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Since nobody have done it yet:

Good morning comrades.

Yesterday, there was a bit of a struggle session regarding gun manufacturing, and I have a few minutes this morning, so let's talk about it.

I'm not a lawyer, and despite this matter being a legal topic, this isn't legal advice. This is experienced layman's "don't get your dogs shot" advice.

You need to be aware, the 4 main pieces of legislation in the United States regarding guns are The National Firearms Act (1934), The Gun Control Act (1968), The Firearm Owners Protection Act (misnomer would be an understatement, 1986), and the Assault Weapons Ban (AWB for short, 1994, no longer active).

Enforcement of these regulations falls to the BATFE, also known as the ATF. This stands for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. If I have to tell you what ATF stands for, stop looking into guns.

Hey EtherealHire, how come the FBI deals with everything else re:federal crime, and even sometimes overlaps?

Wow, good question, hypothetical straw-comrade.

Well, for a while, ATF was part of the FBI, in fact, but their founding rests on another set of important pieces of legislation, those being the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act. Feel free to take a wiki trip at any point and come back.

Right, so Eliot Ness (oooh, maybe I have your attention now?)... I'll back up. Understand, the only connection that the things the ATF has purview over tie into Prohibition (18/Volstead) and organized crime (bootleggers, Capone, yadda yadda. You definitely know that name, come on). This is why they were founded, and color me shocked, Prohibition ended in Dec 1933, NFA comes out 1934, and harassment of perfectly upstanding citizens like poor old Alphonse continues. The ATF was many things during this period, units within the Treasury Dept, a unit within the FBI, a standalone task force, its own agency, all at various stages in its coalescence into its IRS predecessor to the dept today, which was officially founded in 1972.

So this was a mafia task force agency, and a Prohibition task force agency. If you know anything about US history, it's that you don't fuck with the IRS, you do not fuck with federal firearms law, you absolutely do not fuck with alcohol federal regulations, and you 100% definitely never, ever fuck with the ATF. Ask Vernon Howell.

Right, so not fucking with the ATF, got it. How do I not fuck with the ATF, Ethereal?

Well, you see comrade Straw, you don't engage in stupid shit like certain other subs joke about but don't actually do because they're frequently idiots but they're not that dumb.

Fun games such as: illegal modification of firearms into machine guns, or constructive intent to create an illegal machine gun.

Yes, comrades, you can have a machine gun, if it was manufactured before 1986, or in other edge cases. Go buy a registered auto sear or M16 lower, slap it in your pistol AR build with your full auto Gucci Geissele trigger, go apeshit shouldering the brace. Fuck it, use a stock, stamp SBR (edit: unnecessary), get a suppressor stamp, get a DD stamp and put a grenade launcher on there with real explodey rounds, and you've got boog bingo. Better get in it .300 Blackout or you're a fucking casual. Anyway.

The fabled "third hole" is the hole for the pin that mounts the auto sear. Drill that, you've fucked with the ATF. Don't fuck with the ATF.

Auto sear. Piece of metal shaped like one. Don't own it. Own it, you've fucked with the ATF. Do not fuck with the ATF.

Gun manufacturing, gun dealing, gun modification, gunsmithing.

This is where a lot of people get fucked up. You see, the ATF also tends to self-litigate the meaning of various regulations, which is of course not a fucking problem at all. They've reviewed themselves as federal law enforcement, and found that they are in fact fair and impartial, no need to involve anyone else. Right. No, fuck you, they're the ATF. Are you fucking with the ATF right now?

You are allowed to backyard or garage build a gun. All the guns. Not anything that violates regs, mind you, no machine guns or short barreled shotguns or what have you, none of that, but in general, guns. AR, bolt action rifle, semi auto pistol, whatever. You're good, generally speaking.

When are you not good?

When you engage in gun manufacturing. This is such a fragile line that FFL 01's and 02's fuck it up with alarming frequency. They fuck with the ATF. Even worse, they had a license. You especially do not fuck with the ATF when the ATF has granted you a Federal Firearms License. This is what is called very bad.

