# Disregard what I said about Form 1 silencers… apparently.



## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

So, it used to be that non-prohibited persons could make their own silencer, just like they would make their own short-barreled rifle or shotgun.

An amendment to the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 complicated things for silencers a bit, in that it defined, in law, that parts for a silencer were, in fact, silencers themselves. It’s bad (horrible) law, but we’ve been able to deal with it for the last 30 years.

It’s bad law because it’s defined elsewhere, in law, what a silencer does, that it must be serialized and marked by the maker etc. Not all silencer parts are marked or even can be marked as such, and several parts used in commercial silencers have uses in other, non-regulated items. So, trying to create some actual regulation out of the steaming pile of crap that is the silencer component law, if you have a screw you intend to use for a silencer, the screw is a silencer and you’re a felon for possessing it. If you intend it for anything else, it is not a silencer. _Never mind that you can buy pistons, end caps and modular mounts for silencers, that could only ever be used in a silencer, online or at your local gun shop- that’s just a nettling detail. _

The workaround has been that you could buy parts that could be conceived as having another use, but had not been drilled out for the passage of a bullet, complete your Form 1, receive your approved tax stamp, complete and assemble your silencer, and you were GTG.

That’s recently changed. Around the beginning of the year, the AFT (_what they’re apparently called under the Biden administration_) raided Diversified Machine, a company that specialized in making unfinished silencer parts for use in Form 1 builds, and charged them with selling unregistered silencers. The AFT then sent letters to all of DM’s customers and/or began paying them visits to see if they still had the parts around.

Where it gets really weird is that the AFT told respondents that, if they’d already completed their Form 1 build, they were fine. They took pictures of the approved tax stamps and cans, and went about their day.

That created a serious legal conundrum for the AFT.

If they’d made the judgement that the parts from DM were actually unregistered silencers, then they were telling citizens they were “fine” after having made silencers out of contraband silencers which had not been destroyed in the making. *In many cases, the AFT agents took physical possession of contraband silencers and handed them right back to the citizen after snapping a picture.*

So, the AFT, realizing the conundrum they’d put themselves in, revamped the Form 1 silencer process. All silencer Form 1s that were in process were denied and returned to the applicant. New Form 1 applications now come with the instructions that, in addition to the normal length and caliber description that a maker was required to provide, you must now include detailed pictures of the components you will use and provide technical description of how you will make the silencer.

The AFT has made it a requirement, as part of your “legally” making a silencer, that you must provide them photographic proof that you possess multiple illegal “silencers” that you intend to possess for 90 days or more before receive your approval and set to making your silencer.

The AFT has made the otherwise legal making of a silencer into a legal trap.

This one is quite a problem because it’s exactly the opposite of the issue discussed in _WV v. EPA, _in which the SCOTUS determined that government agencies can’t make overarching regulation outside of the boundaries of legislation. In _this_ case, the AFT has found itself painted into a corner BY the text of legislation that has been on the books since 1986. A ruling pursuant to _WV v EPA _can’t just throw this one out. Congress created this problem, and the law will have to be judged on its own. 

A group of senators has taken the issue to task, but I don’t expect anything to happen quickly, and the AFT is already late on their response.



 https://www.daines.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FINAL%20Senator%20Daines%20et%20al%20Letter%20to%20ATF%20on%20Form%201.pdf


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## link30240 (Aug 22, 2021)

This may come to a head soon, Texas is currently suing over the their right to block federal silencer regulation manufactured and staying within the state of Texas. 

If they win and t is likely, several free states will allow in state silencers and the ATFs illegal house of cards will continue to crumble


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

We knew someone who dabbled in the machining of metal accessories for limited pewpews. It was a hobby they enjoyed.

People who shoot someone just for kicks are already breaking several laws and are rarely caught, at least in Ohio. None of those shooters cares if anyone hears them because they know their chances of being caught, even for murder, are almost 0. It seems the criminals would rather be heard because they get their kicks scaring people.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

And, yes, for those keeping score: this is all coming to a head (after 36 years) due to Brandon’s AFT’s new “position” on “ghost guns”. This is just how the silencer end is playing out.


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## link30240 (Aug 22, 2021)

Im looking forward to owning a SBR without paying the additional tax or limitations they stick on them. Its reticules you can carry a "Pistol" across state lines and not a legal SBR without getting special permission


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

It’s a joke in firearms circles that an empty soda can is a silencer and a shoestring is a machine gun.

It’s said semi-tongue-in-cheek, and it sounds absurd, but it’s very scarily real. The way the ATF has taken to ruling on the definitions as supplied to them by federal gun regulation, the above is absolutely true… when the ATF wants it to be.

