New State Dept Admin Order affecting gunsmiths

Registration Required
–
Manufacturing:
In response to questions from persons engaged in the business of gunsmithing, DDTC has found in specific cases that ITAR registration is
required because the following activities meet the ordinary, contemporary, common meaning of “manufacturing” and, therefore, constitute “manufacturing” for ITAR purposes:

a)Use of any special tooling or equipment upgrading in order to improve the capability of assembled or repaired firearms;

b)Modifications to a firearm that change round capacity;

c)The production of firearm parts (including, but not limited to, barrels, stocks, cylinders, breech mechanisms, triggers, silencers, or suppressors);

d)The systemized production of ammunition, including the automated loading or reloading of ammunition;

e)The machining or cutting of firearms, e.g., threading of muzzles or muzzle brake installation requiring machining, that results in an enhanced capability;

f)Rechambering firearms through machining, cutting, or drilling;

g)Chambering, cutting, or threading barrel blanks; and

h)Blueprinting firearms by machining the barrel.

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A, C, E, F & H are clear as mud "capability", "enhanced capability" needs to be clearly defined. This crap is beyond ambiguous. Methinks they need to consult a few gunsmiths or machinists before issung nonsense like this. It's a silly semantics game as written.

Wasn't there a long thread on this posted this morning?

Seems to have disappeared.

Last I knew the treaty hand not been approved by the U.S. Senate. If that is still the case it's only a piece of paper, and another one of Obama's pipe dreams.

Last I knew the treaty hand not been approved by the U.S. Senate. If that is still the case it's only a piece of paper, and another one of Obama's pipe dreams.

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I'm not sure about the "treaty" part, but ITAR has been in force for years. It is run by the state department and my understanding is that all 07 FFLs are required to be registered and pay the yearly tax. It is much more than just a piece of paper - They'll still prosecute you if you don't pay.

This guideline just expands the number of people who will have to register. It basically hurts the small time gunsmiths operating on a 01 FFL.

So a gunsmith is now considered a manufacturer even if he doesn't manufacture serialized parts?

Those little expletives are really going for broke now. Does anyone remember when they tried to say that the gun forums were violating ITAR by "exporting firearms knowledge." We've had to spend so much energy on fighting our domestic laws that we haven't even scratched the surface on what's looming from the international front. We've got to get out of the UN. No two ways about it.

What happened to the thread on this earlier?

The old thread from last year that got resurrected is here: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=784840&highlight=ITAR

and it seems the newest posts were deleted.

This doesn't affect gunsmiths as much as it will affect YOU. If you need work done to customize your gun - a smith will apparently be required to have ITAR licensing to do the work.

But the interpretation, which, as usual is vague and disengenuous, seems to indicate that if a smith needs to modify a part in any way from the makers as shipped conformation, then changing that shape, form, function, or dynamic interaction with other parts means they can only do the work if they are licensed.

This isn't the ATF, this is the State Department.

Now, how bad is it? For AR assemblers, not so much. For a tax collecting smith who charges for their labor, it could then mean upping the prices on trigger tuning, aesthetic treatment, rebarreling, etc. The TRADITIONAL gun owner is going to be hit with a huge surcharge to finance. Reshaping a stock, adjusting headspace, reaming a chamber, tuning the action, whatever, if it alters the part in any way, ITAR.

For those knowledgeable who think it won't, by all means ask State for clarification. We'd all like to hear it's not nearly as bad as it seems - but that will require getting answers out of them that are concise and detailed.

Therefore it's all speculative. However, the traditional gun owners need to be informed as they are the ones who require smith services much more often due to the proprietary nature of the guns they use and collect.

One area of concern is that there doesn't seem to be any start date when this became effective, and there's no reason to expect that prior work is grandfathered either. The language states that if it was changed but not by a licensed entity then it was done illegally, whenever that happened.

There are major issues to be resolved in how this works.

How this applies to reloading ammunition is a set of gray areas that caught eyes. This also covers "d) The systemized production of ammunition, including the automated loading or reloading of ammunition;"

Again, the revised guidance applies to "any person" (and that includes individudual US citizens) that "manufactures" ... and since manufacturing is left to the "common sense definition" it is ambiguous whether this pertains to activities for commercial resale use. or expands to includes activities potentially only for self-use.

"Systemized" production means a planned or organized activity. Or a regular activity (as opposed to occasional and infrequent). This could be an undefined "gotcha" term.

