The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has officially published its new rule redefining the term “firearm” and banning so-called “ghost gun” kits.
Implementation of the rule will begin in 120 days, and in the meantime, expect to see multiple lawsuits from gun-rights groups asking the courts to strike down the rule on constitutional grounds.
The final rule doesn’t depart in any serious way from the original rule the ATF proposed in May of last year. Despite receiving hundreds of thousands of comments from concerned gun owners who opposed the rule, the agency plowed ahead, at the behest of the Biden administration, to unilaterally redefine “firearm” under federal law.
The effect of the rule on build-it-yourself gun kits has justifiably received the most attention. The rule singles out products that allow an unfinished frame or receive to be “readily converted” into a functioning firearm component, and states that these products are now considered “firearms” under federal law.
This new rule doesn’t ban homemade gun kits, but it does subject these kits to the same regulations and background check requirements as other firearms.
SEE ALSO: Dems Ask ATF to More Explicitly Ban These Prohibited Accessories
The agency says it won’t necessarily consider as “firearms” all unfinished frames or receivers, which could still allow the purchase of certain so-called “80-percent” receivers. But if those receivers ship with dimples or jigs to assist in the machining process, that gun kit will be subject to all rules and regulations governing functioning firearms.
“ATF has maintained and continues to maintain that a partially complete frame or receiver alone is not a frame or receiver if it still requires performance of certain machining operations (e.g., milling out the fire control cavity of an AR-15 billet or blank, or indexing for that operation) because it may not readily be completed to house or hold the applicable fire control components,” the agency said in the rule.
However: “A partially complete billet or blank of a frame or receiver is a ‘frame or receiver’ when it is sold, distributed, or possessed with a compatible jig or template, allowing a person using online instructions and common hand tools to complete the frame or receiver efficiently, quickly, and easily ‘to function as a frame or receiver,” the ATF clarifies.
The rule redefines a handgun “frame” as “the housing or structure for the primary energized component designed to hold back the hammer, striker, bolt, or similar component prior to initiation of the firing sequence (i.e., sear or equivalent).” It also redefines rifle “receiver” as “the housing or structure for the primary component designed to block or seal the breech prior to initiation of the firing sequence (i.e., bolt, breechblock, or equivalent).”
SEE ALSO: ATF Asking Vendors for Forced Reset Trigger Customer Records
The agency is shutting down one of the primary ways law-abiding gun owners have been able to build firearms without the government’s knowledge or say-so. But in another provision that has received far less media attention, the ATF is making sure that the records of those gun sales never go away.
Prior to this new rule, gun sellers were allowed to dispose of firearm transaction records after 20 years. Now, they’re no longer allowed to destroy those records—ever.
And what happens when a gun store goes out of business? As we’ve covered previously, those records are sent to the ATF, which scans them into an electronic database the agency insists isn’t really a “gun registry.”
It’s still legal to make guns at home. But this new rule makes it more difficult, and it sets up future generations for a day when the federal government possesses a record of every gun transaction in all 50 states.
To read the rule for yourself—including the ATF’s “response” to the comments it received—see below:
My departed Dad was also a veteran and died from agent orange cancer. But he always taught me “that as a human being” “there are only three things you need to be afraid of,” ” a young kid= because he doesnt know any better. An old man= because he doesnt care anymore. A desparate man= because he will do anything for him or his family to survive”! But he passed on and afterwards I realized there is a fourth! A DYING man because he had nothing to lose!!!!
I fall into two of those things, An old man and a dying man!!! So to quote ALi “I’M A BAD MAN”! And being a veteran took an OATH to defend the Constitution against ALL transgressors both foreign and domestic!!! The Government has been the domestic transgressor since 9/11 when they IMPLEMENTED 1963 Official declassified document of A Covert Action Plan AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE titled OPERATION NORTHWOODS. Drafted in 1963 and signed by all necessary officials EXCEPT John F. Kennedy who refused to sign when placed on his desk citing he was not going to turn on American civilians on American soil and murder them in order to regain control over the citizens and start taking their civil rights and liberties away! Operation Northwoods! Find it and read about the happenings on 9/11 especially the hijacking of commercial airliners by US Operatives that looked like from foreigners and crash them in to major structures, buildings, or monuments where there will be HUGE American casualties in the name of terrorism and cause the American people to raise an outcry for the Government to do something to protect them! Then we can create NEW organizations more powerful than the FBI and the CIA and pass NEW laws to slowly start taking citizen’s rights and liberties away taking back control of the public that is so out of hand now. Times are different than revolutionary days and Americans DON’T NEED ALL the Freedoms, Rights, and Liberties that they did back then.
