From the FPC . . .
The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today a timely new scholarly article on the Second Amendment right to self-manufacture arms, including firearms. “The American Tradition of Self-Made Arms” is based on original research by FPC’s director of constitutional studies, Joseph Greenlee, and traces the right from Colonial America through modern times.
Greenlee’s article is especially important as litigation on the subject increases due to recent, unconstitutional changes in the law in some anti-rights jurisdictions like Delaware, Nevada, and New Jersey. The article can be found on FPC’s website here and on SSRN here. For information on FPC’s litigation to protect the right of individuals to self-build firearms, please visit FPCLegal.org.
The Four Parts of “The American Tradition of Self-made Arms”
The article’s first section examines what the Supreme Court has said about protected arms, and emphasizes that all common arms are protected, regardless of how the arm was obtained. For instance, a homemade handgun is protected just as robustly as a handgun purchased at a retail shop. Additionally, courts have repeatedly found that the Second Amendment protects the right to acquire arms, which seemingly includes building arms for oneself.
The second section focuses on the history and tradition of self-built arms in American history. The art and knowledge of arms-building was highly valued and critical throughout colonial America. When the Americans faced a catastrophic arms shortage during the Revolutionary War, it was domestically produced firearms and gunpowder that secured their survival—which would not have been possible without widespread knowledge of arms building throughout the country.
After independence was won, self-built arms contributed to America’s western expansion and its world-changing innovation. In fact, many of the most important arms in history started through self-building, including Colt revolvers, the Henry Rifle, the Spencer Rifle, the Lee-Enfield Rifle, the M1 Garand, and the AR-15.
The third section explores the history of regulations on arms built for personal use. It finds that, throughout American history, self-building has been almost entirely unregulated until the last decade.
The article concludes by explaining that the Supreme Court’s Heller decision “established several principles that support the right to build arms for personal use.
First, under Heller, any analysis must start with the Second Amendment’s text, which protects the right to keep and bear arms and provides no reason to believe that people must buy the arms they wish to keep and bear. Second, Heller held that the Second Amendment protects the types of weapons that are commonly possessed for lawful purposes, regardless of how those arms are acquired. Third, Heller suggested, as lower courts have recognized, that the Second Amendment also protects the right to acquire arms, which includes building them personally. Fourth, history and tradition—which is used to inform the Amendment’s text under Heller—reveals that Americans have long enjoyed and depended on the unregulated right to build arms since the colonial days. In sum, the right to build arms for personal use is a right protected by the Second Amendment.”
This important article was made possible by FPC’s members and donors. Individuals who would like to join the FPC Grassroots Army or donate to support pro-Second Amendment programs to protect and restore the right to keep and bear arms should visit JoinFPC.org. For more on FPC’s lawsuits and other pro-Second Amendment initiatives, visit FPCLegal.org and follow FPC on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.
Unfortunately New York hopped on board with no home builds this year. Hopefully it doesn’t take as long to make it through the court system but we do have other more pressing infringements.
This is something we need to get the ball rolling on *soon*.
If Thomas expires in his sleep like Scalia did (God forbid! 🙁 ), our majority effectively evaporates, thanks to spineless Roberts. I suppose we could play hardball and refuse to cross the isle if it ever comes to a Senate vote, but I hope we never have to take it that far… 🙁
Geoff PR,
A small part of me still wonders if Scalia actually died of natural causes.
Oh, for crying out loud: I posted an innocuous single-sentence reply to Geoff PR and my reply is awaiting moderation.
There is absolutely nothing in my reply–a simple question about a justice’s demise–that should require review. No “naughty words” or anything of the sort.
Now I want to know what is causing “moderation”.
And now my very same entire sentence does not cause moderation:
“A small part of me still wonders if Scalia actually died of natural causes.”
Simple. The quarter came up heads.
