gr
Dude, lawyers are useless in these matters. I've seen two articles written by lawyers who both say assembling an upper is manufacturing and requires ITAR registration. But they're wrong, according to an official statement from the horse's mouth. They would rather cost their clients an unnecessary 2 grand than risk giving the wrong advice.
I did send my question in writing as well, but it goes to the same people. We'll see if I get a response. There's also the issue of them having misguided people in the past, so the credibility of their response is in question from the get go.
grampajack,
I teach public law including administrative law on occasion. You should know that as a matter of administrative law, if an employee of an agency gives erroneous information, the agency is not bound by that employee's advice. See Federal Crop Insurance v. Merrill, 332 U.S. 380 (1947).
"Whatever the form in which the Government functions, anyone entering into an arrangement with the Government takes the risk of having accurately ascertained that he who purports to act for the Government stays within the bounds of his authority. The scope of this authority may be explicitly defined by Congress or be limited by delegated legislation, properly exercised through the rulemaking power. And this is so even though, as here, the agent himself may have been unaware of the limitations upon his authority. "
ITAR is a thicket with several different agencies involved--if you want to make sure not to open yourself up to civil or criminal liability, I would suggest contacting a lawyer who actually does ITAR work and pay for a phone consult at a minimum. If you know someone who is registered as a firearms manufacturer, they may be able to refer you to their lawyer.
ITAR involves several different layers of law--e.g. it is a treaty, the House and Senate passed an act implementing the treaty in the U.S. which granted legal authority to the executive branch agencies to come up with regulations published in the Federal Register. Then you have the interpretative guidelines used by the agency to implement agency actions toward enforcing the regulations and on top of that you have policy guidance in the agency then agency informal discretionary actions. Thus, what the statute says is the least of your worries as the statute gives authority to agencies to give "teeth" to that statute. The courts have generally deferred to agencies on technical questions such as what constitutes manufacturing as long as the agency does not contradict the plain language of the statute. That is why you hire a specialist in that particular area of the law.
Agencies have much more to spend on legal fees and have legal counsel on staff than an average citizen has which makes it difficult to challenge federal regulations and policy. It is better to find out what the "hidden laws" are before undertaking an action by contacting a legal specialist rather than after.
