ATF Regulations/Rules

[Petrol & Powder]

Sometimes we make laws that very clearly define what is criminal activity. For example, knowingly transferring a firearm to a felon is a crime even if you only do it once.
Sometimes we make laws that are a little fuzzy. For example if you "engage in the business of manufacturing ammunition without a license".
The Congress could have simply made it illegal to sell ANY ammunition without a license but they chose to write that law with a little wiggle room. Probably because the goal of the law was to encourage people actually in the business of manufacturing ammunition to get a license.
They didn't want to criminalize every little transfer of a piece of lead.
This is similar to laws that don't require every charity bake sale to submit to health department regulations, zoning regulations and countless other laws that are really aimed at businesses.

It DOES matter how the law is written. If the government wanted to make every transfer of every bullet subject to licensing requirements - they could have written the law to reflect that. They chose not to make it that stringent.

It is wise to not test the limits of the definition of "engage in the business of manufacturing ammunition".

As for Michael Flynn pleading guilty to lying to a federal agent - He wasn't "forced to plead guilty" he CHOOSE to plead guilty and by doing so, he reduced his exposure to prison. Had he gone to trial, there's no guarantee a jury would have found him guilty. However, if he went to trial and was found guilty, the likelihood of at least some prison time was greater. So he must have felt the government had some credible evidence and he opted to take the safer path.

I don't trust the government but I do believe that it is extraordinarily difficult for the government to obtain a conviction. The feds have a high conviction rate because they ONLY take cases they think they can win. Unlike state courts, the feds don't have to try every rape, robbery and murder. They get to pick and choose what they prosecute and they cherry pick only the strongest cases.

[JimB..]

A life lived in fear is no life lived.

I’ve seen prosecutions and convictions, or at least pleas, for manufacturing ammunition without a license, but none related to selling projectiles at hobby volumes. I’d have no concerns about selling 10,000 cast bullets that I’d abandoned because I sold the only gun that they shot well from, but I wouldn’t do that routinely.

[Petrol & Powder]

A life lived in fear is no life lived.

I’ve seen prosecutions and convictions, or at least pleas, for manufacturing ammunition without a license, but none related to selling projectiles at hobby volumes. I’d have no concerns about selling 10,000 cast bullets that I’d abandoned because I sold the only gun that they shot well from, but I wouldn’t do that routinely.

I agree.

A life lived in fear is no life lived.

I also agree that a hobbyist selling projectiles is not going to run afoul of the law, provided that it is not routine activity.

I don't think you could find a federal prosecutor between Bangor and San Diego that would see that activity as "engaging in the business" of manufacturing ammunition. Nor do I think you could find a federal judge in the country that would see that type of activity as a business.

The law was designed to encourage people who are actually engaged in the business of manufacturing projectiles, to obtain a license. It was not designed to criminalize the occasional sale of projectiles by hobbyists.

[JimB..]

I agree.

A life lived in fear is no life lived.

I also agree that a hobbyist selling projectiles is not going to run afoul of the law, provided that it is not routine activity.

I don't think you could find a federal prosecutor between Bangor and San Diego that would see that activity as "engaging in the business" of manufacturing ammunition. Nor do I think you could find a federal judge in the country that would see that type of activity as a business.

The law was designed to encourage people who are actually engaged in the business of manufacturing projectiles, to obtain a license. It was not designed to criminalize the occasional sale of projectiles by hobbyists.

Agree completely, but also doubt that we’re ever gonna change anyone’s mind when they’ve been so conditioned to think that government agencies apply the rule of law arbitrarily. Asking them to look at real experiences rather than being afraid of the boogey man goes against the beliefs that they’ve developed based on distorted information. It’s a genius move, they’ve been duped in a way that makes then they think that they figured it out themselves, so the incorrect belied is deeply ingrained.

I won’t quit speaking the truth as I see it, and I very much appreciate your more eloquent posts, it’s just frustrating.