True, the Constitution certainly protects the right to assemble your own guns at home, but here in California (and Nevada, if AB286 is not enjoined by Court order before January 1, as has been reported might happen) you must still register your frame…before you even begin work on it. Did you slip with a tool and render the frame useless? Too bad…CADOJ already has you on record and now you must go through the process of reporting it as destroyed, as well as begin the process all over again to register a new frame before trying again.
And let’s not forget that once your name is in the registry, you’re there forever for that item, whether you still own it or not.
If the balloon every truly went up and we found ourselves in a world WROL, I have a feeling a ton of unregistered, unserialized, off-the-radar guns would come out of the woodwork across this state.
Knowing where the, as the term goes, “skeletons are buried” is key. I know someone who lives in California. Hes had over 50 guns and several thousand rounds of ammo stashed in plain sight for the last 28 years. None of the guns are in California’s records. They are in some locked 3/4 inch steel safe like air-tight cabinets in a business he owns. The cabinets are in plain sight to anyone who walks into the business, along a back wall. They are outfitted with two X-09 series combination locks on each one. They are specialized cabinets originally intended for the U.S. Government for storage of “components” (no, he doesn’t know what components, he just designed and built them to the specs required). His business was the supplier for the government contract for the cabinets. The government cancelled the contract before they could be delivered and paid him but they no longer had a use for the cabinets so let him keep them.
speaking of California and guns > https://concealednation.org/2021/12/gun-beats-knife-in-driveway-of-armed-homeowner/
COMPTON, CALIFORNIA — A homeowner was getting into his car in his driveway around 6:15 a.m. Tuesday when police say he was approached by a man armed with a knife. The attempted armed robbery escalated quickly when the homeowner produced a firearm.
LA County Sheriffs office responded and…
“ ‘Upon their arrival they located a male Hispanic adult, in his 30s, suffering from several gunshot wounds to the upper torso,’ a sheriff’s statement said. ‘Investigators learned that the homeowner exited his residence and was getting into his vehicle in the driveway. The homeowner was confronted by the male Hispanic adult who was holding a knife in an apparent attempted robbery.’ “
A quick escalation and an even quicker end to the attempted crime. As it should be.
I wonder what their Soros-owned DA thinks about this one…
Gasp! violent crime without a gun? Impossible. This Hispanic person is being ‘disproportionately’ accused.
“…in plain sight for the last 28 years…”
should have been “…in plain sight for the last 18 years…”
fat fingers
“here in California (and Nevada . . .) you must still register your frame…before you even begin work on it.”
Since I escaped / retired to then-free Nevada after being stationed in California, this issue is near and dear to me. I respectfully disagree with your interpretation.
Nevada still sucks less than California in many ways, including [no] registration. OTOH, this leaves no path to legality under the current law. You cannot pre-register if you want to build, and if you built already and don’t dispose, you are ex-post-facto fuct.
“…you are ex-post-facto fuct.”
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;…”
Making something illegal today, that was legal yesterday, is not “Ex Post Facto”. Making a legal activity from yesterday illegal yesterday is “Ex Post Facto”. In the instant case, the law would need to identify that yesterday’s activity itself is punishable.
In the example you give, the legal activity of yesterday is not punishable, but a new event of the prohibited activity would be punishable. So, if using cocaine was legal yesterday, but illegal today, your prior use is not punishable, but use today (and after) is punishable. Such a situation in law is not “Ex Post Facto.”
To further develop the analysis, if using cocaine is illegal today, and you do not ever use cocaine again, you could not be punished for using cocaine yesterday. A law that declared cocaine use “ever” is punishable would be “Ex Post Facto”.
Ex post facto refers to a criminal statute that punishes actions retroactively, thereby criminalizing conduct that was legal when originally performed.
If it was legal yesterday for me to make my own gun and I did, and the government implements a criminal statue today that makes it illegal for me to make a gun …the government can not prosecute me for violating the new criminal statute for the gun I made yesterday.
