New State Dept Admin Order affecting gunsmiths

Guys, after reading your post and comments I think we are in trouble. Unless I am mistaken a good many of the members of the House and Senate in Washington are Attorneys and as of now so is our President. It would seem that most lesiglation requires litigation already. I certainly am not claiming to be educated myself and am unable to understand the big words or their meaning for the most part. I humbly ask, why would our President or lawmakers seek to make felons out of people who try to do right and do not want to loose their rights we hold so dear?

MachIVshooter said:

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.

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Sheesh, pretty much ANYTHING "improves capability".

I humbly ask, why would our President or lawmakers seek to make felons out of people who try to do right and do not want to loose their rights we hold so dear?

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It's just another step to achieve their ultimate goal of having no legal firearms in America, they don't think it's your right and that your an extremist because you hold it so dear.

They could really care less about a document written more than 200 years ago and will point out that it has already been changed many times, the last one was the 27th amendment in 1992.

the last one was the 27th amendment in 1992.

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Well, let's be fair. The 27A was submitted by Congress to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789. It only took 202 1/2 years to ratify

Aside from the "big picture" discussion, 22 CFR 122 contains generic and underdefined terms, and ambiguities, that Congress should strive to limit. Again, probably nothing going to happen for at least a year, but if members of the community are really concerned about this, they should be contacting their Congressmen - particularly those on the oversight committee, to flag them on this.

Not bombard them with hyperbole and polemics, but with a specific targeted concern that the State Department may be interpreting, and may plan on acting, in a manner not in accord with the enabling legislation and the original intent of Congress.

giggitygiggity said:

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.

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It's interesting that you mention materials. For example, certain high speed cameras are heavily regulated because they can be used for testing nuclear bombs. As if anyone in the US who has access to plutonium or uranium couldn't get their hands on a high speed camera, or if the maniacs in NK and Iran even give two farts about US law. There will probably come a day when raw materials and machines will be regulated because they could be used to make guns.

I humbly ask, why would our President or lawmakers seek to make felons out of people who try to do right and do not want to loose their rights we hold so dear?

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"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."

Rand may have not had all the answers about how a society should run, but she was dead on about what causes them to go insane and self destruct, very much like Marx, ironically.

No free man, is debarred the use of arms.

TCB

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

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Gottlieb & SAF are backing Distributed Defense/Cody Wilson, who got this ball rolling (the first court date was fast approaching when the regulation they were being C&D'ed under & were suing against was changed to what it is now. That re-started the court clock and forced then to recraft their legal arguments from scratch).

It is worth mentioning that practically no legal challenges to ITAR with regards to speech have been upheld. For this reason, State is very hesitant to let cases like Wilson's see the courtroom.

TCB

wojownik said:

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.

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There is absolutely no way this applies to people not operating a commercial ammunition loading business (Type 06 FFL). You are jumping to false conclusions.

ITAR restrictions are applicable to individuals. The regulation in question plainly defines its applicability to include any "individual US citizen'. I deal with ITAR restrictions on a regular basis. In this case the regulator is redefining terminology in a manner that that may become problematic in the future.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Am I a Gunsmith

if I put the plug in my shotgun that reduces the capacity from 5 to 3 rounds?

if I put the plug in my shotgun...

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No, you are not engaging in any business. For that matter you can build your own gun from the ground up and still not be a "gunsmith".

Well, let's be fair. The 27A was submitted by Congress to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789. It only took 202 1/2 years to ratify

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Ok, how about the 26th amendment that changed a portion of the 14th amendment, what if the 28th changed a portion of the 2nd?

jmorris said:

Ok, how about the 26th amendment that changed a portion of the 14th amendment, what if the 28th changed a portion of the 2nd?

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They won't try that because it would never work. That's why they're trying to ban guns by executive fiat. They're doing what they can and biding their time while they reeducate our children in school and through the media. By the time kids currently in middle school are voting age they'll probably be ready to try an amendment on gun control.

I'm surprised that this hasn't been bigger news. I really think that an extra $2k per year in compliance costs will put a lot of the small gunsmiths out of business. At the very least costs will go up at a time when suppressors are booming, and lots of folks are looking for threading jobs. I also wonder if part of the long term plan is to reduce the availability of gunsmithing services with the goal of having more firearms become permanently inoperable and drop out of circulation.

All in all it seems like a very obvious stab at run of the mill gun owners and small businesses without even the normal "Think of the Children" pretenses. It seems pretty likely that in future interpretations, more and more parts of our hobby like doing your own smithing, or reloading your own ammo are likely to be construed as manufacturing for ITAR purposes. What I don't understand is how the State Department can foist these requirements on domestic producers that have no plans or interest in selling anything to foreign buyers.

