Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
At about 5:00 to 5:30 a.m. back on the 10th of December 2020, the ATF raided the corporate headquarters of Polymer80, located in Dayton, Nevada. Fake-news-media outlet CNN had been notified in advance of the raid.
The ATF was operating on a novel legal theory: the idea that parts, in proximity to 80% receivers, constituted firearms.
According to a very reliable source, two computers were taken, more or less, as some peripherals may have been taken as well. The computers were to be returned on 11th December, once the ATF has taken “images” of the data on the computers.
Virtually no product was taken. The Agents were looking for Buy Build Shoot (BBS) kits. None were found because none were in stock.
The ATF then contacted Brownells.com. Brownells does not sell BBS kits, so none were found at Brownells.
My source says ATF agents then went to a Polymer80 employee’s residence in another state, and without a warrant, bullied their way inside and took a BDS kit the employee had.
The ATF legal theory, that parts in proximity to an 80% receiver, constitute a firearm, is new legal ground. The fact no product was taken, and no cease and desist order was issued, may indicate the ATF is on very shaky legal ground.
As AmmoLand News investigative reporter John Crump has written in an earlier article, Polymer80 has ATF Determination Letters showing the Polymer80 products are not firearms.
The “proximity” reading is rather ambiguous.
John Crump reports that sources tell him, under a Biden administration, the DOJ would not contest a lawsuit from California, saying 80% receivers should be legally considered firearms. This could lead to a legal “settlement” whereby the law is changed without any change in either regulation or statute.
Such “settlements” have been a favored tactic of environmental and labor groups.
My source indicates Polymer80 will be filing continued legal actions against the ATF for harm rendered to the company, resulting from the raid, when they have not broken any law.
Actual legal theories will await developments.
Raids such as this have been hinted at in reports of conferences between ATF higher echelon and the then-candidate Joe Biden, as part of his desire to attack firearms ownership in the United States.
The complete system failure of the legal battles contesting the 2020 election procedures in Texas v. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, should frighten and motivate Second Amendment supporters into continued and robust political action.
The country is already divided into opposing camps. This sort of raid by ATF throws gasoline on the fire of civil distrust so it is good to remember and review.
It is hard to think of something which would do more to convince conservatives that the Deep State is not to be trusted, than questionable law enforcement against gun manufacturers, even before a real change in the government, a change in statutes, or even, a change in a bureaucratic rule.