[downzero]

Agree completely, but also doubt that we’re ever gonna change anyone’s mind when they’ve been so conditioned to think that government agencies apply the rule of law arbitrarily. Asking them to look at real experiences rather than being afraid of the boogey man goes against the beliefs that they’ve developed based on distorted information. It’s a genius move, they’ve been duped in a way that makes then they think that they figured it out themselves, so the incorrect belied is deeply ingrained.

I won’t quit speaking the truth as I see it, and I very much appreciate your more eloquent posts, it’s just frustrating.

These sorts of delusions are commonplace in the online gun community.

Because the law is made by a political process, everyone tends to have an opinion about it. The problem with that is that in America, there are numerous sources of law, from traditional common law (judge decisions) going all the way back to England, statutes from all 50 states, federal law, and the entire body of administrative law interpreting both states and federal law, just to mention a few. People think the law is just some simple process of reading a few statutes or whatever, without realizing that in the background, there's a 1000 year tradition that they really have to understand to give context to any statute, regulation, or even municipal ordinance, etc.

As a lawyer myself, I often do not comment on these threads other than sometimes to point out that a prevailing interpretation is wrong. Sometimes I won't even say that, because I tire of people trying to lecture me when I have a doctorate in the subject, and of course nothing I say on the forum should be perceived as legal advice, which needs to be very specific and based on the facts of a particular circumstance.

Sometimes determining what the actual rule of law is on the ground can be extremely difficult. If someone sounds absolutely certain he knows what the law is, I am usually very skeptical of not only that opinion, but anything else that person says, too.

[JimB..]

These sorts of delusions are commonplace in the online gun community.

Because the law is made by a political process, everyone tends to have an opinion about it. The problem with that is that in America, there are numerous sources of law, from traditional common law (judge decisions) going all the way back to England, statutes from all 50 states, federal law, and the entire body of administrative law interpreting both states and federal law, just to mention a few. People think the law is just some simple process of reading a few statutes or whatever, without realizing that in the background, there's a 1000 year tradition that they really have to understand to give context to any statute, regulation, or even municipal ordinance, etc.

As a lawyer myself, I often do not comment on these threads other than sometimes to point out that a prevailing interpretation is wrong. Sometimes I won't even say that, because I tire of people trying to lecture me when I have a doctorate in the subject, and of course nothing I say on the forum should be perceived as legal advice, which needs to be very specific and based on the facts of a particular circumstance.

Sometimes determining what the actual rule of law is on the ground can be extremely difficult. If someone sounds absolutely certain he knows what the law is, I am usually very skeptical of not only that opinion, but anything else that person says, too.

It often seems that the prevailing belief is that if you’re formally educated on a subject that you’ve been duped by our secret masters, but if I figured it out by myself and if what I figured out is contrary to what’s being taught and happens to fit my general belief structure, then my “truth” is almost certainly correct. I get it, building a foundation is a slow and unrewarding process, so we all try to skip it and get to the sexy stuff...but it just doesn’t stand.

Curious, do you think government has intentionally contributed to this mythology of arbitrary enforcement as a way to improve compliance at low cost? I’m sure that back in the day uniforms, bright lights, noise were all used to make the enforcement arm look as large as possible. Today is it misinformation and mythology that are used to create an outsized fear of legal repercussions?

[kevin c]

Downzero, would you offer your perspective on the issue? JimB and Petrol & Powder have proposed that the law as written has a bit of wiggle room. Do you agree?

[Wayne Smith]

Oh, come on, guys! It's $10 a year, just like an FFL03. Pay three years at a time, $30, had mine for years. I had one visit by two young ATF ladies when I first got it. They were curious about what I was intending, were polite, and quite satisfied when I told them my wife was a Department of Environmental Quality Geologist - and she would be monitoring my environmental quality! One of the ladies was an experienced agent, the other was in training. We actually had a nice conversation. I've not had any questions, visits, or contact with the ATF since other than to renew my licenses (FFL03, FFL06).

Getting a license is not a big deal. If you are going to engage in business you need to be more concerned with liability and local business licensing than the ATF.