FWIW, .40 cal, that is certainly the way the Constitution intended it. Due to some creative lawyering and some questionable precedents (including SCOTUS), the argument is advanced, so far, successfully, that the current criminal act is NOT your original manufactur of the gun, but your continued POSSESSION of it, after the new law. Thin gruel, I admit, but that’s basically the argument being used by they gun grabbers. I think it’s inane, illogical, ahistoric and stupid, but so far SCOTUS has not ruled, definitively, on the legality and limitations of that argument. Sam’s point is correct, and there are obvious examples – if cocaine were legal today, and they outlawed possession tomorrow, the Peruvian Marching Powder I bought yesterday was legal when I bought it, but my possession of it today is not. Your opinion as to the strength of that argument notwithstanding, SCOTUS and myriads of other courts have ruled exactly that.
.40 cal Booger,
Thanks!
Sam I Am,
You [in]corrected me without reading / understanding what I wrote. Cocaine use is a poor analogy because it’s a “one and done” event (well, aside from the horribly addictive part!). Lamp of Diogenes hit the nail on the head: “if you built already and don’t dispose,” the law does make you ex post facto guilty of possessing something that was legal to possess when you built it.
@Umm,
I am currently assisting a friend who lives in Vegas to get her P80 gun marked by Jan 1, per AB286’s requirement. I’ve been following this bill (since signed into law by Sisolak earlier this year) because at the time my friend requested my assistance as she built her own P80, it was fully legal at the time. Only weeks afterward, Sisolak and the Keystone Kops in your state’s now-Democrat Legislature passed the bill that will make mere possession of an unmarked frame a Class D felony, whether it’s completed or still in the as-received-from-the-supplier 80% state. Believe it or not, AB286 goes where even CA law doesn’t go, and declares mere possession of a piece of unfinished plastic to be a felony.
This being the case, I found a custom gun shop that is providing such marking for compliance, and whose owner is acutely aware of AB286. As of today (perhaps you were referring to this detail in your comment above?), possession of an unmarked frame is fully legal. But on Jan 1, it will be a felony and your ability to own guns will be removed from you for the rest of your life. Because Democrat logic.
While Nevada now has universal registration (again, thanks to Sisolak), upon reading AB286 I haven’t found any requirement to register an existing gun that was assembled and marked before Jan 1, 2022. After the law goes into effect, however, I believe you may be correct that there will be no path to legality for those who wish to build, or to mark.
I hope the report is true, that Judge Schlegelmilch allegedly stated he’ll enjoin the law for grounds of both (1) “void for vagueness” and (2) violation of the Due Process Clause of the Nevada Constitution. I myself have used my favorite P80 at Front Sight and have spoken with several of their instructors who carry their own while on shift.
Haz,
Interesting! You just have to mark it? I was not aware of that nuance (which wasn’t in the articles that informed me of the law, including TTAG’s). Do you need to report it, etc.? I’d appreciate any source links, etc.
There is still no registration here, though.
Oops. Typo. I meant universal background checks are required for all transfers in NV beginning in Jan 2020 (NRS 202.2547).
Here’s the link to the NV State’s own pdf on AB286:
https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Session/81st2021/Bills/AB/AB286.pdf
Haz,
Ah, yes, we do have UBCs, and thank you very much!
I saw nothing on that page alluding to what you wrote. It states “A person shall not manufacture or cause to be manufactured or assemble or cause to be assembled a firearm that is not imprinted with a serial number issued by a firearms importer or manufacturer in accordance with federal law”.
California weirdly applies “manufacture / manufacturer” to everyone, but Nevada follows Federal law in applying it only to actual factories building for commercial sale.
Section 3 (beginning on Line 33 of the document) states that possession of an unfinished frame not containing a marked serial number by anyone who is not in the business of manufacturing is guilty of a Class D felony. That’s pretty much in line with what I wrote. So if you have an unmarked P80 today, you’re fine, but as of Jan 1 you’ll be in violation and “guilty” of a felony under the new law.
Unless you were referring to something else?
Haz,
AFAICT, you just repeated the same line I quoted (minus the last part).