"Automated loading or reloading" also raises an interesting discussion of whether this is limited to mass production capabilities, or extends to (semi) automatic presses. Either way, reloading 1000 rounds would likely be claimed to be "mass production" by some.

So, what does this mean to the individual who regularly reloads, using automatic reloading presses, etc.?

This isn't just about gunsmiths.

The old thread from last year that got resurrected is here: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthrea...highlight=ITAR

and it seems the newest posts were deleted.

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Not just the recent posts, but the last several posts or so before I bumped it with a followup...between the censorship of discussion of the Massachusetts AWB early on & now this... ...<redacted>

The fact is ITAR applies to individuals; a Russian chick in my college town got a few years & a big fine for trying to ship thermal scopes to her compatriots. All we've been told so far is, like in Massachusetts, authorities are only planning to exercise enforcement against business --for now, at their discretion. Both statute and their interpretation leave more than enough room to ultimately go after individual acts, and ITAR can easily apply to mere information alone (as of the new regs about technical gun info being "defense articles")

TCB

So, what does this mean to the individual who regularly reloads, using automatic reloading presses, etc.?

This isn't just about gunsmiths.

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What about everyone who has or will file a Form 1 to build their own NFA device?

Someone help me out. I haven't had time to research this yet, but it seems like the language they're using, at least what I've seen, could apply to anyone doing anything, and it's purely a matter of what they think they can get away with in terms of enforcement. I'm also not seeing any distinction made between people doing modifications as a paid service and those simply doing it in their garage.

So theoretically, they could prosecute someone who changed out a pistol grip on his AR? Is that an oversimplification, or is this really possible?

Also, I've accumulated quite a collection of spare parts and gunsmithing tools over the years. Would this be considered "constructive intent" to violate ITAR?

Lastly, what about guns I've already modified? How could they ever prove the work was not done by an ITAR registered smith? If a gunsmith is ITAR registered, does he have to log everything he works on?

Does anyone know how this might effect form 1 guys? People I know at the ATF don't seem to have a clue.

SilentStalker said:

Does anyone know how this might effect form 1 guys? People I know at the ATF don't seem to have a clue.

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I don't imagine they would. As far as I can tell, this is 100% out of their loop. It now appears that we have two federal agencies regulating firearms, and the State Department is starting to make the ATF look like a bunch of gun rights advocates by comparison.

What I would like to know is where in the constitution it says that the government can impose international law on domestic policy. I was always under the impression that ITAR only regulated international arms sales and had nothing to do with what happened domestically. Did Congress ever pass legislation on this, or are they trying to say that international treaties automatically change domestic laws?

ETA: What I mean specifically is, Did Congress actually pass a bill that specifically requires manufacturers of "defense articles" (as defined by AECA), to register with the DDTC?

^^^thats what I want to know. My guess is that congress is either clueless or spineless.

grampajack said:

ETA: What I mean specifically is, Did Congress actually pass a bill that specifically requires manufacturers of "defense articles" (as defined by AECA), to register with the DDTC?

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This is the creeping rule of administrative law - the general and permanent rules and regulations of executive departments and agencies

Congress passes "enabling legislation" that authorizes Federal agencies (like the State Department) to issue regulations (rulemakings). This body of administrative law is the "Code of Federal Regulations" or CFR for short.

More or less, Congress say here is generally what we authorize you to do, now you take care of the details and implementation. And what the State Department did here is played with the details, by modifying its definition and interpretation of key terms already in the administrative regulations (22 CFR §122), such as the term "manufacturer."

Which brings to mind the words of Pres. Calvin Coolidge, in his scathing critique of rule by bureaucracy: "It is the one element in our institutions that sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody."

One of my favorite speeches by any American president (full speech found here)

Don't worry someone said in another thread that we can't see any restrictions until they pass through both houses of congress....

Glad I am not in the "business", I'll keep my automated systems in place and keep building my firearms the way I want for now...

Looks like real forward thinking creating jobs in America, I hope some of the small Smiths out there are still in shape enough to compete with all of the "undocumented" for the road and bridges jobs they think they are going to have.( Insert rolling eyes here)

jmorris said:

Don't worry someone said in another thread that we can't see any restrictions until they pass through both houses of congress....

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And that is completely wrong. Other agencies (FCC, Commerce, OSHA, EPA) issue restrictions and requirements all day long, every day, without having to pass through both houses of Congress. Again, Congress passes enabling legislation empowering Federal agencies, who in turn create, interpret and execute administrative law. Of course, things can and do end up in Federal court when executive agencies get rambunctious in their interpreting and enforcing of administrative rules.

