Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
by: James Stoker
Bondi v VanDerStok
Many of us in the gun world read the Supreme Court’s ruling on Bondi v VanDerStok with dread. Some saw it as no big deal and some saw it as the end of all things good. The truth of it is, reality is somewhere in the middle. And that middle is a massive span of gray area that will have to be determined as we go. I tend to lean toward it’s a terrible decision for gun owners and private manufacturers, but it could have gone worse, as well.
The concern is the Supreme Court has just allowed the ATF to change the definition of the word “receiver” without legislative authority to do so. That’s not exactly what happened, and we have to be careful we don’t read too deeply into this issue. What DID happen that is not good is they’ve determined that the 80% kits are close enough to being finished and simple enough to complete that they are to be regulated as firearms. The majority opinion here is that the degree of completeness is the issue, and that leaves us the question of… where exactly is that line?
Good news is that the Supreme Court mildly addressed the possibility of the ATF then shifting the burden of completeness to AR-15 receivers. The government stated in the case that they do not consider AR-15 receivers as machinegun receivers under any interpretation of the definition, and the Supreme Court touched upon it by saying they do not believe the ATF has the authority to regulate them as such. Not a concrete opposition, but it’s a statement apparently meant to reinforce for the ATF that it is discouraged.
As for where the line is, there is no way to know until particular manufacturers take their product to the courts. Right now, they just decided that the ATF has the right to regulate SOME parts kits, depending on how close they are to finished and how simple they are to complete. How close is too close is up in the air. Suffice to say Polymer80’s kits and the like are done for without an FFL transfer. But now we wait and see what entrepreneur out there develops something new that’s not close enough to be regulated, but close enough that people still want to use them to manufacture their private arms.
We’ll keep tabs on this as time passes and new product lines come out. Hopefully, somebody will step up to fill the gap and keep the home manufacturing business growing. The 3D-print game just got a popularity boost, and you know that’s what the anti-gun leaders will be targeting next.
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