The law contains no provision for a home smith to mark anything. It says a firearm is a violation if not marked by a manufacturer or importer “in accordance with federal law” (i.e. when they manufacture or import it). If a manufacturer (not an importer, which would obviously be impossible) were to retroactively mark someone’s homebuild, it might provide topcover against superficial (i.e. most) inquiries. OTOH, it would also be a false official statement that would risk his whole business, felony charges, etc. if anyone were ever to investigate (stolen and recovered, lost then found by someone else, used in self defense, etc.).
An inconvenient truth…”shall not be infringed”. And yet it is. Every freaking day.
Too true.
It makes me wonder why we listen to the Supreme Court at all. Apparently heeding the Constitution as well as SCOTUS rulings is optional depending on the wishes of the current party in control.
“An Inconvenient Truth: The Constitution Protects Home Made Guns”
Not until The Supremes say so. Until then, the constitution is merely aspirational. Every word and punctuation must be ratified by a SCOTUS ruling. Vague rulings ensure continued relevance of the federal court system. Judges gotta have something to judge.
If you have one and live in one of those states that ban them, put it away and keep your mouth shut until the dust settles. If they don’t know you have it, they can’t take it.
That’s good advice. Government doesn’t need to know anything about your family heirlooms, your hobbies, your possessions. Nothing.
Also, as that utube lawyer fella says, anything more than minimum compliance is self regulation.
There are many people here in CA (including some LEOs I’ve personally spoken with) who do just that and have any…umm…questionable items tucked away in the safe, to be taken out only when they finally move out of state, or we have a collapse and WROL situation.
I remember a machinist who had his own machine shop in his house and he built himself a .50 caliber Browning anti aircraft gun. He’s currently in the slammer.
RGP,
Is that machinist in the slammer for manufacturing the anti-aircraft gun or for other reasons?
If we ever get an authoritative ruling which codifies our right to manufacture our own firearms in our own homes:
Does that open the door to get a similar ruling to protect our right to manufacture our own auto-sears, suppressors, and short-barreled rifles and thus enjoin enforcement of the National Firearms Act of 1934?
Totally wrong it is not the Constitution but the courts and the legislature that give gun rights or take them away and the courts and legislatures have been taking away gun rights since before the revolution was ever fought and increased after the revolution up to the present day.
The Scalia rant was another disingenuous piece of court propaganda because it left the courts the power to regulate arms (slick disingenuous double talk for restrict or ban)
History has shown that the criminal founders deliberately wrote 2A in the most ambiguous terms to foster the myth to the uneducated that they had some gun rights but in reality 2A was created to get the states to join the union and the carrot was they could have their own private armies to murder slave uprisings. It actually had zero to do with the individuals right to own arms. Some states kept arms locked up in their armories and some even took guns from unruly members who would not tow the party line.
No civilized nations on this earth permit nut cases and criminals to make home made guns or to buy second hand guns without paperwork. Nor do they permit people to leave deadly weapons unlocked so that criminals can break in and steal them or permit children to pick them up and kill themselves either by accident or by suicide. None except in Capitalvania the most uncivilized, savage, industrial nation on earth.
On NPR today one man said that as a kid he was taught gun safety but found his fathers pistol and put it too his head and cocked the trigger back and contemplated suicide. He said if he had accidentally put a bit more pressure on the trigger he never would have lived to marry, have a job or enjoy life. All this shows the ranting’s of the Far Right opposing safe storage is pure paranoiac insanity of very sick people that need mental help themselves and you cannot reason with such nut cases. It is they who should not be allowed to own deadly weapons.
On NPR today another story was of a far right nut case that gave loaded shotgun shell to his toddler to keep him amused. The toddler found a shotgun and fired if off with one of the shells and hit his own mother who luckily did survive. Almost too late did the far right nut case learn how dangerous it is to leave ammo or guns lying around with children in the house.
TL;DR, beyond the “…it is not the Constitution but the courts and the legislature that give gun rights or take them away…” poo-poo.
Haz. dacian is an old school Nazi. He sees things differently from the sane among us.
I have chunks of men like you in my stool.
