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1 March, 2021
The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Request on Behalf of Law-Abiding Owners of Non-Firearm Receiver Blanks and NonIndustrial Manufacturers of Home-Built Firearms
Dear Mr. President:
Recent stories point out that your administration is contemplating Executive Action to “require buyers of so-called ‘ghost guns’—unmanufactured non-firearms or non-commercial manufactured firearms— to undergo background checks.”¹
This report follows scorching on the heels of the partisan “virtual discussion with leaders of gun violence prevention advocacy groups” hosted by your Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice and your White House Public Engagement Director and Senior Advisor Cedric Richmond.²
Gun Owners of America, Defense Distributed, and JSD Supply are collectively writing to you to advocate on behalf of the thousands and thousands of non-commercial producers of home made firearms— law-abiding Americans who make up our grassroots supporters and prospects. These persons are participating in lawful actions which might be as outdated as our republic itself.
We discover it essential to remind you and your administration that, at current, there isn’t a federal prohibition on manufacturing non-commercial firearms for private use. “Congress did not draft the GCA [Gun Control Act of 1968] to develop a categorical anti-gun approach to firearm regulation.” Even the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) believes that the authorized dispute over “ghost guns” is, “at its core, a policy dispute.”³
ATF maintained on January 11th of 2021 that “in any event, because receiver blanks do not fall within the plain meaning of the GCA’s definition of “firearm,” the implications of that definition are for Congress to deal with.”⁴
Any try to power the federal authorities to additional regulate non-firearms generally known as “ghost guns” would subsequently be each arbitrary and capricious.
Forcing ATF to undertake a brand new approach to the classification of non-firearms would tremendously increase ATF authority past the GCA; it will additionally violate rights protected by the Second Amendment by imposing restrictions on in any other case lawful activity excluded from the GCA.
The web site for the ATF supplies solutions to many generally requested questions which your administration officers appear to be asking.
One such query the ATF solutions is: “Does an individual need a license to make a firearm for personal use?”⁵ ATF accurately supplies the next response: “No, a license is not required to make a firearm solely for personal use. However, a license is required to manufacture firearms for sale or distribution.”⁶
We symbolize gun homeowners who aren’t engaged within the enterprise of producing firearms on the market however who as a substitute legally manufacture firearms for non-commercial private use.⁷
Further, the time period “80% receiver” is a time period of artwork used to explain an “unfinished receiver” or “receiver blank” that isn’t but to a ample stage of completeness to be thought-about a firearm. The time period will not be present in any statute or regulation as a result of such gadgets aren’t firearms and aren’t regulated by federal regulation in any means.⁸
The ATF website⁹ additionally units out the query: “What is an ‘80%’ or ‘unfinished’ receiver?” The response offered is: ‘“80% receiver,’ ‘80% finished,’ ‘80% complete’ and ‘unfinished receiver’ are all terms referring to an item that some may believe has not yet reached a stage of manufacture that meets the definition of ‘firearm frame’ or ‘receiver’ according to the Gun Control Act (GCA).¹⁰ These are not statutory terms and ATF does not use or endorse them.”
The ATF has lengthy taken the place that “[r]eceiver blanks that do not meet the definition of a ‘firearm’ are not subject to regulation under the Gun Control Act.”¹¹ In truth, “ATF has thoroughly considered the efforts, steps, and tools needed to convert receiver blanks into firearms, along with the time necessary to do so when relevant or appropriate, going back to as early as 1983.”¹²
A “firearm” is outlined as “any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.” This definition consists of “the frame or receiver of any such weapon.”¹³
A “handgun” is outlined as “(A) a firearm which has a short stock and is designed to be held and fired by the use of a single hand; and (B) any combination of parts from which a firearm described in subparagraph (A) can be assembled.”¹⁴
On November 30, 2020, the ATF filed a Motion to Dismiss a grievance introduced by the State of California and an anti-Second Amendment group, in search of to power the ATF classify 80% receivers as firearms.¹⁵
The ATF’s place in that case, as of November 30, 2020, is as follows: “ATF defines a ‘receiver’ as ‘that part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel.’¹⁶ A receiver blank does not yet ‘provide[] housing for the hammer, bolt, or breechblock, and firing mechanism,’ and is therefore not a ‘receiver’ within this definition.”
And additional, “[a] receiver clean during which no ‘machining of any kind’ has been ‘performed in the area of the trigger/hammer (fire-control) recess (or cavity)’ has no house but that may ‘hous[e … 3 firing mechanism,’ 27 C.F.R. § 478.11, and therefore ATF’s interpretation of ‘receiver’ to exclude receiver blanks is not inconsistent with the regulation.”
Neither 3D printed gun files nor unfinished receiver blanks constitute “firearms” or “handguns” because they are not “firearms.”
Additionally, an unfinished receiver sold as a kit with other unregulated gun parts is not a “combination of parts from which a firearm […] could be assembled” as a result of the unfinished body should first be manufactured earlier than it may be assembled.
And no quantity of extra unregulated elements offered alongside an unregulated unfinished receiver clean can magically remodel a non-firearm right into a “firearm” or a “handgun.”
