Buying stripped lower, can it be pistol or rifle?

[kirkland]

You're incorrect. The definition of a pistol is: "A weapon originally designed, made, and intended to fire a projectile (bullet) from one or more barrels when held in one hand, and having:

a chamber(s) as an integral part(s) of, or permanently aligned with, the bore(s);

and a short stock designed to be gripped by one hand at an angle to and extending below the line of the bore(s)."




What it's marked as on the 4473 is not the only thing that matters. The key here is the "originally designed, made" language. A pistol must be originally designed as a pistol. If you take the bare receiver and build it into a rifle, you've made or designed a weapon originally intended to be fired from the shoulder, it can therefore never be turned into a pistol.

From the ATF:

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/can-...tering-firearm

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/firearm...inition-pistol

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/can-...tering-firearm

[ViniVidivici]

And you think they have some magical way of knowing what you're doing?

Get real. Done debating with you, you're simply wrong.

[utahjeepr]

As VVV points out. Completed or stripped it is an incomplete reciever, and transfers as "other". It shipped from the MFG that way and that's what it "IS". It is that MFG paperwork that matters. IF something is filed with the ATF changing the way that serial number is assigned, then it officially changes. Only then.

As far as the 4473, the dealer can get in trouble for transferring it wrong but that does not change what it "IS". If a dealer splits a rifle that shipped as a rifle, then that lower is still a "rifle".

[kirkland]

And you think they have some magical way of knowing what you're doing?

Get real. Done debating with you, you're simply wrong.

If you put a short barrel upper on a rifle lower in your own home and create an illegal SBR, do they have some magical way of knowing what you're doing? No. Did you still break the law? Yes.

So your legal advice is to go ahead break the law because you probably won't get caught? Is that what you're saying?

I proved you wrong, deal with it.

Look up definitions of pistol, rifle, firearm, any other weapon, and short barrel rifle under the law.

If you have a stripped lower and finish building it, you'll end up in one of those categories. If you build it into a rifle it is then considered a rifle from then on, no different than a rifle you'd buy from the factory, and it is illegal to convert it into a pistol. There is no definition that says "this is a special rifle that can be converted into a pistol because it was built from a stripped lower."

You're just plain wrong.

[AKDoug]

If a man makes a rifle and nobody sees it.. did he really make a rifle?