In this case, the enabling legislation passed by Congress was the Arms Export Control Act (22 USC 2778). Empowered by this legislation, the State Department promulgated administrative law on defense munitions (22 CFR 122). And those administrative rules are the ones that are being mutated.

I'm also going to have to re-read Executive Order 13637 from 2013. If I recall correctly, this executive order gave the Secretary of Defense some role in the definition of "defense materials". Which is more of an academic question, since this DOD is not going to contradict State on this particular question (though it would be amusing and exciting if they did).

Back to the enabling legislation and the administrative rules - this is, of course, another example of an executive agency getting rambunctious. Which could be reigned in by Congress (but, in an election year ... nothing is going to get done. Cong. Chaffetz and his House Oversight Committee has their resources deployed on the Clinton email fiasco ...probably no bandwidth for this fight right now).

Or could be reigned in via a successful suit by an aggrieved party in Federal Court ... but who is going to fund that?

I know that was the ... part. Just something someone said in another thread dismissing concerns.

In any case here is what we are talking about.

https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/compliance/documents/ITARRegReqFirearmsManufacturers.pdf

Looks like personal automated reloading and gun smithing is still OK, for now.

This seems to too far reaching for enabling legislation. ITAR is meant to control the international arms trade between different countries' defense departments, and it was sold to the public as a way to prevent arms dealers in member nations from selling arms to terrorists and warlords. I seem to remember something about African warlords and boy soldiers. I don't see how they can force a manufacturer to register unless they are trying to sell their products to the military. It is so far outside the purpose of the treaty.

Then again, it's no more outrageous than the EPA declaring drainage ditches as navigable waters. When you let semantics get out of control like that, anything can mean anything and yet mean nothing, as it's convenient. Arson can mean protest and defense article can mean accessory and manufacturing can mean bedding a stock. What a wonderful age for linguistics...

So there's a guy where I live who builds uppers and sells them at the local flea market, along with non serialized accessories, and he never touches lowers. He has a business license and charges sales tax, much like many of the vendors at gun shows. So am I correct that he is now officially out of business if he doesn't pay the DDTC?

and it was sold to the public

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That's pretty much all you have to say. If only my 401k was full of promises from politicians....

wojownik said:

This is the creeping rule of administrative law - the general and permanent rules and regulations of executive departments and agencies

Congress passes "enabling legislation" that authorizes Federal agencies (like the State Department) to issue regulations (rulemakings). This body of administrative law is the "Code of Federal Regulations" or CFR for short.

More or less, Congress say here is generally what we authorize you to do, now you take care of the details and implementation. And what the State Department did here is played with the details, by modifying its definition and interpretation of key terms already in the administrative regulations (22 CFR §122), such as the term "manufacturer."

Which brings to mind the words of Pres. Calvin Coolidge, in his scathing critique of rule by bureaucracy: "It is the one element in our institutions that sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody."

One of my favorite speeches by any American president (full speech found here)

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Exactly, most people are totally clueless about the difference between a law and an administrative rule. The President is the chief executive and he manages the government through his executive departments and as long as the departmental rules do not change the law it is legal. The sad part is that congress has adopted a lazy attitude toward law making and simply tells the departments that they can make any rules that helps them do their job. Congress simply identifies the main purpose of an executive department but they don't address how the department should go about achieving those purposes. It's a perfect setup for the useless, corrupt politicians in our government; Congress doesn't really do anything so they can always pretend that they are the good guys and the President actually controls everything through his cabinet so he gets to do things the way he wants.

It's a perfect setup for the useless, corrupt politicians in our government; Congress doesn't really do anything so they can always pretend that they are the good guys and the President actually controls everything through his cabinet so he gets to do things the way he wants.

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And that pretty much sums up how we achieved, after the AWB, a republican controlled house, senate and POTUS and they rode it out, expecting us to come back every 2 and 4 years without any action. Then they wonder what happened.

At least the other guys have hope and change going for them, with nothing to show for it, if we are lucky they feel just as disenfranchised this time out.

This is more liberal back door BS. The MA attorney general hates guns so she deceptively bans ARs. Crooked Hillary doesn't like guns so she has her state department bums tweak definitions that results in this. Before long, scrap metal will be banned because it could be transformed into a gun. Oh how far this country has strayed from the ideas, values, and vision as set forth by the founding fathers. America, we had a good run, but after Obuma ran us into the ground and when Billary is president, she will continue Obuma's reign of terror and continue to use the Constitution as her toilet paper.