, or restored to accept the parts it is intended to house or hold.53
    Clarifying this issue is needed to deter the increased sale or distribution of
    unlicensed and unregulated partially complete or unassembled frames or receivers often
    sold within parts kits that can readily be completed or assembled to a functional state.54
    Many kits that include unfinished frame or receivers have been sold by nonlicensees who
    were not required to run a background check or maintain transaction records.
    Accordingly, prohibited persons have easily obtained them. Moreover, without any markings,
    they are nearly impossible to trace. Although this addition is intended to
    capture when an item becomes a frame or receiver that is regulated irrespective of the
    type of technology used to complete the assembly, frame or receiver molds that can
    accept metal or polymer, unformed blocks of metal, and other articles only in a
    primordial state would not—without more—be considered a “partially complete” frame
    or receiver. However, when a frame or receiver is broken or has been disassembled into
    pieces that can readily be made into a frame or receiver, or is a partially complete frame
    or receiver forging, casting, or additive printing56 that has reached a stage in manufacture
    where it can readily be made into a functional frame or receiver, that article would be a
    “frame or receiver” under the GCA.


    C. Definition of “Readily”

    To provide guidance on how the term “readily” is used to classify firearms,
    including frame or receiver parts kits or weapon parts kits sold with incomplete or
    unassembled frames or receivers, the NPRM adds this term to 27 CFR 478.11 and 479.11
    and defined as “a process that is fairly or reasonably efficient, quick, and easy, but not
    necessarily the most efficient, speedy, or easy process.” It would further list factors
    relevant in making this determining to include: (a) time, i.e., how long it takes to finish
    the process; (b) ease, i.e., how difficult it is to do so; (c) expertise, i.e., what knowledge
    and skills are required; (d) equipment, i.e., what tools are required; (e) availability, i.e.,
    whether additional parts are required, and how easily they can be obtained; (f) expense,
    i.e., how much it costs; (g) scope, i.e., the extent to which the subject of the process must
    be changed to finish it; and (h) feasibility, i.e., whether the process would damage or
    destroy the subject of the process, or cause it to malfunction. This definition and factors
    considered in determining whether a weapon, including a weapon parts kit, or unfinished
    or damaged frame or receiver may readily be assembled, completed, converted, or
    restored to function are based on case law interpreting the terms “may readily be
    converted to expel a projectile” in 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(3)(A) and “can be readily restored to
    shoot” in 26 U.S.C. 5845(b).58 Thus, defining the term “readily” is necessary to provide
    further clarity in determining when incomplete weapons or configurations of parts
    become a “firearm” regulated under the GCA and NFA.
     

    euler357

    ,
    Industry Partner
    MDS Supporter
    Apr 6, 2011
    584
    Odenton, Marylandistan
    Even with the best jig and some experience, it takes most people 4+ hours to finish an 80% into a functional firearm. Someone with an advanced CNC machining center can turn a block into a complete receiver in 15 minutes or less. Hard to believe that anything done by hand with a jig is readily convertible.
     

    Bolts Rock

    Living in Free America!
    Apr 8, 2012
    6,123
    Northern Alabama
    Even with the best jig and some experience, it takes most people 4+ hours to finish an 80% into a functional firearm. Someone with an advanced CNC machining center can turn a block into a complete receiver in 15 minutes or less. Hard to believe that anything done by hand with a jig is readily convertible.

    *cough* 30 minutes to machine, 30 to assemble other parts *cough*
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,500
    God's Country
    I’ve been thinking about this a lot and there’s really nothing that stops a company from actually creating a jig set that would allow somebody to make a functioning lower out of a solid block of aluminum with just a few holes precut. A kit may cost 5-10 times more than they do now, in terms of tools and dies, but it can be done without a milling machine. It may take 30hrs of hand router machine time. The final product might look like crap, but if there were no other option i would buy it.
     

    gtodave

    Member
    MDS Supporter
    Aug 14, 2007
    14,176
    Mt Airy
    Probably won't amount to much for most people, but it is yet another infringement, leading to yet another. The Rubicon is on the horizon.
     

