ATF thread

[BjornF16]

Not that I agree, but the ATF considers drop in auto sears (DIAS) to be machine guns in and of themselves. If you don't have a stamp, the ATF considers them illegal. They are even going after pre 1981 DIAS which were supposedly "grandfathered" in their 1981 determination.

AmmoLand has an article on confiscation of pre-1981 DIAS: http://www.ammoland.com/2013/07/atf-conf...z2p5jSOswO


Also good article on Gun News: http://www.gunnews.com/atf-confiscating-...uto-sears/

The belief that pre-81 DIAS’s were exempt continued in spite of a ruling in 1998 from the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit which declared that the ATF did not have the authority to “grandfather” or exempt pre-81 DIAS’s. That determination was not widely reported, nor was there any apparent effort on the part of ATF to enforce the ruling. In May of this year, the determination of the 7th Circuit was echoed, and expanded upon by judges in the Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. I wrote a column at the time warning that not only DIAS’s, but a variety of other firearms and devices that have long been understood to be fully legal, are actually completely illegal (at least in those Circuits) and that the owners of these devices everywhere are in jeopardy.

ATF rulings:

Held: The auto sear known by various trade names including “AR15 Auto Sear,” “Drop In Auto Sear,” and “Auto Sear II,” is a combination of parts designed and intended for use in converting a weapon to shoot automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. Consequently, the auto sear is a machine gun as defined by 26 U.S.C. 5845(b).
With respect to the machine gun classification of the auto sear under the National Firearms Act, pursuant to 26 U.S.C. 7805(b), this ruling will not be applied to auto sears manufactured before November 1, 1981. Accordingly, auto sears manufactured on or after November 1, 1981, will be subject to all of the provisions of the National Firearms Act and 27 C.F.R. Part 479.
Editor’s Note: Regardless of the date of manufacture of a drop in auto sear, possession of such a sear and certain M16 fire control parts is possession of a machine gun as defined by the NFA. Specifically, these parts are a combination of parts designed and intended for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun as defined in the NFA. (See “Important Information Concerning AR15-Type rifles” which follows)

Interesting

In order to avoid violations of the NFA, M16, hammers, triggers, disconnectors, selectors and bolt carriers must not be used in assembly of AR-15 type semiautomatic rifles, unless the M16 parts have been modified to AR-15 Model SP1 configuration. Any AR-15 type rifles which have been assembled with M16 internal components should have those parts removed and replaced with AR-15 Model SP1 type parts which are available commercially. The M16 components also may be modified to AR-15 Model SP1 configuration.

http://www.atf.gov/files/publications/do...ndix-b.pdf

I'm sure this post is sure to generate anti-ATF comments :mad: