Legality of a Removeable Rifle Stock on a Pistol?

[gyvel]

You are confused. See Revenue Ruling 61-203 for the explanation on carbine kits for pistols.

I've read that ruling before and understand it. However, given what some of the posters in this thread have opined, just the opposite seems to be the case.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

forget my specific case & simply answer my underlying question

I don't have a per question rate. Would you like my hourly rate for people on the Internet who I don't know from Adam or should we discuss a flat fee?

As far as ATF, in my experience, the people who handle the day to day business of ATF are often not as familiar with firearms laws as they would be in an ideal situation. Since many of the questions they are asked to opine on confuse even lawyers and there is no overall principle of logic guiding most gun control laws, you can and do get different answers depending on who you ask.

This is why it is important to get those answers in writing. Frankly, I estimate your chances of getting the letter from ATF you described in your posts as only slightly above my chances of being Emperor of the world before the day is out (in fact without the first happening, I wouldn't count on your letter).

[Willie Lowman]

I've read that ruling before and understand it. However, given what some of the posters in this thread have opined, just the opposite seems to be the case.

Trust what you have seen in writing from the ATF. They are the ones that will ruin your life for not doing as per their whim.

All opinions on the internet are to be

considered & also dismissed as "SILLY".

[prestigegunleather]

HKmp5sd;all,

the "shoestring decision" is not a bit more stupid than the city attorney of Washington, DC deciding that a double-barreled 16 guage shotgun that "doubled" (as a result of a wornout trigger mechanism) was "constructively a machinegun".
(one wonders what the "effective cyclic rate" of a two-shot, manually loaded, MG is???)

fwiw, i was stationed at the Pentagon at that time (working for the National Guard Bureau) & the laughter directed at the city attorney's office was deafening. as a result of the continuing/mounting ridicule (including in the local newspaper editorial pages) directed at the whole city government, the city "quietly" dropped the case & returned "the machinegun" to the owner for repair.

note to all: currently, ordinary semi-automatic .22 rifles ARE classed as machineguns by the DC government because such weapons "could be remanufactured to become machine weapons".
(may i point out that a Honda Civic could be "remanufactured" into a dumptruck with enough parts/money/labor?)


yours, PG

[prestigegunleather]

Bartholomew Roberts,

sorry, counselor, "i ain't buying any".

btw, it's "non answers" like yours that remind me WHY i keep Fred T______________ "on retainer" for the various family businesses:
1. he gives answers to questions in "plain English" that we can use for making business plans/decisions,
2. he answers the question that we asked, rather than some other question
AND
3. if he has no knowledge of the subject (like solving some of my aged mother's complex tax problems) and/or no experience to rely on, he openly says that we need a different sort of lawyer & (at least) can usually tell us who we ought to contact for that sort of work/information.

yours, PG

[Willie Lowman]

I had heard about the SxS "machinegun." It is good to know nothing ever came of that.

{thread drift!} I was talking to a man who built his own Gatling gun. He said that the ATF advised him that if he attached a drill motor to the gun where the crank should be he would have crated a post-sample machinegun. I wonder if any 07/02 has ever registered a drill for these purposes? Any post-sample shoestrings out there? {end thread drift, we now return you to your regularly scheduled bickering and brow beating}

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Yes, I am a lawyer; but not YOUR lawyer. When you show up at the office with money in hand you tend to get more satisfactory answers than you do when asking for free legal opinions over the Internet.

Free legal advice is almost always worth less than you paid for it for a reason.

[TRguy]

I think this is on the NC Dept of Wildlife Website....hummmmm

Rule for Hunting Attorneys

North Carolina

1. Any person with a valid North Carolina State hunting license may harvest attorneys.

2. Taking of attorneys with traps or deadfalls is permitted. The use of currency as bait is prohibited.

3. Killing of attorneys with a vehicle is prohibited. If accidentally struck, remove dead attorney to roadside and proceed to nearest car wash.

4. It is unlawful to chase, herd, or harvest attorneys from a snow machine, helicopter, or aircraft.

5. It shall be unlawful to shout "whiplash", "ambulance", or "free Perrier" for the purpose of trapping attorneys.

6. It shall be unlawful to hunt attorneys within 100 yards of BMW dealerships.

7. It shall be unlawful to use cocaine, young boys, $100 bills, prostitutes, or vehicle accidents to attract attorneys.

8. It shall be unlawful to hunt attorneys within 200 yards of courtrooms, law libraries, health spas, gay bars, ambulances, or hospitals.

9. If an attorney is elected to government office, it shall be a felony to hunt, trap, or possess it.

10. Stuffed or mounted attorneys must have a state health department inspection for AIDS, rabies, and vermin.

11. It shall be illegal for a hunter to disguise himself as a reporter, drug dealer, pimp, female legal clerk, sheep, accident victim, bookie, or tax accountant for the purpose of hunting attorneys.

BAG LIMITS

1. Yellow Bellied Sidewinder 2
2. Two-faced Tort Feasor 3
3. Back-stabbing Divorce Litigator 5
4. Big-mouthed Pub Gut 2
5. Honest Attorney EXTINCT
6. Cut-throat 2
7. Back-stabbing Whiner 2
8. Brown-nosed Judge Kisser 2
9. Silver-tongued Drug Defender $100 bounty

[Hkmp5sd]

note to all: currently, ordinary semi-automatic .22 rifles ARE classed as machineguns by the DC government because such weapons "could be remanufactured to become machine weapons".

Someone, I can't recall the name, it may have been John Browning, turned a lever action rifle into a machinegun by putting a flapper just under the muzzle to catch some of the muzzle blast and linking it back to cycle the action.

I guess DC also classifies a bag of fertilizer as a bomb.

[prestigegunleather]

HKmp5sd,

YEP. i knew that someone did that.

during WWI, "the Pederson pistol" changed a '03 Springfield to a semi-auto, to be used as a "trench broom". - that "device" could have easily been made into a machine weapon.

also, in the early days of WWII, an Australian figured out how to convert a MKIII SMLE .303 British bolt-action rifle to a MG. the "re-inventor" also came up with a 20 round magazine to replace the 10 round SMLE mag.
(i'm told by an "old soldier" from that period, who had service in AUS/NZ/CBI, that it worked "fairly well, but it was clumsy & had significant recoil".)

and finally, the French converted a relative few 1907 Winchester carbines in .351WSL to full-auto during WWI.
(i'm told that those were "a flop".)

the truth is that MOST pistols/carbines/rifles can be made to function as a MG to some degree of success, with enough time/labor/money.

otoh, it is so easy to make a submachine gun from scratch that it seems silly to convert something else to full-auto. for example, the Irgun in 1946 Palestine made "homebrew copies" of the STEN for less than 5.oo each, which worked well.

yours, Otter

[PTK]

the truth is that MOST pistols/carbines/rifles can be made to function as a MG to some degree of success, with enough time/labor/money.

otoh, it is so easy to make a submachine gun from scratch that it seems silly to convert something else to full-auto. for example, the Irgun in 1946 Palestine made "homebrew copies" of the STEN for less than 5.oo each, which worked well.

Absolutely, 100% true.

[prestigegunleather]

PTK,

they don't have to worry about me buying up the "registerable MGs" however, as i spent a great deal of time as a MRO for the ARNG & as a scout leader for the 72d Heavy IN Bde, TXARNG. i got my fill of shooting machine weapons with the M-14E3, grease guns, M1A1 TSG, M-60 & especially "Ma Deuce" , in those long ago days.

the ONLY machine weapons that i truly crave is/are a SA War-vintage Maxim and/or a Colt's "Tater Digger" & i was told in a PM (by a senior forum member) that those are essentially unobtainable.:
(fwiw, i wrote my first thesis on military opns of the Boxer Rebellion.)

a .30-40US gatling of the SA would be FUN too, if one of those was available at a price that i could afford.

yours, PG

[prestigegunleather]

PTK,

fwiw, i was told by one of our "allied officers" (Zaire) during the IOAC in '74 that his army was STILL "homebrewing" STENs in both 9mm parabellum & in .45ACP.

Stephen said that their cheap SMGs worked JUST FINE, thank you very much.
(they were made out of muffler pipe, sheet metal & "surplus barrels, obtained at scrap metal prices".)

yours, PG

[PTK]

I know where to get a Colt transferrable MG, the old "potato digger", as well as various flavors of OLD Maxims, the "newest" being an Mg/08. PM me if you want me to pass the info along, though they're VERY expensive indeed.