Ironic - those gun owners that supported the current Administration and accepted their promises that nobody was going to take their guns away are now discovering that their gunsmith can't checker a stock or add a white line spacer without prorating a $2250 license fee in every work order. There are only so many working hours in the year. The average? 50 weeks times 40 hours = 2,000. So every job gets billed $2.25 per hour to pay for ITAR? NO, you mark it up 1 1/2 or 2 for profit. So we will see more like $5 an hour surcharge for ITAR reflected in the bill.

If Gander Mountain is charging $80 an hour for work, it will mean an automatic 6.25% increase to cover the cost on all jobs. But you still can do it - unlike the EPA and DOT requiring that cars newer than 1994 must retain every emissions control device on them factory stock. That has pretty much killed off the modern hot rod industry. You can't swap a carb onto a EFI car or jack up the tuning on a diesel anymore. It's illegal and shops are getting fined, owners are getting tickets or denied licensing.

And that is the next step - it's in the wording, to paraphrase, if the work makes the firearm "more lethal" then for what reason other than to kill people are you doing it? Isn't it lethal enough already?

We have NEVER seen the anti gun movement step back and take a breather, claim they have gotten all they wanted. and no longer need to keep working for more. Expect continued emphasis to ban modifications. That is what stops innovation like bullet buttons or making an AR a pump action.

How many camels have their nose under the tent now?

Sorry I am not better informed on how Executive Orders work.

Can Congress pass a law (which would necessitate a veto override I'm sure) to nullify an Executive Order?

Yes, but they won't notice, let alone override Obama's veto (nor would Trump, but whatever)

TCB

J-Bar said:

Sorry I am not better informed on how Executive Orders work.

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Firstly, let's be clear, no executive order was passed that explicitly told the State Department to enforce/interpret ITAR in this manner. Second, the Presidents executive memoranda from 6 months ago on gun control measures did not involve the State Department at all. Not that either would be necessary for an astute political appointee to grok the overall intentions of the administration.

J-Bar said:

Can Congress pass a law (which would necessitate a veto override I'm sure) to nullify an Executive Order?

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Certainly, Congress can overturn an executive order by passing laws in conflict with it. Congress can also cut the funding needed to carry out the policies contained in an executive order.

BUT, overturning an EO is tough in reality because the the President can just veto a law passed to overturn his Executive order - and then Congress needs a 2/3 majority to override the veto. Getting those numbers of votes is an ordeal. Lots of hurdles.

On the other hand, the President may not issue an executive order in conflict with existing legislation.

They won't try that... they'll probably be ready to try an amendment on gun control.

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Again, they look at it as "steps". Water does not wear granite over night, it is a continuous erosion process.

If you acknowledge that it will happen at any point without intervention then you must also acknowledge the need for intervention to prevent it.

How long should a cancer patient wait to start treatment? When it is found in one spot of the body or right before death because the body is consumed by it?

So, when I changed the trigger in my AR I had to drill and tap the hole. manufacturing ?

Mark

It's been over a year, but I recall the rule change was ostensibly at the behest of a 2010 EO pertaining to tech security issues ("we must protect our networks and data!" type platitudes when I read it). Don't ask me to find it again; tracing these regs is the worst kind of wiki-walk, intentionally confusing & sparsely cited.

TCB

Whenever I think about this it reminds me of John Hancock before the Revolution. He smuggled a lot of goods in so he wouldn't have to pay the taxes on them because it had gotten so bad you couldn't make a living if you paid them everything they wanted. Kind of like now after your income tax, sales tax, license & registration fees, communications (phone/internet) tax, and social security (which IS a tax since those of us putting in will likely not get it back).

I hope some bigger organizations are scrutinizing this issue and will give it some big exposure. It has a lot of consequences for gunsmiths that feel the need to do things legally.

So, when I changed the trigger in my AR I had to drill and tap the hole. manufacturing ?

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If it was your gun and you did the work, none of this applies.

What you're going to see as a result of this is a lot of small time guys who formerly held an FFL 01 or 07 themselves but didn't operate a full time smithing or manufacturing business let their FFL go and become an associate/employee/contractor of one who does it as a primary business.

If state department pushes too hard, there will be a push back. Court challenges on the domestic enforcement of international policy, which has been "tolerated" up to this point because there were relatively few affected. When "manufacturer" get arbitrarily redefined from those who were actually manufacturing to 50 times as many people who do nothing more than alter an already existing item, there will be unintended consequences. One of those will be your 01 gunsmith saying "well, if I gotta pay ITAR anyway, I might as well go 07/02 and start making the cool stuff".

Another possible positive consequence is that more US gun parts mfgr will start to export since they will have to pay the annual corporate ITAR registration fee in any case.

One Source Tactical and Jack First Gunshop come to mind as non-exclusive examples.
Right now neither of them do any exports.