GOA and other pro-2A groups are suing the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives.
Honest citizens should enjoy the right to assemble their own firearms for lawful purposes, and they should be able to do so without being terrorized by their government.” — GOA’s Erich Pratt, AmmoLand, December 11, 2020.
For years, Polymer80 has been producing “80% complete” lower receivers which the ATF determined to be incomplete and non-regulatable by the ATF as firearms. These receivers require holes to be drilled and surfaces filed before they become an actual, usable receiver, hence the term 80% receiver.
You might have heard an anti-gunner refer to a completed homemade firearm as a “ghost gun” before.
According to the ATF in numerous letters to Polymer80, their 80% receivers did not require a manufacturer’s license, the unconstitutional Pittman-Robertson tax, a serial number, or a NICS check before purchase.
Anti-gunners have been advocating for a ban on homemade firearms for years, even recently appealing to the Trump Administration.
Once again, the ATF appears to be reversing its longstanding interpretive guidance and is arbitrarily redefining a crucial term to enact a gun ban.
The ATF did raid or show up at other companies that sell other kits that include 80% part kits, barrels, and slides that are not Polymer80. AmmoLand News sources inside the ATF say that the agency is now considering 80% kits with all the parts needed to finish a pistol as a firearm. None of the companies had any warning on the change to ATF’s regulations before actual agents showed up making attempts to retrieve customer information.
Apparently, the ATF now considers an 80% lower receiver sold with a parts kit — such as the one offered by Polymer80 as a Buy Build Shoot Kit — to be a firearm requiring a background check. .
But the statute defining a firearm hasn’t changed.
ATF Leadership 2020 Acting Director Regina Lombardo & Associate Deputy Director Marvin Richardson
What did change?
ATF is arbitrarily redefining firearms using interpretive guidance. Acting Director of the ATF Regina Lombardo must feel emboldened by the apparent victory of presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Her reported priorities? Pistol braces and 80% receivers.
But this is more than cooperating with a transition team. Lombardo has begun advancing the Biden-Harris gun control agenda during the Trump Administration!
Aidan Johnston Director of Federal Affairs Gun Owners of America
About Gun Owners of America
GOA spokespeople are available for interviews. Gun Owners of America, and its sister organization Gun Owners Foundation, are nonprofits dedicated to protecting the right to keep and bear arms without compromise. For more information, visit GOA at www.gunowners.org.