Read Operation Northwoods!!! Sat around until an Ex-CIA top official was President and signed it into action! Good old George Bush and he gave a speech the day after 9/11 on how we must be willing to GIVE UP some freedoms and liberties as we take on this fight against terrorism as we enter into A NEW WORLD ORDER!!!
Well friends and enemies, you can have MY GUNS WHEN YOU PRY MY COLD DEAD FINGERS FROM AROUND THEM defending my home, my country, and the CONSTITUTION! Here on REX’S RIDGE
All I will say is: LET’S GO BRANDON!!!!!
Anybody that goes around spouting this absurd, imbecilic idea shows what an ignorant person they are! Even 14 year olds capacity for language, memes and linguistic expression exceeds those of the brain-dead cockroaches who parrot phrases of stupidity. Stick with the other geniuses whose limited education results in blind mimicry like monkeys in a zoo. Expression taken from NASCAR idiots, lol, doesn’t this fall in place for people like this?
Wow, just chill out. Let’s go Brandon!
And for someone who is spouting off about being non-educated, by saying “expression taken from NASCAR idiots,” you seem to be ignorant of the fact that this meme/slogan came from a REPORTER who mistook what the crowd was really saying.
Dang triggered? That’s why it’s funny. Let’s go Brandon.
Ahh, somebody pressed an obvious nerve of the typical simple minded emotional libtard.. I doubt you showed the same outrage at the trump memes . Take you sheep mentality back to huff post where you clearly belong.
BURY BRANDON. The stupidity of this statement is appropriate if one is totally brain-dead.
This is why I’ve told you all countless times, the alphabets are, NOT, your friend…the alphabets are, your ENEMY!
The alphabet institutions, were created & designed by a, transvestite & child (sexual) predator, a.k.a.., J. Edgar Hoover.
But,…people don’t do their homework.
The alphabets are coming for your family,…one predator step, at a time.
The, alphabets are, patient.
The, alphabets are waiting.
Because, they know where your children go to school, and whisper in their ears,..that you, (your, children’s parent),…are the real, enemy.
This is not about, our guns, ONLY.
The alphabets intend to imprison (& murder), ALL, who, will not comply.
And, guns..are only the beginning.
But, don’t believe me. Just, keep ignoring what’s happening…like, you’ve been doing for the last two (plus), decades.
Yeah,…Trump, will rescue you!
Biden, is your friend.
Back the blue!
Back the red!
The Ukrainian gov’t, isn’t really bad,..they’re, innocent victims.
Congress & Senate are, TRULY, for Americans.
When, are we ever going to learn (& remember),..YOU, HAVE A GOD GIVEN RIGHT, TO DEFEND YOURSELF & YOUR FAMILY & YOUR LAND, from ALL, THREATS (including tyranny),…both, foreign, and,..DOMESTIC?
And, America’s, BIGGEST, domestic threat & tyranny, has ALWAYS been, the alphabets.
America, study your enemy!
Research, the founding & reason for the institution of the, alphabets.
What they say & speak, is, NOT WHAT THEY’VE BEEN DOING.
But, what do i know?…I’m just a simple-minded, ‘lil Jew.
What do we know about torture, treason, or tyranny?
-Mr. “X”
So… The Jig Is Up; the jig’s the thing. An 80% kit is not a whole gun part if not sold with the jig. What new regulation now concerning buying or owning a jig seperately, or did i just give some anti-gun loonie The Next Big Idea? Retroactively register or turn in all your jigs? Sleepy joe seems to think a handheld drill and a coupla minutes work that anyone can do on a 150$ kit makes a compleat operating ghost gun? The 80% kit dosent include the “parts kit”, which pushes the thing up into used-car territory; that aint pocket change! Oh, wait, the left is telling another fib; i keep forgetting, they dont believe it either But they want their acolytes with the coolaid mustache to Believe! And Be Afwaid! Be Vew-w-w-wy Afwaid of dose eviw wascawwy wepubwiccan wabbits!
The true “ghost guns” are manufactured in Mexico, Central and South America by cottage gunsmiths — usually a Model 1911 design, as it’s easy to manufacture. Those ghost guns are being smuggled across our wide open Southern Border that saw, this year, some 300,000 “gotaways” slip past our overwhelmed Border Patrol who are busy saving children abandoned by human trafficking and drug cartels.
ATF doesnt have the ability to make law!