[prestigegunleather]

PTK,

i failed to tell you to whom the "homebrew" STENs were issued in Zaire.= "La Garde Civile", i.e., the local defense militia of the national/provincial armies.

Stephen said that the "STEN clones" were "quite well liked" by those who carried them.
(like most educated African officers, Stephen was "more British than the British" - fyi, Zaire/Democratic Republic of the Congo (the former Belgian Congo) has "adopted" many of the forms/rituals/traditions of the British forces. = for example, the Belgians & the Zaire paratroopers use ENGLISH for "jump commands" & have done so since the Brits trained the Belgians during WWII.)

fyi, the regular army personnel (at least in 1974) who are issued SMGs receive Sterlings (British-made).

yours, PG

[freakshow10mm]

Someone on THR wrote into the ATF FTB in May and just received a response.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=477943

I'm looking to start building and selling AR15 rifle/pistol kits. you can swap it out as much as you want.

[gyvel]

Someone on THR wrote into the ATF FTB in May and just received a response.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=477943

This letter answers my original question as well: If you put a 16" barrel onto your 1911, add the slotted mainspring housing and the shoulder stock, you have created a rifle. According to their ruling, you're stuck with it. No going back to pistol configuration. Right?

[freakshow10mm]

Yes.

Put a stock and 16" rifled barrel on a firearm, that's a rifle and will always be a rifle.

Put a shoulder stock on an AR15 lower receiver, it's still a receiver since it has no rifled barrel and is not a rifle.

Dealers who have been putting a shoulder stock on an AR lower and transferring it to 18-20yo have been getting in trouble with the ATF because it's not a rifle or shotgun so you must be 21yo.

[gyvel]

Put a stock and 16" rifled barrel on a firearm that's a rifle and will always be a rifle.

???????????

Did you mean to say: "Put a stock and 16" rifled barrel on a firearm that's a pistol and [it] will always be a rifle?"

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Yes, that is the official ATF answer. Once you convert a pistol to a rifle, it may never be converted back unless it was originally purchased from the manufacturer as a "Multipurpose Firearms Kit" containing all of the relevant components.

Basically, that answer is the result of telling a lawyer somewhere "Interpret the Supreme Court's decision in Thompson Center-Fire in the most narrow fashion possible." Since that case turned on the definition of "making" a firearm, the ATF has decided that once a firearms is "made" (as a pistol or rifle), it is subject to their previous rulings. Because the manufacturer does not "make" a rifle or a pistol in the multipurpose firearms kit, AYF had to let that slide because to do otherwise would go from implicitly denying the Supreme Court to outright thumbing their nose at them.

The next question is will the ATF prosecute someone over this questionable interpretation? From a legal strategy standpoint, I don't think the ATF really wants that case; because it will be tough to look at SCOTUS precedent from Thompson Centerfire and make the argument that it is OK only if it is a "multipurpose firearms kit".

In order to even get to the question, ATF would have to go after someone who wasn't otherwise prohibited from owning firearms - so we are looking at a guy with a fairly clean legal record. Too bad for ATF that Olafson didn't do this - he would be the perfect guy for a case like this if they did want to prosecute (from a long-term strategy perspective). Either that or ATF will limit its prosecution to people who can't afford to fight them in court.

[freakshow10mm]

Did you mean to say: "Put a stock and 16" rifled barrel on a firearm that's a pistol and [it] will always be a rifle?"

The comma didn't type out. I fixed it.

Put a stock and 16" rifled barrel on a firearm, that's a rifle [as in now that's a rifle, ie you just made one] and will always be a rifle.

[gyvel]

Got it Freakshow. Thanks.

I'm still not clear on whether having a 1911 and a shoulder stock, but NO 16" barrel and NO slotted mainspring housing is "constructive whatever."

[freakshow10mm]

There is no constructive possession for federal SBR laws. TC v US addressed that issue. An SBR must be completely assembled in order for it to be a SBR.

[Willie Lowman]

Really, tell that to this guy.

http://blog.princelaw.com/2009/9/1/f...sion-of-an-sbr

[freakshow10mm]

He was convicted under STATE law, not federal law. States can have constructive possession laws and they are legal and upheld. Big difference.