[Handloader109]

While I can't comment on the selling of ammunition, or bullets I can say that as a laser engraver, similar issues arise when you want to engrave on guns. A LOT of misinformation, but the law is pretty dang clear if you make money from the operation, more than an occasional sale or getting rid of what you don't need any more, you are engaged in the business. And according to the regulations, to Cerakote, or engrave on a firearm, and it isn't your gun, you need a license. A LOT of engravers and I assume coaters, skirt the issue. While I know of no one being prosecuted for this, I DO know of several receiving a Cease and Desist letter from the BATFE. There are guys that try and skirt the law by saying it is only serialized parts affected. Bull. But my advise is to just get the license if you want to make bullets to sell or ammunition. it is cheap and makes you LEGAL. In this current climate, with a Gun Banner in charge of the BATFE, I want to stay under the radar as much as possible. Please do what you can also.

[Burnt Fingers]

While I can't comment on the selling of ammunition, or bullets I can say that as a laser engraver, similar issues arise when you want to engrave on guns. A LOT of misinformation, but the law is pretty dang clear if you make money from the operation, more than an occasional sale or getting rid of what you don't need any more, you are engaged in the business. And according to the regulations, to Cerakote, or engrave on a firearm, and it isn't your gun, you need a license. A LOT of engravers and I assume coaters, skirt the issue. While I know of no one being prosecuted for this, I DO know of several receiving a Cease and Desist letter from the BATFE. There are guys that try and skirt the law by saying it is only serialized parts affected. Bull. But my advise is to just get the license if you want to make bullets to sell or ammunition. it is cheap and makes you LEGAL. In this current climate, with a Gun Banner in charge of the BATFE, I want to stay under the radar as much as possible. Please do what you can also.

The serialized part is the gun.

The ATF is only concerned with that part. They couldn't care less if you're engraving grips or rails and such.

[downzero]

Downzero, would you offer your perspective on the issue? JimB and Petrol & Powder have proposed that the law as written has a bit of wiggle room. Do you agree?

I can't give legal advice on the forum. Among the reasons for this 1) I'm prohibited by statute from doing so 2) I don't have malpractice insurance because I'm not allowed to engage in private practice of law and 3) I'm probably not even licensed in your state and wouldn't know the answer anyway. If you want legal advice, you need to consult an attorney who is licensed in your jurisdiction, present him or her with the discrete legal question on which you desire an answer, and I'm sure you'll get your answer.

This may seem like a copout but the "accidental client" is the fear of every lawyer. Fortunately because I'm absolutely prohibited from any private practice of law, it's a lot easier to explain why my non-answer is not rude, it's just required.

[1hole]

As for Michael Flynn pleading guilty to lying to a federal agent - He wasn't "forced to plead guilty" he CHOOSE to plead guilty and by doing so, he reduced his exposure to prison. Had he gone to trial, there's no guarantee a jury would have found him guilty. However, if he went to trial and was found guilty, the likelihood of at least some prison time was greater. So he must have felt the government had some credible evidence and he opted to take the safer path.

General Flynn is an honorable man who was - in his mind - conversing with honorable men and said something in that relaxed conversation which was not a meaningful part of the discussion. The frustrated upper ranks of the FBI and DoJ wanted to crush him to give others an example that they could and would also be crushed if they resisted Jabba.

Retired generals have a nice income. But, unlike long serving politicians, they are not filthy rich. So, after a few months of legal bills from a dishonest nest of DC lawyers, Flynn was broke and lost his nice new home. Sidney Powell exposed the whole slimy mess and Flynn was exonerated but ONE Democrat fed judge didn't like it so HE decided to keep the screws on Flynn as long as possible but the general has in fact been legally cleared of wrongdoing. Sadly, that doesn't get his money back.

We don't know why Flynn was first targeted, probably because he (1) wasn't a Democrat and (2) would be an easy target for the fed's routine plea extortions, as their trail of partially released records clearly demonstrate to anyone honestly reading them.