The Congress in 1986 (along with President Reagan’s signature) told the country that things that weren’t silencers suddenly were, and Trump outright told his ATF to change the definition of “machine gun” to include things that are absolutely not machine guns.

Biden jumped the shark and told his ATF to start enforcing the things that Reagan and Trump handed him.


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## link30240 (Aug 22, 2021)

GunMonkeyIntl said:


> It’s a joke in firearms circles that an empty soda can is a silencer and a shoestring is a machine gun.
> 
> It’s said semi-tongue-in-cheek, and it sounds absurd, but it’s very scarily real. The way the ATF has taken to ruling on the definitions as supplied to them by federal gun regulation, the above is absolutely true… when the ATF wants it to be.
> 
> ...


Especially concerning that they have no legal authority to make law or regulation at all. they are not Congress, and thats regardless of the infringement fact


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

And, for the record, the owners of Diversified Machine have put in their guilty pleas. There is now legal standing to say that anyone who bought the parts, legal at the time, to build a Form 1 silencer from those parts, is now in legal peril from having taken possession of a dozen or more illegal “silencers”. 

I wonder if Brandon is going to lay a wreath at Reagan’s grave today.


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## link30240 (Aug 22, 2021)

Well, there are several cases that involve the NFA in one form or another in the court system as of now. If one of them reaches the Supreme Court maybe we can get this corrected once and for all


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

link30240 said:


> Well, there are several cases that involve the NFA in one form or another in the court system as of now. If one of them reaches the Supreme Court maybe we can get this corrected once and for all


we can hope


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

I hate it when corporations roll over for federal regulators without regard for the legal implications to their former customers. 

Diversified Machine needs to be black-listed.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

link30240 said:


> Especially concerning that they have no legal authority to make law or regulation at all. they are not Congress, and thats regardless of the infringement fact


That is exactly what they did when Trump told them to change the definition of machine gun to include bump stocks, but that’s not what’s happening with the silencer parts. That was written into law, endorsed by the NRA and signed by Ronald Regan.

They, collectively, either didn’t care or didn’t understand that they were creating a quagmire in the wording of the legislation, but it’s real.

This is the text of the FOPA 1986 that amends the definition of “silencer” and “firearm muffler” from the NFA 1934. This is the new (since 1986) legal definition of “silencer”:


> "(24) The terms 'firearm silencer' and 'firearm muffler' mean any device for silencing, muffling, or diminishing the report of a portable firearm, including any combination of parts, designed or redesigned, and intended for use in assembling or fabricating a firearm silencer or firearm muffler, and any part intended only for use in such assembly or fabrication.".


According to the law, if you want to make a silencer (even as a licensed silencer manufacturer), according to the law, the metal bar stock you buy to feed your machines is a silencer - How many? Who knows? How many silencers can you make from a bar of aluminum? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

The company I work for makes parts for several well-known silencer companies. We’re required to hold licensing as a silencer manufacturer because, when we send a box of 1,000 baffles to a silencer maker, we technically sent them 1,000 silencers. When we make a silencer, we’re supposed to file a Form 2, but we can’t since a baffle doesn’t have a serial number. When we send that “silencer” to another licensee, we’re supposed to file a Form 3, but we can’t, because that box of 1,000 silencers doesn’t have a stack of 1,000 Form 2s to go along with it.

When that manufacturer takes eight of those silencers out of the box and make them into an _actual_ silencer, you know, one that actually muffles the report of a firearm, what happens to the eight “silencers” that went into making the one? They just ceased to be? Poof! Or, pffft, as it were.

This, unless I’m a regular citizen with a silencer. Then, if my can takes a rubber “wipe” for the end cap, and that wipe gets worn out, I’m legally allowed to destroy that wipe and throw it in the trash… and I’m legally allowed to keep a stack of rubber washers around, for all my rubber washer needs, BUT, if I (literally) even think about using one of those rubber washers to replace the rubber washer that was my wipe, before the manufacturer thought it into being as a silencer, then I’ve just illegally thought a silencer into being, and I’m a felon. _And that’s not an exaggeration. The ATF has prosecuted exactly that case, several times. _


The legislation, as signed by Reagan, is literally impossible to enforce. We’ve just spent the last 36 years thankful that the ATF chose not to try to enforce it… or at least only enforce it in its least painful way.

Now, a soda can is a silencer and a shoestring is a machine gun.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

Danaus29 said:


> I hate it when corporations roll over for federal regulators without regard for the legal implications to their former customers.
> 
> Diversified Machine needs to be black-listed.