Well, Rick does seem like the kind if guy who likes eating men….
I looked on NPR for that toddler and shotgun story. Show your work otherwise it is yet another BS story.
To PT
You just revealed you do not listen to or know much about NPR. Yesterdays presentation which ran over 1/2 hour will not appear on NPR instantly. You have known that if you were familiar with NPR. As a matter of fact even news that appears on NBC often does not appear in its entirety until the next day on their web site.
Dacian your saying you can’t prove your allegation.
“No civilized nations on this earth permit nut cases and criminals to make home made guns or to buy second hand guns without paperwork.”
No nation on earth monitors “nut cases and criminals” so its pretty unlikely they would not know of anything they do.
“On NPR today one man said that as a kid he was taught gun safety but found his fathers pistol and put it too his head and cocked the trigger back and contemplated suicide.”
Which is pure BS. The old theory that a person who contemplates suicide will always find a way isn’t exactly true although it is accurate if the person is serious about it. But it is true that a person who contemplates suicide and gets to the sudden point of doing it would have used just about any method easily available other than a gun to accomplish it even though a gun is in the home and accessible. A small fact not included in suicide stats, 92% of ‘ideation’ and contemplated suddenly carried out suicides in the home were there is a gun accessible are accomplished by use of drug overdose. Drug overdose remains the leading method of sudden suicide or sudden suicide attempt, and overall the preferred choice for suicide – so lets lock up all the medicine cabinets. The more recently popular and quickly gaining method is suicide by helium.
Suicide contemplating people tend to ‘plan’ their suicides. People who have contemplated suicide for a long time in the home tend to not want it messy for those they leave behind, so they tend to use methods other than gun even though a gun is accessible. If a person is going to use a gun for suicide, then those that commit suicide by gun are greater if there is a gun in the home – but the risk of suicide by gun is not greater simply because there is gun in the home – its semantics word games played to justify the stats because states and organizations that report get federal money to combat suicide and guns are a favorite to use for an excuse for their reported suicide rates because an accident or homicide can appear a suicide more easily with a gun involved if there is not other evidence discovered in the initial investigation. ~66% of reported suicide by gun in stats are later found to have been accident or homicide, the stats are never changed to reflect this so they tend to rise over time being falsely inflated.
“No nation on earth monitors “nut cases and criminals” so its pretty unlikely they would not know of anything they do.”
Should have been
No nation on earth monitors “nut cases and criminals” so its pretty unlikely they would know of anything they do.
So put a number on it and don’t worry about it. If the firearm is ever checked through the database it will reveal” No record found”. case closed. You have a number on it, the state never registered it. . “Reasonable doubt”. Much like dealing with pests: shoot, shovel and shut uo.
so they find an unmarked something, obviousy home made.. HOW can they ROVE when it was made, and/or by whom? Make it well, they could work for years and never figure out when it was actually made or by whom. They cannot legaly charge e for an act performed back before all the gungrabber hysteria, can they? But I am al too well aware the process IS the punishment.
Wally1,
Civil actions and criminal prosecutions do not work as your are implying.
Consider your real-world example where you completed an 80% receiver, engraved a serial number of your choosing, never registered it, government finds you possessing it, and government does not find its serial number in their registration database:
At trial, it takes the government less than 5 minutes to establish that they found you with a homemade firearm and that its serial number is not in their database. Thus, in less than 5 minutes, government has met their burden of poof and demonstrated that you are “guilty” of possessing an unregistered homemade gun. At that point, unless YOU produce irrefutable evidence that you registered your firearm (such as a government-issued receipt of submitting your homemade firearm’s serial number), the jury will find you “guilty”.
At trials, everything revolves around obvious and affirmative evidence. Government presents obvious and affirmative evidence that you violated some law to establish your guilt. Then you have to present obvious and affirmative evidence which exonerates you.
I find this truth to be very convenient.
“the government can not prosecute me for violating the new criminal statute for the gun I made yesterday.”