Yes, but clearly old geezer Biden can! It’s simple, they want it it’ll happen! Chump with bump stocks just skipped past all the legal ways of doing such a move like you know having congress vote on it which he did ALLOW happen as he sat down at the table he sat at for his four and only years in office and just signed his worthless name and that was that! But the way I look at it is… the second amendment is a RIGHT… NOT A PRIVILEGE!!! Carry as you like and fuck the rest that won’t be there when you need them! Cops are NOTHING more than looky lous that ALL have to go see the shot up dead body and stand around for hours and then go back to sitting in their cars talking to each other out of their drivers side windows as one faces north and other south and burn tax payers money so they can have nice AC while they DONT do their jobs!
So do I need 2 background checks to purchase a P320 now since the fire control unit is serialized and now the grip module falls into this category
To understand agency law which has the effect of statutory law you need to understand the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946. This set up agency government, wherein; all those pesky agencies were then allowed, and their “Agency Actions in the form of; Regulations, Rules, Definitions, and determinations by the Secretary… become effective as law after a process, largely without any power of the people to stop it. Further, these are published as law under the US Code. Also and beef or complaint or dispute with the agency is not actionable by law in any District Court. If you disagree or have a dispute with an Agency you must go through a separate Agency Law court system administered by the Secretary, with also has an appeals level to it. Only if the “agency action” involved a direct infringement of your absolute rights as an individual, then you can take it up in District or the normal Federal Courts. Why then do various political activities can bring suits to stop pipelines etc. into District Courts, is the discretion the courts have. But you have as a citizen about a zero percent change of prevailing in Agency court. And, the case is always heard in Washington D.C. often without the parties present, if testimony is not allowed, it never is, so the court holds its hearing behind closed doors. I have taken various disputes usually over public information to the Agency Courts… and always lost the initial suit, but won a couple of the appeals. One was the most significant win ever, where HUD admitted under the Obama Administration the 2008 Mortgage Crisis, the banks… all of them… were put into receivership with HUD and covered up under national security powers of the President, rather than the FDIC, as per the law. This meant they were able to hide every bank had failed! And, Obama Administration rolled out secretly a way to put money into the banks to shore them up under a joint partner relationship between the Feds and the banks. Basically, every loan that went into foreclosure was paid off 112% of current amount owed, the banks signed contracts to not foreclose, where; he contracts were hidden under national security veil… so no one knew about it, even the Congress. Obama and his man Joe, who oversaw this abomination, were able to funnel moneys to prop up the banks from the mortgage insurance trust fund, paid for by the mortgage insurance of the borrowers. AND, this allowed the banks to lie to every court in the land and foreclose the homes anyway. Hundreds of thousands lost their homes when they weren’t supposed to. ZERO press coverage, and again the FOIA information is locked up. I spent 5 years in court then they still covered it up with the our presses help. And, you should worry about your guns… and life.
Why not just call all steel ghost guns??? I might bring it home and make something Lil joey is scared of. I want to know how many of these so called ghost guns have been used unlawfully in the past year?? I bet theres not one
This is just another snippet of our rights gone.
Based on articles citing crimes with so called Ghost Guns from Phoenix Az. & L.A., the number is about 1.5% of ALL crimes with firearms.
The problem is, those articles also revealed that over 50% of those crimes were committed by people with a history of criminal activity with firearms.
So, they want to ignore the real issue of criminal recidivism, as well as our ‘revolving door’ justice system, and blame an inanimate object instead, then work to make laws that no criminal will obey anyway.
Thay don’t care about crime, they just don’t like us having guns.
Please genius, the two are NOT Incongrous. Stick to what you may understand, such as changing tires on your car or reloading your ammo to practice against the baddies out to get you
real men don’t change tires they just stand there and cry. I guess reloading isn’t manly either, or going to the range…. but when you liberals defend the baddies and let them run free and blame the guns then the rest of us humans would rather be prepared to clean up your mess.
The US Government tacking another what at the tree of liberty. Wonder how many more whacks its going to take until it falls down completely.
