Then the question is who created the files? I’m sure the CNC guy didn’t, especially if he was using pre-milled lowers blanks (which are machined right up to the point that they are considered lowers themselves. LOL) If he used one of the Distributed Defense or other 3d lower files out there, where’s the illegality? With the guy who made the file? The guy who made the 3d software to make the file? The guy who made the compiler to create the 3d software? The guy who made the OS that that compiler runs on? The guy who made the hardware that that OS runs on? The guy that designed the hardware? The guy that made the software that that hardware was designed on? The guy…
… who ignited the big bang? The guy who handed that guy the cosmic match? The guy who made that cosmic match?
Doing all the work and having the customer push a single button doesn’t magically make it so the customer “made” the gun. This is why courts and lawyers literally argue cases and a person, using their brain, makes a decision (or a jury). It didn’t pass the sniff test of those involved (nor most of the people here). This practice of one button pushing has been going on, at least in California, for a while. I’ve heard about it on the ground from gun friendly friends.
In a practical sense (its an impossible legal standard to apply) I’d say that if you don’t have the risk of breaking the tool or other wise using it in the wrong way and failing when you do the job, you aren’t the one using the tool - rather, the tool is running itself at your request, and whoever set the tool up is the one doing the work.
Seems a very easy distinction for even some pretty sophisticated machines. For something like a CNC machine, something as simple as being the person who clamps the part on the work surface (a process that CAN be done incorrectly) might be a determining factor.
There’s also the question of, can;t more than one person be the one making something? If you manually finish a lower and two people co-operate and each drill half the holes / do half the work, who made it? The answer is, the both did. And the law says you can’t do that.
Fine, I get it, but there still is no clearly defined line.
So, the new business is selling your “make a lower” business for a small amount to a interested party, then as an employee, make your “new boss” a lower. At the conclusion, he sells his best employee the business.
Rinse/repeat
Also, are you really laughing like that puppet guy? That gives me a headache.
I think it is if the owner of the equipment 100% knows and is enabling customers to create lowers. If he didn’t know i’d take your argument that he isn’t liable, but he knew exactly what he was doing. Which explains his “loophole” of letting customers press the button
I’m pretty sure having your employee make you a gun is NOT legally the same as making one yourself. That’s pretty much the definition of being a manufactured instead of “self made”.
Right, but if my friend owned a manual mill and I make an AR15 lower on that mill (clamping the metal, setting the collet, turning the cranks, etc)… he didn’t make the AR15 lower, I did. And it wouldn’t matter if he knew I made it or not. The rights and liability of ownership and construction apply to me, not the tool owner.
That in fact is almost literally the situation I am in. I’ve built a motorcycle, not a gun, and in this case the “friend” is an NPO, not an individual, but nobody is going to argue the NPO or any person associated with it built the bike.
What if he just bead blasts it? How bout some light deburring? Sanding? Filing? Weld a ring on? Stamps it with a design? Laser etches it? Polish? Paint? Powder coat?
What if I bring a legally made no-serialized lower to a shop and have them do these things?
What counts as completion? It assembles? It shoots? It’s pretty? Someone flips a coin?
But a bike is not a deadly weapon and the laws around building a vehicle are not the same as building a gun.
An apt analogy is if i own a hardware shop, you come in asking for bomb materials and i provide you everything you need and at the end of the transaction i come up with some loophole to make the transaction look like nothing illegal is happening. Do you think as a shop owner i’ve done nothing wrong? Same thing here with the lower, everything with the machine was set up for the customer by the owner and all they had to do was press a button to make it look kosher
None of those things apply (gunsmiths and other businesses can do them all without gun manufacturing licenses).
Pretty sure the dividing line is where you can assemble a functional gun. Not having made one, I’m not sure exactly where that is. I think for typical 80% AR15 lowers, it means drilling some holes for pivot pins and finish milling a trench for the bolt or some such. It may be that once it can hold a bolt and barrel, you could rig up some way to assemble and shoot it. Its not difficult work, but its something you potentially CAN fuck up. If you remove the posability of fucking it up by automating the process to the point of pushing a button, then I think that’s clear the person who only pushes the button isn’t doing the work. If you let them do enough that they could fuck it up but you provide instruction so they don’t, then I think it could be argued they did the work, because that is pretty much how everything else goes.
Yeah, but the point is, making a gun isn’t building a bomb; there is the important distinction that ITS 100% LEGAL. People absolutely should be allowed to help other people do otherwise legal things by providing equipment and instruction.
Its not necessarily an automatic weapon. And ownership of automatic weapons is pretty restricted. IIRC you need a federal firearms Dealer/Manufacturer license just to start. On top of what your state requires if your state allows it at all. Those licenses are not necessarily super difficult to get. But the paperwork and oversight to maintain them is intense.
