While the surge in firearm sales from federally licensed dealers has received nationwide attention, at least 16 companies that sell ghost gun kits have reported order backlogs and shipping delays due to overwhelming demand. The uptick in sales of ghost gun kits and parts have received substantially less notice, even though the increase in sales of ghost guns poses a direct threat to public safety and law enforcement… Because the proliferation of ghost guns is a serious problem, we write to request…information and documentation to probe how the ATF is monitoring, overseeing, and regulating the sale of ghost gun kits and unfinished frames and receivers, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Group of Democrats
April 2020
Congressional Democrats seek answers from ATF on efforts to track “ghost guns”
[<snort!>
The last time I checked the ATF didn’t have the authority to do any such thing. Furthermore people engaging in legal behavior should not be monitored, overseen, and regulated. They should, and currently are, for the most part, left alone. As they should be. That a “Group of Democrats” expects a government agency to engage in such behaviors tells you all you need to know about that group. They should be forever barred from public office, government jobs, and any government pension.
I also recommend law enforcement investigate to see if an 18 USC 242 case could be pursued. People like this need to be made into examples to discourage others from going down the same path.—Joe]
I read this a few weeks ago and was amazed at the ignorance the law makers exhibited in writing this letter.
Dear Mr Overseer,
Please track all sales of 6061T6 and 7075T6 of stock sizes larger than 1.5 by 2.5 by 6 inches. Also, please track all the sales of springs, 4041 and …
Because of this I actually looked up what the base requirements would be. And no matter what they define as a “firearm” there is always something that comes before.
You don’t like the fact that an 80% can be sold so you tell the ATF to make 80% “firearms” so now they make a 70% and you have to cut the bolt catch hold open. Or you have to drill the magazine release hole. There is always one less thing that can be done until you are back at the stock material.
In the case of the AR, there are just too many people with CNC machines that can mount up a piece of aluminum and end up with a lower receiver.
You can’t put that cat back in the bag.
As for the cad files being out there, the entire M4A1 technical package has been released after it was gotten via a FOIA request, and that is just TIFF images of blueprints. The cat is out. There is no putting it back
Yep. One of the first things I played with when I got my cnc was a cad file for a lower receiver. There are challenges, but it is quite doable.
I’ve built several lowers from a 0% forging, just using my manual vertical mill and the prints. The forging makes for a nice exterior appearance, but I could as easily have made it from a block of aluminum. I also engraved the sides with “Ghost Gun – multi-caliber pistol” and anodized them with a home-built setup.
As you say, the cat’s been released.
Now, since the City of Baltimore has decided to mass-monitor every living soul in the city once they step outside their home, why not just apply that level of Skynet scrutiny nationwide? Heck, why not have a drone follow me from Online Metals back to my house, inside my shop, and watch me set up the mill? It’s hardly an invasion of privacy when my mill presents such an obvious threat to humanity.
Oh – machining a new fishing rod holder for my e-bike? Never mind….
They’ll have to stop all sales of aluminum soda cans, too.
Youtube pulled all that fellow’s original videos about how to make the furnace to melt down the cans and make a solid aluminum block, so he reposted them on non-Communist streaming sites and put the links in his Youtube video description.
Interestingly, then next Youtube recommended video is about how to make an AR-15 receiver from brass. Gosh, wonder where I might have a supply of brass. *peer at that pile of .308 casing I’ve been collecting forever in case I ever start reloading*
If those wankers ever try to ban small spring, screws, pins, etc, Brownells will become a toymaker company making little robot plastic robot toys called Arflowa Protector Kombatrobot and Arfuppa Protector Kombatrobot that are coincidentally very easy to disassemble and get all these springs, pins, plugs, pins, etc.
Please do not use a casting to make lower. Having made more than a few castings from good aluminium and had them break because castings are not as strong as extruded or forged
I was turning a boss on attached to a 3/8 flat, cut a little deep and snapped it right off. 4 hours of work gone in a second. (Ramming up the mold, prep and melt, pour, clean up, 4 or five operations before turning and ping and a piece leaving the lathe at speed.)
The wise will learn from the experience of others.
Supposing I started from a pile of aluminum cans, melted them, and got a cast square–sh block of aluminum. By what reasonable process could someone without heavy industrial tools work that into a forged billet? Blacksmiths of ages gone by got by adequately with wood fire and muscle powered hammers.
Not the guy you asked, but a press might work. You’d have to keep heating the aluminum (which is basically a liquid when it’s red hot) and applying it in the press.
Honestly though, I don’t know if it’d really work. Sounds sketchy using cans with all their impurities. A lot of shops/metal shippers will sell drops for fairly cheap, which is where I’d go. (Fyi, a drop is a leftover from material that’s been cut that’s not viable for the job in question)
Aluminum cans are a poor choice. The metal is so thin that by the time you get it melted, its oxidized to uselessness. Better off with something like a bigger casting (eyes block from blown Briggs and Stratton chipper engine…)
Actually I’m hoping the idiots do ban pins, springs and cotter pins. We could use these laws to arrest thee idiot lawmakers, the spouses and children.
One can always use a wax carving dipped in liquid ceramic to made a mold. That’s how Ruger makes all of it’s receivers. Then they finish machining with CNC. Lot less tool wear.
Google 0 percent lower.
80percentarms sells them for $28.99.
8″ X 4.5″ X 1.5″ 6061-T6 Aluminum billet.
Group of Democrats shall be renamed a Cabal of Karens.
If only I had realized that a gun with the manufacturer named stamped on it cannot be used for crime.
Exactly! The other question for them is. Once you catch it, what you going to do with it?
I ain’t afraid o’ no ghost
“I also recommend law enforcement investigate to see if an 18 USC 242 case could be pursued.”
Point of order: Sec. 242 is for the actual ACT; the previous Section, 241, is for the CONSPIRACY to commit said act (which ironically enough carries a stiffer penalty!). Since the primary bit of evidence for said conspiracy is a a formal letter, SIGNED BY MULTIPLE INDIVIDUALS NO LESS, my thinking is a case for violating Sec. 241 would be much easier to establish
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/241
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242
For what it’s worth, WA state passed 2555 ( http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2019-20/Pdf/Bills/House%20Passed%20Legislature/2555-S.PL.pdf?q=20200501125802 ) to regulate / background check the category of “other” (wording looks like it’s officially aimed at stripped but complete receivers, but I’m not enough of a legalese reader that I can confirm it won’t be used for 80% lowers or other parts. I saw a “legislative update” flyer from my rep bragging about how he supported it as tracking the sale of “gun parts.” Yeah, like that’s going to fly.
Well, Rolf, from reading that drivel, what it does is require what the Fedz already do; A BG check for a receiver since that bill specifically states that definition of a receiver/frame
is what the Fedz use and the Fedz do not define and do not regulate a “80%” piece of metal as a receiver.
Idjits gotta idjit, I guess.
Which reanimates that issue of an AR lower not accepting the barrel and not containing the bolt or breechblock, yet being the serialized part.
That is _not_ all that it does:
When processing an application for the purchase or transfer of a firearm frame or receiver, a dealer shall comply with the application, record keeping, and other requirements of this chapter that apply to the sale or transfer of a pistol.
One of the “record keeping” requirements is a registry of all pistol sales that are processed by an FFL dealer. The registry is maintained by the government (State or County — not sure which.) Prior to “mandatory” background checks this only captured sales of pistols and only those made by a dealer but now (nominally) captures all transfers — including rifle receivers.