    Allen65

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 29, 2013
    7,063
    Anne Arundel County

    So if this reg is enacted, an AR upper would be a separate firearm in and of itself:

    Under the proposed rule, a “frame or receiver” is any externally visible housing or holding structure for one or more fire control components. A “fire control component” is one necessary for the firearm to initiate, complete, or continue the firing sequence, including, but not limited to, any of the following: hammer, bolt, bolt carrier, breechblock, cylinder, trigger mechanism, firing pin, striker, or slide rails.
     

    euler357

    ,
    Industry Partner
    MDS Supporter
    Apr 6, 2011
    584
    Odenton, Marylandistan
    This is yet another infringement that will make ZERO difference to criminals for whom possession is already illegal. This will only serve to extend more government control over the people and only affects law abiding gun owners.
     

    euler357

    ,
    Industry Partner
    MDS Supporter
    Apr 6, 2011
    584
    Odenton, Marylandistan
    So if this reg is enacted, an AR upper would be a separate firearm in and of itself:

    Under the proposed rule, a “frame or receiver” is any externally visible housing or holding structure for one or more fire control components. A “fire control component” is one necessary for the firearm to initiate, complete, or continue the firing sequence, including, but not limited to, any of the following: hammer, bolt, bolt carrier, breechblock, cylinder, trigger mechanism, firing pin, striker, or slide rails.
    There is another section that discusses split receiver firearms and IIRC says the ATF can designate which part is the receiver.
     

    Allen65

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 29, 2013
    7,063
    Anne Arundel County
    There is another section that discusses split receiver firearms and IIRC says the ATF can designate which part is the receiver.

    Yup. But it's at their discretion, and you can bet there will be political pressure from above to use that discretion to make everything that could be considered a firearm under the GCA, considered a firearm.

    IIRC there are already firearms where ATF considers more than one component to be a firearm in and of itself, i.e. one complete gun is comprised of two or more parts that are legally "firearms" independently.

    I was surprised they did as little with the new reg as it appears. It wasn't for lack of intent, but they discovered there are limits to how much further they can go without statutory changes.
     

    MigraineMan

    Ultimate Member
    Jun 9, 2011
    19,109
    Frederick County
    Should the current definition remain in place and courts continue to interpret it such that no part or parts of most firearms are defined as the frame or receiver, these unserialized parts, easily purchased and assembled to create functioning firearms, would be untraceable, thereby putting the public at risk.
    Say what?

    A functioning firearm sans serial number presents a tangible risk to the public, how exactly?
     

    euler357

    ,
    Industry Partner
    MDS Supporter
    Apr 6, 2011
    584
    Odenton, Marylandistan
    Yup. But it's at their discretion, and you can bet there will be political pressure from above to use that discretion to make everything that could be considered a firearm under the GCA, considered a firearm.

    IIRC there are already firearms where ATF considers more than one component to be a firearm in and of itself, i.e. one complete gun is comprised of two or more parts that are legally "firearms" independently.

    I was surprised they did as little with the new reg as it appears. It wasn't for lack of intent, but they discovered there are limits to how much further they can go without statutory changes.
    Labelling an upper as a firearm would start a whole shitstorm considering the millions of them out there that are uncontrolled. This in conjunction with the proposed FFL labelling requirements (every time an unmarked frame / firearm goes through an FFL they have to engrave it) would be a nightmare scenario and unenforceable.
     

    delaware_export

    Ultimate Member
    Apr 10, 2018
    3,143
    Remember their current definitions just got tossed out in court a few times over the last few years. Not just over 80% but with finished AR lowers. The case where the judge realized that the AR lower does not contain all ?4? Parts of the mechanism. Atf quietly backed off to avoid precedent. Iirc, they confiscated, but dropped charges. One of the places was from SoCal iirc, the plastic ar lowers. And a couple others

    But I am thinking that even if I currently have a fully finished, BGC purchased, not from an 80% lower, they’re trying to make me get another bgc for the upper to finish it.

    We are all just a bunch of criminals to be punished. In the eyes of our rulers.
     

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