Now, in order to engage in the business of gun manufacture, that is making and selling guns and ammo (other than destructive devices and what FOPA defines as armor piercing ammunition), you need a Type 07 FFL. To work with NFA-restricted items such as suppressors, SBS, SBR, etc, you need to add a Class II [Edit: originally read Class III; incorrect, thanks to a comrade for correction] Special Occupation Tax stamp to your license. This is referred to as a Type 07 Class II, usually. Type 07 FFL, Class II SOT. They can deal in, make, sell, modify, whatever, anything with very little exception. They can make fully automatic prototype machine guns, and use them. For demo and test purposes, of course. Can they convincingly prove that? If not, they fucked with the ATF. Do. Not. Fuck. With. The. ATF. When. You. Have. A. Machine. Gun. And. All. Those. Licenses.

So yes, they can take a chunk of metal, turn it into a gun, and sell it to you, if they follow the rules.

But what about 3D printed Glocks and ghost guns and 80% lowers?

Wow, comrade Straw, the astute observer with impeccable timing, you've done it again. It's like you knew.

Yes, you can do that. You can build an 80%, you can print a Glock (frame, you don't actually print a Glock. Mags, some other parts, but not the actual gun).

Here's the catch. In 2015, the ATF said "hey, you can build this shit, sure. But anyone provides the means for you to build this shit, they're engaging in gun manufacturing." This means a company can sell you the tools and the paperweight.

That paperweight is the 80% receiver. You see, regulations define the regulated part of the gun itself to be the frame or receiver, ie without that nothing else works really. You make a receiver without doing regulatory recordkeeping and having a license, it better be yours for personal use, and you better use your own tools. Sell one, you better follow the fucking rules, and you sure as shit best not have made it. Technically, that's allowed, if your intent was personal use and you transfer it through a licensee using the proper channels, etc, but you're going to be investigated for unlicensed gun manufacturer for fucking sure. Constructive intent.

So what does 80% mean? It means approximately 80% finished. It's a proof of concept middle finger to federal regulations. Manufacturers looked the ATF dead in the eyes and played chicken. "If I sell this, would you say that's a violation?" Yes, yes they would. "How about this?" Yes. And so on, until they finally said "fine, that one, the one with no firing control group cuts whatsoever and no holes to mount the firing control group drilled. I guess that one would be considered a paperweight and not a firearm."

That's how it happened. Rapid prototyping and adjudication reviews until they could say "haha I'm not touching you!" to the NFA/GCA/FOPA.

So anyone, licensed or not, can sell an 80% receiver, a jig (the assembly that makes it easier to machine the rest of the receiver), a trim router, and endmills and drill bits. Totally A-OK.

What's not okay is renting, or constructively renting, any of those things to you for the purpose of finishing the build.

So a machine shop cannot let you use their equipment, your buddy can't loan you his jig, you can't do some passthrough coop where you send jigs/bits/anything else to each other and just build 80's.

This is what's called illegal gun manufacturing, and with a coop doing that as a group, that's organized crime. You got an 80% receiver, but you are 100% fucked.

Back in the heyday of the Wild West of CNC and 80% receivers, people had build parties. You'd come by the shop with your 80, the machine shop would show you how to mount it into the Tormach or whatever they had, you'd push the button, they didn't do the manufacturing, you did, just using their space.

The ATF didn't like this, hence the 2015 ruling. So don't do that.

But how would they know? They'd have to prove it!

Well done as always, Straw. You're promoted to E4. Enjoy the mafia.

Well, you see comrade, you buy 80% receivers, yeah? Cool. With what. Your credit card? Online? And you had it shipped to your house? Your PO box under your name?

Anything else with USPS is mail fraud. Use your CC and ship to a fake alias, identity theft. Ain't that a bitch? ATF leans on the supplier or the card company or the carrier, you're done. They know you got one. They have a pretty solid idea that you didn't make it a paperweight. Don't be fucking stupid, you're not clever.

The tragic boating accident.

This is a meme. It refers to the ATF seizing your guns and caching all or some of them away by claiming they went overboard in a tragic boating accident. In case you're a fucking idiot, I'll explain why that is a bad fucking idea.

Firstly, I was a rigger. Reread that please, it starts with an r. This means I worked on sailing vessels, mostly while they were moored or docked, sometimes dry docked, and very occasionally (usually racing) while underway. Yes, comrade, I raced yachts, because riggers are highly sought after crew members for racing yachts. Don't worry, I knew I was the help at all times, bow and sewer rat are not illustrious positions.

What this means is that I've had my share of tragic boating accidents involving metal tools. I'm also not the first dumb motherfucker to lose his hacksaw overboard in the marina.

Guess what? They make drag ma