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It's still illegal to manufacture firearms for others without a license.
A Sacramento, California man was sentenced Thursday to over three years in prison for unlawful manufacture of a firearm and one count of dealing firearms.
Last year, Daniel Crownshield, pleaded guilty to those counts in exchange for federal prosecutors dropping other charges. According to investigators, Crowninshield, known online as "Dr. Death," would sell unfinished AR-15 lower receivers, which customers would then pay for him to transform into fully machined lower receivers using a computer numerically controlled (CNC) mill. (In October 2014, Cody Wilson, of Austin, Texas, who has pioneered 3D-printed guns, began selling a CNC mill called "Ghost Gunner," designed to work specifically on the AR-15 lower.)
"In order to create the pretext that the individual in such a scenario was building his or her own firearm, the skilled machinist would often have the individual press a button or put his or her hands on a piece of machinery so that the individual could claim that the individual, rather than the machinist, made the firearm," the government claimed in its April 14 plea agreement.
So, if he taught a class in how to do it would he also then be a criminal?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @11:51PM
I'm pro-guns but, the guy is guilty as hell.
You can manufacture and keep guns that you make yourself if:
1) They are not full auto
2) They do not have a silencer
3) The barrel is longer than 18inches (if a long gun)
4) You're not a felon or someone prohibited from owning guns.
What the guy did was he sold 80% receivers (perfectly legal) but then HE FINISHED THEM instead of the purchaser (very illegal). Therefore he was making firearms without a license (a BIG no-no). The end user can finish the machining and be perfectly legal (as long as it doesn't violate the 4 above rules).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday February 18 2017, @12:36AM
Maybe what he was doing was just barely legal (and untested in court), but the government sent in a sting operative openly posing as a former felon and being incredibly lazy/lax about pushing the button or renting the CNC mill or whatever the scheme was. All while recording the encounter and gathering evidence to lead to a conviction. There's not too many details in the article and federal law enforcement agencies tend to let those details slip... especially when the "guilty" party agrees to plead guilty. The government also turns innocents and the mentally ill into terrorists, and nailed Doug Williams in their war against polygraph countermeasures [bloomberg.com].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Saturday February 18 2017, @02:03AM
No. In agreement with the AC above. Guilty as hell based on current laws. He could have become an FFL but opted not to. He even made the distinction between the selling of 80 lowers and the finishing of the lower. FFL requird to transfer a lower completed more than 80%.
I considered becoming an FFL for the hell of it and I do not recall it as being that difficult.
How this could have been legal?
-Sell 80 lowers he manufactured
-Give away or sell classes on how to mill the remaining 20
-Sell, rent, or loan the mill to the person
-End user completes the lower themselves
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @05:50AM
And doing it in CA to boot. Last place to even want to be public with firearms. The only dumber state would be NY.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Saturday February 18 2017, @01:10AM
Semantics.
Their exists some ritual that they could of gone through, that was practically identical to this one, that would of passed muster. It sounds like this would of been cleared up by renting the mill to the customers for a few hours, and just providing the cnc file and a tutorial on how to run a mill, or something of that magnitude. But it is all legal semantics, there is a legal way to do this, and since he did all this in good faith believing that his ritual went far enough, it seems pretty unjust to punish him.
We have something similar to this for raw milk in Canada, since people kept pushing and getting arrested we eventually learned exactly what ritual had to be followed for it to be considered legal.
1. You have to own, at least partially, the cow.
2. You must do all the transporting of the milk yourself off of the original farm.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday February 18 2017, @01:30AM
Civilizations are full of little absurd rituals which mark the boundary between being jailed/stoned or congratulated for the same exact actions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Saturday February 18 2017, @03:09AM
when the system don't work, you gotta work the system...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FakeBeldin on Saturday February 18 2017, @09:24AM
since he did all this in good faith believing that his ritual went far enough,
Trying to exploit legal loopholes is not "good faith".
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Saturday February 18 2017, @12:53PM
Manufacturing your own firearms is not a loophole, it was and is knowingly left legal.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday February 18 2017, @05:19PM
Manufacturing your own firearms is not a loophole,
Maybe they should have tried that, then, instead of manufacturing them for others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @01:58AM
Shall not be infringed.
This guy should have gone out in a blaze of glory.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 18 2017, @03:04AM
OK, you are pro-gun, and you have parsed the law pretty well. But, you're not saying whether you think the law is just. I consider the laws to be unjust, as they exist today. It's none of government's business who owns what kind of gun. The second amendment wasn't written for hunters and sportsmen, after all.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Saturday February 18 2017, @07:05AM
They are not only unjust but most of the gun laws? Are just outright racist as fuck. I urge everyone to look up and watch the documentary "fear of an armed negro" about the passage of the early gun laws and...wow, they didn't even try to pretend they weren't racist, those lawmakers were open as hell about how they didn't want "them coloreds" being able to defend themselves. Its also why they picked guns like the "Saturday Night Special" to demonize, which anybody like me who has actually fired a late 50s/early 60s model could tell you were well made affordable self defense weapons....which is why they targeted them, it was a "poll tax" to make sure blacks and poor whites wouldn't be able to afford anything that was actually useful for defense.
Today you get much more subtle racism, things like "the soft bigotry of lowered expectations" but back then when they passed those first gun laws? Yeah just watch, they don't even try to be an itty bitty bit subtle about what they think about blacks being able to fight back, its scary to know that these were the people in power and that others still defend laws written by such cartoonishly racist men.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Saturday February 18 2017, @07:56PM
Make sure you note it is Ronald Reagan and the NRA pushing for those gun control laws to disarm black people.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday February 20 2017, @03:34AM
So its okay to be racist as fuck because the other guy was racist as fuck? Is that how that works? I don't give a shit if it was Ronnie Raygun or Bozo the clown who originally passed that racist shit, it was racist then and now sadly its the DNC that has taken being racist as fuck to all new levels [youtube.com] and I don't give a single fuck whether its the left or the right racist shit is still racist shit.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.