Anyone remember Aesop’s fable of the feathers? Only is, those giving-up their feathers, make it easier for the wolf to incidentally pluck our unwilling feathers with arrogant impunity. People misquote about how “power corrupts”; the old line i learned was how power ATTRACTS the corrupt (or curruptable), you cant blame the majority of the workers in any given (or takin’) agency for what is done by the squeakier wheels. But those squeaks! I would NOT volunteer to, paraphrase, collect mr and ms gunowner’s guns, no way nohow. Half the democrats, by one poll, own firearms, but The Left thinks they, too, will hand them over on request (which proceeds the ‘on demand’ order. America remembers The Revolutionary war, but will only lean back SO far to the demands of those temporarily in power; “this, too, shall pass” aint just wishful thinking, its a fact The Left fears, so grab what they can
The ghost gun should have already been illegal under the national firearms act for producing a firearm you can make your own gun but you have to do the federal paperwork and tax stamp why would anybody want untraceable firearms this is an important tool for law enforcement by the way I’m a lifelong member of the NRA
I wouldn’t believe anything that you have to say. For all I know you are pedo Joe’s crackhead pedo son.
Wow, its folks like you that appear here so often and are so sad. – poster ads for the poorly educated in this country, the “pedo” joe shows you are a sick miscreant, typical trump follower and a das\nger to this country!
That’s an inappropriate popoff, Rouge1. So anyone who gives an opinion that you don’t agree with should be personally attacked? Hint: That’s what Democrats do. We believe in Free Speech. No offense.
So see you are a liberal that thinks your opinion is the only one that matter, guess what eat crap!!!
It’s sad how losers like you get your entertainment from being trolls. What a pathetic life you must have. The irony is the opinion of people like you means nothing on a gun site like this.. move along back to huff post where they love your type. Just as mother uneducated Biden sheep
Read up on the history of our country shill. Homemade weapons illegal? Where you from, China?
What? I think you are on the wrong site. Why would you WANT traceable firearms? Oh, that’s right so the gov. can confiscate. What are you a troll or moron? Or both?
I’m not sure if this is a troll post or not.
You have ALWAYS been legally allowed to make your own firearm since the birth of this nation. The NFA restricts manufacturing an automatic weapon, or SBR’s, or silencers. The law also restricts manufacturing firearms for resale without a license.
This new law is trying to draw a line where a manufacturer can make it easier for a citizen to make their own gun.
Is the line at 80%? can a manufacturer send you 80% of a firearm and you build the rest? Where is teh appropriate line in your mind. Draw it on this list.
1. Owning land that can produce steel
2. Owning a mine to obtain that steel
3. Owning the equipment to refine steel into rods, blocks, or other forms of raw material
4. Owning the raw material itself in blocks or pellets of petroleum (to be used in a 3D printer)
5. Owning the raw material and any type of basic tools like drills files and/or a 3d printer or CNC machine
6. Owning the raw material in a size and shape that reduces some of the work/time to create an end product
7. Owning the raw material with SPECIFIC tools to reduce the work to create an end product (like a small jig for a lower receiver)
8. Owning the raw material with 80% of the work done.
9. Owning the raw material with 100% of the work done. Never been illegal if you did the work yourself, but this law changes that.
This administration wants to roll back the legalities to step 6 or 5, so if you own a CNC machine, or a drill press and you purchase a block of aluminum you may be in possession of a firearm.
So which item is illegal to purchase? the blocks of aluminum or steel, or the tools to work on it, or the jigs/software required to complete it into a firearm? or some combination? The ATF is going to determine that likely on a case-by-case basis.
It’s a big step in the death of the 2nd amendment using the death by 1000 cuts method.
and FYI, MOST firearms outside of television shows are “untraceable”. The only records are from the manufacturer to the first retail purchaser. After that, any gun sold on the used market is not traceable even in states with “universal background checks” The only places that a gun can be traced are in the very few states with mandatory registration laws.
Certainly any stolen gun is not traceable.
for example…
I purchase a gun new from a dealer, I use it for four or five years, then I advertise it for sale and find a buyer, we meet at a local gun store to do the required background check under the “universal background check laws” we have now in the blue state of Colorado. That gun shows up at a crime scene next year. The police can track the new gun to the store where I bought it, then find me. Unfortunately, I have no idea what that guy’s name was to whom I sold the weapon (I am not required to keep a record), it was a cash sale, and I can’t remember which gun store we met at to do the required background check, but I know I did it legally and he passed so I transferred him the weapon. I also can’t remember when it happened. I have committed no crime and I will not give consent for them to search my records. The gun is untraceable.
Now think about almost every state in the country and every gun show or classified ad. This whole “but ghost guns are untraceable” is a red herring, because nearly every gun becomes untraceable once it is sold to the second owner or stolen. Don’t believe what you see on TV.
Allow me to spit into the wind here for a moment.