In the aforementioned case, ATF even acknowledged¹⁷ the “ancillary rights” protected by the Second Amendment, together with “‘a corresponding right to obtain’ the ‘necessary’ arms and ammunition, including through means such as purchase, private transfer, and private, noncommercial assembly or manufacture.”¹⁸
It is crucial that your administration respect the Bill of Rights amended to our Constitution and chorus from infringing on the rights of gun homeowners—whether or not enumerated or ancillary.
Disregarding our Constitution, rule of regulation, and longstanding regulatory precedent, anti-gun politicians and lobbyists might demand the federal authorities abuse Title 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(29) to arbitrarily regulate “ghost guns.”
But implementing such ludicrous requests might lead to a strong block of aluminum or polymer packaged along with different unregulated firearms elements being thought-about a handgun underneath the statute, regardless that it will require milling or molding right into a useful firearm body earlier than meeting.
It is partially due to its longstanding coverage, ATF should not undertake a wholly new interpretation of the appliance of federal regulation to 80% receiver blanks.
So-called “ghost gun” homeowners and producers fairly worry the implications of arbitrary criminalization by potential Executive Action.
ATF investigations and raids are carried out by armed federal brokers. When this happens at personal houses, the one who solutions the door could also be the one who purchased or manufactured the arbitrarily criminalized thing or will be the spouse or husband or little one or dad or mum or grandparent of the purchaser, who has no thought why armed federal brokers are demanding that unregulated firearms elements be instantly positioned and surrendered.
The huge variety of individuals buying non-firearm receiver blanks or manufacturing home made firearms are law-abiding American residents who take pleasure in “do-it-yourself” tasks and wish to tackle the problem of trying to fabricate a firearm, as has been authorized underneath federal regulation actually for the reason that ratification of the Constitution.
It is actually doable that regulation enforcement raids on houses, whereby authorities officers demand that property be surrendered, will result in intimidation, threats, abusive therapy, and even weapons being pulled on American residents by ATF brokers. This will lead to critical psychological, emotional, and, in a worst-case state of affairs, bodily accidents and demise of law-abiding American residents.
The ATF brokers tasked with imposing any new Executive Action might likewise face pointless hazard, as they may set off actions in affordable protection of self, household unit, and residential, by individuals who’re identified to be law-abiding gun homeowners. In many states, owners might use lethal power to repel illegal invasions, and no bureaucrat or lobbyist could be sure how these armed encounters will happen or how harmful and even lethal they are going to be.
ATF shouldn’t be permitted to go door-to-door rounding up “ghost guns” or regulate any nonfirearm receiver blanks with out the passage of any new legal guidelines and based mostly solely on the authority of ATF to re-classify—on the fly—unregulated gadgets which might be fashionable throughout the shooting group. Operating arbitrarily, your administration and the ATF mustn’t have interaction within the partisan and reckless enterprise of creating lawful gadgets illegal, making lawful corporations responsible of felonious conduct, or making lawful purchasers vulnerable to being visited by armed authorities brokers. Certainly such motion shouldn’t be taken towards property that the ATF itself stated was lawful to fabricate, promote, and possess.
Yours in liberty,
Aidan Johnston
Director of Federal Affairs Gun Owners of America
Jordan Vinroe
President JSD Supply
Defense Distributed
1 See https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/23/biden-gun-safety-pandemic-471064
2 See https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/10/readout-of-the-white-housesmeeting-with-gun-violence-prevention-advocacy-groups-2/
3 See State of California, et al. v. ATF, et al.; Civil Action No. 3:20-cv-06761-EMC, Docket No. 29. Defendants’ Reply in Support of Their Motion to Dismiss 1.
4 See State of California, et al. v. ATF, et al.; Civil Action No. 3:20-cv-06761-EMC, Docket No. 29. Defendants’ Reply in Support of Their Motion to Dismiss 9.
5 See https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/does-individual-need-license-make-firearm-personal-use
6 C.f. 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), (p) and (r); 26 U.S.C. § 5822; 27 CFR § 478.39, 479.62 and § 479.105.
7 C.f. 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(22)
8 See https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/are-%E2%80%9C80%E2%80%9D-or- %E2%80%9CunfinishedpercentE2%80%9D-receivers-illegal (final entry 12.12.2020).
9 See https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/what-%E2%80%9C80%E2%80%9D-or-%E2%80%9Cunfinished-receiver
10 See https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/gun-control-act
11 See https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/are-%E2%80%9C80%E2%80%9D-or- %E2%80%9CunfinishedpercentE2%80%9D-receivers
unlawful
12 See State of California, et al. v. ATF, et al.; Civil Action No. 3:20-cv-06761-EMC, Docket No. 29. Defendants’ Reply in Support of Their Motion to Dismiss 9.
13 See 18 U.S.C. § 921(a) (3) (A)
14 See 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(29)
15 See State of California, et al. v. ATF, et al.; Civil Action No. 3:20-cv-06761-EMC, Docket No. 29.
16 See 27 C.F.R. § 478.11.
17 id. (quoting Jackson v. City and County of San Francisco, 746 F.3d 953, 967 (ninth Cir. 2014))
18 See Bezet v. United States, 276 F. Supp. 3d 576, 605 (E.D. La. 2017) (restrictions on ‘the use of imported parts to assemble a firearm . . . likely impinge on the rights of law-abiding, responsible citizens . . . to acquire’ firearms), aff’d 714 F. App’x 336, 341 (fifth Cir. 2017)[.]”
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