I don't trust the government but I do believe that it is extraordinarily difficult for the government to obtain a conviction. The feds have a high conviction rate because they ONLY take cases they think they can win. Unlike state courts, the feds don't have to try every rape, robbery and murder. They get to pick and choose what they prosecute and they cherry pick only the strongest cases.

Government is a near mindless blob seeking to advance itself; think Jabba the Hutt; government agents and agencies are who we can't trust. And that's not a guess, I have some 25 years of working with federal bureaucrats.

Many bureaucrats are nice folk when one-on-one but their self-seeking ideas of what's right and wrong centers on feeding their personal Jabba what he wants because his agency richly rewards his bureaucrats for services rendered, especially those at the top of their respective steaming heaps.

It isn't at all hard for the feds to get convictions. Right or wrong, it's rare they lose and few of their cases involve a jury at all; the opposing attorneys briefly argue before a judge and it's soon finished. Flynn is a clear example of feds taking a minor issue out of context and twisting it into a pretzel in trial negotiations and financially ruin their targets. Then, with a legal Jabba machine standing behind them and extorted plea deals in their slimy hands, federal courts routinely run over broken people with (weak) court appointed lawyers.

It doesn't take a guilty man to cop a federal plea, it only takes a sensible man who is forced to stand alone before a mindless, insurmountable government legal system with an insatiable bloodlust. Innocent people dragged into their trap weigh the options; (1) plead guilty to a reduced trumped up charge or (2) get slaughtered in court for four to five times more damage.

The feds routine tactics rarely lose in court and they don't offer reduced plea deals in slam dunk cases. But, I guess to off-set that, they won't touch cases where the culprits are politically connected. See the Clintons, James Comey, James Clapper and Biden's son as proof of corrupt high profile people with total impunity from federal prosecution.

Gen Flynn had none of the Swamp's insider protections so he got politically/financially hammered on the anvil of made-up federal charges the FBI instigators created. And, despite later court orders for the FBI to release the complete records of their actions to Flynn's defence, they still refuse to do so.

I ask, does it make sense for the legal bureaucrats to still be hiding that information if it would prove Flynn was indeed guilty and they were right all along? Not hardly! I'm not real smart but I'm sure not that gullible!

Flynn is by no means the only victim of our bureaucrats' casual abuse of federal legal power, he's just a glaring example. Our many federal prisons happily house a lot of other innocents that count as scalps on the court system's belts as if they were actually crooks.

I grew up young and inexperienced. As a youth I believed that politicians and government itself was bad stuff but thought at least the FBI had a core of "untouchable" integrity. Many decades of actual observations has proven that, outside of TV and movies, I was very wrong. The Deep Swampers truly rule the federal agencies and that's an easily observable fact, it's not an "I guess" or "I think" or "I believe" of anything.

Guns have two existential threats: rust and Democrats. Only Democrats actively seek to eliminate our God given rights (not state granted priviliges) of free speech, freedom of assembly and religion, freedom from political oppression, etc., as a free people. God save us from power driven Democrat "liberals" determined to "help us" even if they have to kill a few million of us resistant deplorables hanging out in fly-over country to do it; like all tyrants, that's a price the rabid powerful are quite willing for others to pay in order to achieve their idea of a People's Democratic Utopia with them in charge.

And God please grant that America still has Generals like Flynn with a reliable moral compass instead of a finger in the political wind.

[Big Tom]

If you sold the bullets you bought from somebody for cash without a receipt at the gunshow a while ago, that would be no problem... just saying...

[Handloader109]

The serialized part is the gun.

The ATF is only concerned with that part. They couldn't care less if you're engraving grips or rails and such.

Guess I need to make myself clearer. I'm not talking about parts you are manufacturing. If you make and engrave 1911 slabs you are fine. But the issue is 99.9% of the time an individual brings in AN entire Gun. While you might engrave on the stock, you are engraving on the GUN as it is a gun in it's entirety. If you only have folks send you slides to cerkote, then you are ok, maybe, right now.

[JimB..]