Assault rifles are fairly rigidly defined. Its just that most people don’t understand what defines them. Assault rifles are military style weapons. That are semi-automatic, or often select fire. But increasingly not capable of fully automatic fire. Even in military use. They use a medium/intermediate sized round, and have a high rate of fire. With a detachable box magazine. The theory behind the thing is that it allows high rate of accurate fire, in the medium to short range. Because accurately putting multiple less deadly rounds in a target is a more reliable way to kill an enemy than the older one powerful shot at long range theory.
The older definition of assault rifle. With full size to high power rifle rounds, and more often having full auto capabilities to sub in for a light machine gun has been relabeled a battle rifle.
The entire theory behind how these guns are designed is based in military doctrine. That most encounters happen at short to medium range. And how to effectively kill at that range, given current tactics.
The issue is that law makers and the media don’t tend to understand much about guns. So they run off a vaguer definition that focuses on tactical weekend warrior accessories. And describe the guns as being automatic or “high powered” when they are not. Its clear what an Assault weapon is. Its clearly defined by our own military and police. And acknowledged by manufactures in design materials and sales pitches to military and police. Its only in marketing them to the public, and in politics. That is suddenly a vague thing. Or a “modern sporting rifle”, with all the details about what defines it obscured.
I think everyone is missing a big detail with the case. He was also selling the lower receivers. This was not a guy with a machine shop renting time on his CNC machine that already happened to have the programming to finish a receiver blank. He was selling you a receiver. Walking it over to the machine. Loading it with the blank and instructions. And having you push the go button.
I doubt it will set much precedent for auto mills and 3d printing. Its akin to this guy selling you the part, walking it over to his drill press. Which happens to have a skilled employee sitting at it. Then having you turn on the machine so he can claim you technically built it yourself.
The whole AR-15/related lower receiver thing is a weird area. And a bit of a problem in itself. So as I understand this whole manufacture for personal use thing. The only part of the gun that qualifies as a gun for the purposes of home manufacture is the operative part of the gun, as identified by ATF. That is typically the receiver. You can buy every other part of a gun without background checks or licensing. Barrels. Grips. Stocks. And so forth.
That’s a decent enough way to do it, though there are definitely better ones. Since the receiver is the part that’s going to require special skill and tools to build and assemble. Not just any idiot is going to be able to do that for most designs. So its a natural barrier for entry for any idiot off the street just looking to get a cheap/unregistered gun.
Problem with the AR-15 and its family of designs is that there is a 2 part receiver. Upper and lower. With Upper containing most of the operative parts of the gun that allow it to be fired. And soaking up most of the stresses of firing. The lower receiver is essentially a simple metal shell that holds it all together. The upper can’t necessarily function without the lower. But the lower is simple to make. And can be made from lower quality materials, with less precision, and still function just fine.
Unfortunately the feds classify the lower receiver as the part that’s legally a gun. Rather than the receiver in total or the more important/difficult to make upper. So they’ve basically missed the boat on that whole “natural barrier of entry” thing. Which is why you get the loopholes. You can sell a lower receiver that’s 90% complete and it doesn’t qualify as a gun yet. Meaning you don’t actually need all the skills and tools to even build a lower receiver. That final 10% is often a matter of drilling a few holes and some cutting and filing. You could probably finish one of these things with un-powered hand tools in an afternoon. The whole thing could be obviated by making it the full 2 part receiver that needs registration. Or just switching to the upper.
If you are going to build straw men like that, I have to assume you are not interested in real conversation.
I never argued that they guy in the example given did nothing illegal; my argument is the fact the work was done on equipment he owned, is not what makes his actions illegal.
How do they know? Do they check what everybody prints? Are they required to? The customer downloads/creates a PDF of a bill, puts in on a flash drive, pays Kinko’s, and press the go button. There is little to no interaction with a Kinko’s employee.
We’re pretty close to CNC machines and 3D printers being as user friendly as copiers or printers. So what happens when there’s a shop consisting of machining tools that are entirely operated by the customer instead of the owner?
Technically I believe they are required to check. Because that is a practical impossibility, they depend on machines having detection software. If they ACTIVELY turned a blind eye, they would be in trouble. Pretty much the same as, say, not allowing people to browse / print child porn.
Printing a PDF of money (if it worked) would probably be considered an attempt to bypass the detection software. Unless their ignorance amounted to collusion or obstruction, I doubt they would be at fault.
Nah, even if you are white. Cops shoot and kill more whites than blacks by total number (almost double the raw count), its just that relative to general population, they shoot more blacks.
Yeah, that means they shoot a LOT of people, all totaled up, and the vast majority are never even mentioned in the news. Hell, they weren’t even statistically recorded until recently.
Or to put it this way: A mule deer has never called me a “faggot jew” and beat me up.
/In all seriousness: I’m not for a gun ban while rednecks have all the guns. Ban that shit after more libs/progs have guns or take them away from rednecks first.