Pro-2nd groups are wasting their money, or should I say your money? The fact of the matter is that if “We the People” followed the Constitution, (Article I, § 8, Cl. 15), there would be no ATF, and in fact, most of the people in congress would be serving jail terms instead of destroying the nation.
The Constitution was written in the fashion it was to prevent the courts from interpreting away the power of the People, and to recognize a source of power that could not be overcome by state actors. As Mao said, “All political power is derived from the barrel of a gun.” This is why the original Constitution recognizes Militia as the authority “to execute the Laws of the Union”, and the statutes define the form and function of the body of the People acting with that authority. (Note; the Michigan militia and others are not militia as defined in our laws, nor is the National Guard.)
We must educate ourselves on the subject. We must re-establish the authority instituted from the outset, and then retake the Grand Jury so that we can prosecute all these tyrants running around making law, rules, and regulations that are in direct conflict to the Constitution.
The ATF acts treasonably as described by Justice John Marshall long before any of us were born.
When was the last time ATF busted an illegal still or arrested a Tobacco smuggler? They need to change to FAT.
Correct. The ATF should be dismantled and everyone on their payroll jailed. Everyone.
Griping here does nothing, griping to your representative at state and federal levels possible does nothing either, but it does more than griping here. Just remember, every time you see a car with a “Proud to be a Democrat’ sticker on it, you are looking at the enemy of everything the Constitution stands for, and would turn you into the feds the first chance they got for some law infraction just like the Germans did to their neighbors that happened to be Jewish.
They’re really doing a disservice to the rule of law.
If ATF has no respect for a law that limits them from creating a registry, why should we care what they think is or is not a firearm?
So, now the company will just sell you the 80% receiver separately from the jig/template package in order to be “legal”…or set up a separate DBA to sell the machinery. WOW, that’ll really accomplish something🥺
The ATF doesn’t make laws. Congress makes laws.
Draconian laws prohibiting law abiding gun owner from having guns is an admission that criminals have the upper hand in thr justice system…. the ATF is the little guy behind the curtin in the Wizard of Oz…they have neither the resources or the people to enforce the stupid new rules….try coming down South and enforcing…..
SO!! The ILLEGALLY made BUREAUCRACY of the ATF is attempting, AGAIN, to make or change a RULE which is now “enforced” as a law, under the color of law, —- ILLEGALLY!
LEGALLY, CONGRESS —- IS —- the only body in OUR AMERICAN GOVERNMENT that can make or change laws!!
OH YES! The ATF Bureaucracy was ILLEGALLY formed by a “director” at the IRS bureaucracy. The ATF bureaucracy was initially set up as a TAXATION bureaucracy to TAX machineguns and silencers. CONGRESS —- NEVER FORMALLY AUTHORIZED —- the formation of the ATF. CONGRESS is allowing this FRAUDULANT bureau to act “UNDER THE COLOR OF LAW”!
The UNLAWFULLY INSTALLED AFT(Biden) MUST be ENTIRELY DISBANDED and REMOVED from OUR AMERICAN GOVERNMENT!
The ATF was established by an act of Congress under administrative law, which had withstood the Constitutional litmus test. The ATF has been delegated authority in making some gun laws. Reigning in rogue agencies is critical to protecting our liberty.
So as a Plumbing & Mechanical Contractor, are they coming for my Pipe Records next? All jokes aside, this current POTUS has got to be the absolute worst, his minions are out to destroy the white middle class with these “rule changes” that are not passed into a law by any elected official, except what they can get sleepy joe to say out loud, and I have my doubts now about him being actually elected, with the “mail in ballot” fiasco.
Yep. Once they get rid of the guns, knives longer than 5 inches will be next. Swords will require special permitting as will tomahawks, axes, etc. The Dems are the enemy of the State. And the greatest threat to our Union is the current administration and their supportive elites, not the white nationalists.
Why are my posts subjected to moderation ? Does anyone else go thru a twitter like screening on their posts ?
Should one possess a drilling jig or template AND an un drilled frame, flat or forging would that constitute constructive posession of a firearm ?
Could CNC G code be considered a “template” under the scenario above ?
I can see where the communists are going in their quest to ban personally made firearms and soon the possession of unfinished frames, flats, forgings will be illegal if a CNC machine and G code for processing those materials is possessed by the same individual.
And what will become of mil surplus gun parts kits containing torch cut recievers ?
functioning firearm component? wouldn’t that include the stock, trigger, mag ect.? to seal the breach you would need an upper or the parts to do that? Now to reduce confusion wouldn’t you need a registry to know who has a ghost gun or not? I see this being loop holed for all it’s worth!