Guess I need to make myself clearer. I'm not talking about parts you are manufacturing. If you make and engrave 1911 slabs you are fine. But the issue is 99.9% of the time an individual brings in AN entire Gun. While you might engrave on the stock, you are engraving on the GUN as it is a gun in it's entirety. If you only have folks send you slides to cerkote, then you are ok, maybe, right now.

There are lots of folks that do work only on gun parts. They refuse to take possession of the firearm. I haven’t explored the issue enough to understand if they are following the rules or being overly cautious.

[Gator 45/70]

Other than the dude who manufactured AP ammo and sold these too the Las Vegas shooter and is probably still in jail are there any other cases that's been in the news?

[kevin c]

I can't give legal advice on the forum. Among the reasons for this 1) I'm prohibited by statute from doing so 2) I don't have malpractice insurance because I'm not allowed to engage in private practice of law and 3) I'm probably not even licensed in your state and wouldn't know the answer anyway. If you want legal advice, you need to consult an attorney who is licensed in your jurisdiction, present him or her with the discrete legal question on which you desire an answer, and I'm sure you'll get your answer.

This may seem like a copout but the "accidental client" is the fear of every lawyer. Fortunately because I'm absolutely prohibited from any private practice of law, it's a lot easier to explain why my non-answer is not rude, it's just required.

I was hoping that you could speak in generalities, but if that's a no-go, I understand. As a retired MD, I am certainly familiar with the potential liability of a "curbside consultation", so my apologies for the request.

[fcvan]

Folks thought this was a BATFE thing it's not, it is ITAR

"A DEFINITION OF ITAR COMPLIANCE
International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) control the export and import of defense-related articles and services on the United States Munitions List (USML). According to the U.S. Government, all manufacturers, exporters, and brokers of defense articles, defense services, or related technical data must be ITAR compliant. Therefore, more companies are requiring their supply chain members to be ITAR compliant as well. In General:

For a company involved in the manufacture, sale or distribution of goods or services covered under the USML, or a component supplier to goods covered under the United States Munitions List (USML), the stipulation or requirement of being “ITAR certified (compliant)” means that the company must be registered with the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) if required as spelled out on DDTC’s website and the company must understand and abide by the ITAR as it applies to their USML linked goods or services. The company themselves are certifying that they operate in accordance with the ITAR when they accept being a supplier for the USML prime exporter.

In other words, companies must register with the DDTC and know what is required of them to be ITAR compliant and then certify that they possess that knowledge." This was a partial quote, there is so much more.

This discussion has been held before, particularly regarding the sale of cast boolits. A license to produce components has an annual tax fee of $2,500/yr, even if the person/persons do not plan to or will export to other countries. We all know that cast boolits went out with the Hague Convention regarding expanding projectiles. There was an attempt to exempt cast boolits from the tax requirement and onerous regulations as hobby casters and small manufacturers would not be exporting. Unfortunately, the deep state insiders made sure the efforts of the previous administration were met with severe opposition.

Remember, they don't want a farmer to produce and distribute excess produce under the Commerce Clause. My folks violated that every Sunday at Church when they distributed the bounty out of the garden from the trunk of their car, to seniors who couldn't grow their own veggies. There was also barter committed by trading for fresh goat milk before my folks had goats, or the pork, rabbits, eggs, cheese and beef we raised. Deep state doesn't like folks who grow their own therefor depriving big box stores from selling to you and I. Undocumented income don't you know.

I was not aware of the Commerce Clause at that time, insidious regulations designed to subjugate the deploreables.

[elmacgyver0]

Legal or not legal, if they want you bad enough they will get you.

[fcvan]

Legal or not legal, if they want you bad enough they will get you.

Isn't that the truth! Best to keep away from that shady lines that have been drawn. Selling was never on that table for me, but I sure invited a lot of folks to come over and learn. I even loaned melting pots and molds, they just had to bring their own lead. Folks would bring powder, primers, and lead, and I would make iced tea. nothing better than hanging out with friends and doing what we enjoyed.