This is now. When you’re a federal bureaucrat, consistency doesn’t matter if you want to screw people over.
On September 27, 2022, the ATF issued an open letter explaining the unfinished frame/receiver rule:
As stated in Final Rule 2021-05F and the regulatory text, a partially complete AR-type receiver with no indexing or machining of any kind performed in the area of the fire control cavity is not classified as a “frame or receiver” or “firearm” provided that it is not sold, distributed, or marketed with any associated templates, jigs, molds, equipment, tools, instructions, or guides, such as within a receiver parts kit.
And people rejoiced, because it appeared that the jackbooted thugs might be making intermittent radio contact with reality.
Nope. A mere three months later, we have their new open letter explaining the unfinished frame/receiver rule:
Applying the regulatory text of Final Rule 2021-05F, partially complete Polymer80, Lone Wolf, and similar striker-fired semiautomatic pistol frames, including, but not limited to, those sold within parts kits, have reached a stage of manufacture where they “may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted” to a functional frame. This definition of “readily” applies to each and every classification of a partially complete frame or receiver under this Rule, whether sold alone or as part of a kit. Therefore, even without any associated templates, jigs, molds, equipment, tools, instructions, guides, or marketing materials, these partially complete pistol frames are “frames” and also “firearms” as defined in the GCA and its implementing regulations,
It’s official: inanimate blocks of metal or plastic, still incapable of accepting components that could make them functional firearms — much less capable of actual firing — are magically firearms in the eyes of blithering , bumbling bureaucrats who’ve usurped the power of Congress to legislate.
In light of BRUEN,the lawsuits over this should be alternatingly infuriating and amusing.
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I hope that someone takes the time to machine a series of blocks of aluminum from the beginning stage to the 80% level, and asks the BATFEieio’s to tell them at which point they become a firearm, so they know when they are running afoul of the law.
If they are afraid of arrest, get their congressperson to submit it for them. The BATFE needs an investigation, and I hope that it happens in the next year.