Exactly…with clarification: If the law today states that continued possession of a gun you legally made yesterday is illegal, such law would not be an example of “Ex Post Facto”.
Correct, but no government at any level may declare your property to be illegal without due process and fair market compensation. See “eminent domain” and “takings clause”.
The entire reason why Judge Benitez enjoined CA’s AB63 back in 2019 (after already ruling it unconstitutional in 2017) was that the law simply declared “large capacity magazines” illegal without remuneration to owners of said magazines. The law contains no provision.
“Correct, but no government at any level may declare your property to be illegal without due process and fair market compensation. See “eminent domain” and “takings clause”.”
Can’t see “eminent domain” being applied to firearms, and not aware that “eminent domain” applies to criminal statutes (i.e. declaring a possession to be illegal). “Takings” are a bit more interesting.
Going back to my cocaine example, the drug became illegal on a date certain, and mere possession of an illegal substance is a crime. In criminal cases government may confiscate the cocaine without regards to “takings”.
One would suspect that “civil asset forfeiture” would be a clear case of government “taking” property without compensation. Reason being, government takes property on suspicion, and does not return it, even if no criminal charges are forthcoming. The SC, however, ruled “civil asset forfeiture” permissible, constitutional, so long as the value of the items taken do not exceed the maximum dollar fine described in law.
@Umm
“if you built already and don’t dispose,” the law does make you ex post facto guilty of possessing something that was legal to possess when you built it.”
Not quite so. A law that makes possession of an object, today and afterward, is simply a law punishing you today, or afterward, if you retain the now illegal object. Retroactive (a definition of “Ex Post Facto”) means that if you do not possess an item, or continue an activity beyond the date of a law declaring an object or action illegal henceforth, you cannot be charged with once upon a time possessing/conducting a now illegal object, or activity.
Another example: sometime in the past, you owned a “switchblade” knife. After awhile, you disposed that knife, and no longer owned it. Yesterday, possession of “switchblades” are legislated to be illegal. An “Ex Post Facto” law would be one that could punish you for that possession, even though you no longer owned the now “contraband” item. If, however, the law states that henceforth, as of today, possession of a “switchblade” is illegal possession of “contraband”, such law is punishing one for possession going forward, not retroactively.
The same principle would apply as pertains to laws imposing a legal requirement that drivers must use seat belt, beginning the day the law is effective. An “Ex Post Facto” law would be one punishing any one who did not use seat belts at any time in the past (punishing a person for legal acts committed prior to the law prescribing use). mandatory seat belt use.
“Ex Post Facto” law must apply retroactively. In order to punish one for an illegal act, a date of the violation must be on, or after, the date the law became effective. As such, the current law cannot be used to punish a person acts that were legal in the past. An “Ex Post Facto” law would permit using a date in the past as the date the now illegal act was committed.
Yes, I did read your comment in its entirety.
Sam I Am,
I agree with Lamp’s assessment – the difference, if any, is mere lawyerly sophistry. If I did something legal yesterday, a law that either forces me to act (while making many / most of my logical recourses illegal!) or be a felon today is effectively ex post facto.
Case in point: Why do “assault weapon” laws even in the commie states contain grandfather clauses?
-Out of respect for 2A and our feelings? LOL
-Out of nostalgia for Jim Crow? (Sorry, couldn’t resist!)
-Or because to outlaw a legally purchased item would be ex post facto and indefensible?
“Ex Post Facto” means “retroactive”, or “ever”. It means the law applies backward. It means that if your activity yesterday was legal, the new law wold cite your now illegal act as beginning prior to the day the law was enacted. The dates in the citation/charge could reference a time when your actions were legal.
A current law that makes illegal a certain object, or action beginning today may have a “grandfather” clause, so as to identify the fact that it make take a period of time to come into compliance with a new law. This “grandfathering” is prima facie a declaration that the law is not retroactive, ergo not “Ex Post Facto”.
Now, let’s look at this from a reverse position: A law is enacted today henceforth requiring every adult to carry a firearm outside their domicile. Under your theory, such is an Ex Post Facto law, one that puts in jeopardy everyone who did not carry a firearm prior to the date of enactment (illegal to not carry a firearm).
