When you buyer a stripped lower, it is registered as a rifle. The IRS does not become interested in collecting FET UNTIL it is a complete weapon (in their eyes). If your a consumer and the weapon is for PERSONAL use, then no FET is to be paid.
Even if an FFL dealer builds an AR for PERSONAL use, no FET is paid either (or they are covered by the 50 build rule).
So let's pretend that you buy a stripped lower on April 1. On May 1, an AWB is passed stating that all weapons built before May 1 are grandfathered in and you can do whatever you want with them. It would be VERY hard to prove as to whether that lower came to you as a stripped lower or a complete weapon.
The AWB that we are now looking at doesn't have the above acception in it, so buying lowers won't save you. I guess one way to look at it though, is if this one doesn't pass (which I don't think it will) another "softer" one might come along and all those stripped lowers might just pay off for someone.
Having read some of the pending AWB (no expert though), I don't think it will go through for several reasons. First, it would take every duck/turkey/deer/upland bird favorite weapon (auto loading shotgun). Second, It would take another favorite weapon, the Ruger 10/22 (or any auto loading .22). Third, since just about NO auto loading weapon would be legal to own anymore, do we REALLY see a door to door confiscation taking place?
I may have read into the AWB a little to much, but that is kind of how it was laid out in recent NRA magazine.
C4


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