Diversified Machine went out of business. The raid was six months ago, and the ATF has been twisting the owners’ arms ever since.

Interestingly, it was less than a week between the plea deals being struck that the ATF changed the Form 1 process to require that the applicant to supply photos of the illegal silencers that they intended to try to make a legal silencer from.

The USDOJ is building this with constructive intent.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

link30240 said:


> Well, there are several cases that involve the NFA in one form or another in the court system as of now. If one of them reaches the Supreme Court maybe we can get this corrected once and for all


I wouldn’t count on that. One of the landmark NFA cases is _US v. Miller (1939)_. Miller was accused of illegal possession of a short-barreled shotgun- which he did have as defined by the NFA of 1934. Miller argued that the NFA violated his 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The US “won” that case.

The SCOTUS’ opinion, finding against Miller, was that the 2nd amendment only protected the right to keep and bear arms in common use by the US military. They said that short-barreled rifles and shotguns (ironically incorrect even that that time), silencers and machine guns were not the standard infantry soldier’s issue at the time, so they weren’t protected by the 2A.

Less than 30 years later, the machine gun DID become the standard infantry issue weapon, and standing SCOTUS ruling said that those couldn’t be regulated at all. But, to this day, machine guns remain on the NFA.

The USDOD is currently running multiple procurements to make silencers standard issue for all infantry soldiers.

None of it makes sense. That’s a feature of the law, not a flaw.


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## link30240 (Aug 22, 2021)

GunMonkeyIntl said:


> I wouldn’t count on that. One of the landmark NFA cases is _US v. Miller (1939)_. Miller was accused of illegal possession of a short-barreled shotgun- which he did have as defined by the NFA of 1934. Miller argued that the NFA violated his 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The US “won” that case.
> 
> The SCOTUS’ opinion, finding against Miller, was that the 2nd amendment only protected the right to keep and bear arms in common use by the US military. They said that short-barreled rifles and shotguns (ironically incorrect even that that time), silencers and machine guns were not the standard infantry soldier’s issue at the time, so they weren’t protected by the 2A.
> 
> ...


Ok, heres a slant.. The ATF now is trying to say all these braced pistols are now SBRs so just how many in circulation are there (Up to 7 million) ? How many does it take to be considered "In Common use" ?

And Trump was a idiot to push for bumbstock bans and was a idiot to allow them to push him into the covid shut downs and mask mandates.

Trump doesn't get a free ride with me, I give credit and condemnation as earned


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

link30240 said:


> Ok, heres a slant.. The ATF now is trying to say all these braced pistols are now SBRs so just how many in circulation are there (Up to 7 million) ? How many does it take to be considered "In Common use" ?
> 
> And Trump was a idiot to push for bumbstock bans and was a idiot to allow them to push him into the covid shut downs and mask mandates.
> 
> Trump doesn't get a free ride with me, I give credit and condemnation as earned


The pistol brace thing is like the bump stock ban. That was Biden doing the same thing that Trump did with machine guns.

“Rifle”, “pistol” and “machine gun” each have very specific definitions in the law. A bumpstock does not meet the definition of machine gun, and a brace does not turn a pistol into a rifle. The law is very clear on that (_almost “shall not be infringed” clear_), yet here we stand.

One might try using the ATF’s logic against them, and posit that their redefining the very common-use braced pistol is now a SBR, which is, then, in common use, but none of that matters. Jerry Nadler is on tape, in the Chair of a house committee acknowledging that legislation he is trying to pass is an attempt to ban guns that are in common use- “_That’s the point of the bill … The problem is they are in common use…_”.









Video: Nadler admits 'assault weapons' ban intends to ban 'common use' guns


Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, admitted on Wednesday that the goal of the Democrat-led “assault weapons” ban is to




americanmilitarynews.com


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## link30240 (Aug 22, 2021)

GunMonkeyIntl said:


> Jerry Nadler is on tape, in the Chair of a house committee acknowledging that legislation he is trying to pass is an attempt to ban guns that are in common use- “_Yes. That’s the problem. They are in common use_”.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yep, and god willing that bites them in the Donkey. That combined with the blatant thumbing their noses at the supreme court in New York and California in direct conflict to their recent decisions, isnt going to go well for any unconstitutional laws they try to pass.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

link30240 said:


> Yep, and god willing the bites them in the Donkey. That combined with the blatant thumbing their noses at the supreme court in New York and California in direct conflict to their recent decisions, isnt going to go well for any unconstitutional laws they try to pass.


Yes. One could hope, but court cases take time. Lots of it.

A right delayed is a right denied.


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