Given your reasoning, every law that changes the legality of an action, or object, is “Ex Post Facto”, thus unconstitutional, thus void. Ever wonder why your understanding has not been brought before the courts long, long ago, and successfully adjudicated?
Sam I Am,
I understand your points, including the literal meaning of the Latin. OTOH, by sidestepping my example (and others’) and choosing instead to posit “carrying a weapon” – another example of a discrete positive action, just like your cocaine-use analogy – you seem as though you do not understand mine.
Fortunately for both of us, “my” understanding of the principle has been brought before the courts and is shared by most, as well as by legislators whose laws overwhelmingly steer clear of violating it.
To wit: A law that punishes someone for not taking extensive positive action to change or undo an act performed while it was perfectly legal, has for all intents and purposes the practical effect of punishing the original, legal act – particularly when the corrective action involves a great deal of labor, cost, etc., and (again) all the more so when the law itself closes off most or all of the corrective actions other than destroying the property, effectively fining the person without a trial. Recognition of this truth, and protection against such treatment, is written into laws across many areas of life, sometimes to shocking extents. I will attempt to illustrate by contrasting examples:
-A building code written IAW your understanding of EPF would protect the original builder of a Victorian home (or his estate) from prosecution for the discrete act of having built it in 1875 contrary to today’s codes; but would treat simply having woken up as its owner, the day after the code went into effect, as new discrete act(s) – violations of hundreds of line items of code. It would not violate EPF, you’d say, because one could always have chainsawed off the ten feet outside the setbacks; moved every stud inside every wall 3″ closer together; replaced every wire with new ROMEX and a 200A breaker box, stripped every gram of lead paint and solder, etc. etc., and are now an evil criminal for the “act” of not having done that work (costing many times the value of the house) before the code took effect! Is that how it works? Or can you not only own, but occupy and even sell the old place, as long as you don’t commit the actual violation (new discrete act) of misrepresenting it as built to current code?
-Highway safety regs, to your standard, would provide Henry Ford immunity, but require every subsequent owner and buyer of an old flivver to install airbags, crumple zones, ride and traction control, and the whole nine yards. On the contrary, actual regs recognize the ridiculous burden such requirements would impose, allowing what any 2021 regulator would regard as suicidal deathtraps onto public highways.
Let’s say a state got its panties in a twist over airbags. Because of public safety, no car or light truck may be possessed without having factory airbags installed, with exclusions for out-of-state visitors. It would have been within their powers to not allow registration and use on public roads, like adding smog or safety inspections. By making possession of a classic car a felony, they have made the value of something worth tens of thousands worth nothing. They say they don’t have to compensate you for the loss because you can still possess the property by keeping it in another state and never bringing it back, or you can sell it out-of-state. That assertion hasn’t been struck down I’m federal courts, to my knowledge. It becomes trickier when applied on a national level, where there is no safe haven for the property.
Much like a 1947 Willy’s Jeep I own. It never had seatbelts from the factory, If I get pulled over for no seat belt, there is a provision for vehicles not factory equipped with such safety devices that still makes them legal to drive. I am not a total Moron and installed seat belts and a roll bar, but just saying how this situation would apply to firearms. Imagine if the feds made a law that all firearms must have a thumb activated safety, Now some firearms build years ago would be illegal, and that is not right.
All I know is there’s No Law against buying 6″ PVC pipe. It’s not limited to plumbers.
Get my drift?
I’ve built several firearms over the years. Mostly from boxes of junk or project parts from gun shows. A couple from kits. If the powers that be want to go search the swamps in the Mobile Delta or in the lakes up in the Boundry Waters they are welcome to do so. Surprising how fast guns sink when a john boat or canoe turns over. I can even give them witnesses to the accidents. Of course, they lost expensive or unpopular with the gun grabbers weapons as well.
And that PVC pipe I bought was used to fix the septic system. I promise>
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