California Man Mysteriously Freed After Selling Illegal AR-15s

[Kanye Wyoming]

I thought some here might find this interesting. I spent a few minutes searching but couldn’t find an existing thread in which this post belongs. If there is one, the shitty mods should feel free to move it.

Here’s an odd story out of California that dates back nearly a decade but I’m only just hearing about it now. It deals with a man named Joseph Roh who lived in a suburb of Los Angeles. After a lengthy BATFE investigation, it was determined that Roh had been illegally manufacturing AR-15 style, semiautomatic rifles (without serial numbers) in his own warehouse. What’s more, he had been selling them for $1,000 a pop to people, many of whom were not legally allowed to purchase a firearm due to having a criminal record. In fact, one of his customers turned out to be John Zawahri, who you may recall from a mass shooting in Santa Monica in 2013.
....

“The judge in the case had issued a tentative order that, in the eyes of prosecutors, threatened to upend the decades-old Gun Control Act and “seriously undermine the ATF’s ability to trace and regulate firearms nationwide.”

A case once touted by prosecutors as a crackdown on an illicit firearms factory was suddenly seen as having the potential to pave the way to unfettered access to one of the most demonized guns in America.

Federal authorities preferred to let Roh go free rather than have the ruling become final and potentially create case law that could have a crippling effect on the enforcement of gun laws, several sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Each requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the case and its possible implications.”
....

How is that possible? Roh apparently wasn’t selling completely finished weapons. It’s legal for anyone to manufacture or sell nearly all of the components that go into making a firearm. The exception to the rule is that you can’t sell the frame or receiver. That’s the part that encloses, among other things, the firing pin and the hammer. That part needs a serial number on it and you need an FFL to sell it.

The problem with AR-15 style rifles is that the receiver comes in two pieces. Each, by itself, isn’t sufficient to meet the federal definition of a receiver. Roh was selling pieces that a felon could assemble into a functional weapon with relative ease, but none of the pieces he was dishing out technically qualified as a firearm.

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-sha...llegal-ar-15s/

[OlongJohnson]

Sounds like they were trying to jam him up for selling the equivalent of “build kits.” If I understand it correctly, it’s nothing new, nothing illegal, nothing burger. The beat rolls on, and media keeps trying to scare muggles into thinking we need more laws.

[NickA]

Thanks for posting this, I was going to post this CNN article Friday but never got around to it.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/11/us/ar...nvs/index.html

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[OlongJohnson]

CNN has more details and nuance than hot air. My post above is not complete. May update later.

[RevolverRob]

So, basically the judge argued that if it encloses the firing pin and hammer it's a receiver, and thus a firearm, but if it is only one of those it is not?

So in this realm an AR15, hell a 1911, does not have a receiver.

It seems to me that this will be altered, either legally, or by ATF Fiat, soon.

Second, don't be surprised if the next big "Bipartisan Gun Control Legislation" - goes straight for receivers that are intended to and capable of being machined/assembled into a firearm. This will be a modification to the '86 GCA - assuming they don't get an AWB through and just ban the things entirely.

They'll get away with it, due to the language, basically, if you buy a lower that is marketed or intended to be a firearm - without going through an FFL - bam. You could, in theory, still buy a block of aluminum or steel and machine one out entirely on your own, but the 80% and even 60% receivers are going away.

[TDA]

Jimenez is interesting reading. Actually, I'll say that I find it hilarious, in several different parts. I almost spit coffee on the keyboard. Jesus. What a mess!

It involved a fully completed lower.

https://www.leagle.com/decision/inadvfdco170414000291

"Defendant contends that nothing in the statutes or CFR gave him fair notice that possessing the lower receiver of an AR-15 rifle would count as the criminal possession of "the receiver." As a corollary, he argues that the lack of clear standards [191 F.Supp.3d 1041] allows the ATF to engage in arbitrary enforcement practices."

[RevolverRob]

Jimenez is interesting reading. Actually, I'll say that I find it hilarious, in several different parts. I almost spit coffee on the keyboard. Jesus. What a mess!

It involved a fully completed lower.

https://www.leagle.com/decision/inadvfdco170414000291

"Defendant contends that nothing in the statutes or CFR gave him fair notice that possessing the lower receiver of an AR-15 rifle would count as the criminal possession of "the receiver." As a corollary, he argues that the lack of clear standards [191 F.Supp.3d 1041] allows the ATF to engage in arbitrary enforcement practices."

Fucking Oxford commas get you every time....

They agree that Section 479.11 of the CFR defines a receiver as the "part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel." This means a receiver must have the housing for three elements: hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism.

Where as the way the ATF has been interpreting it is - "a receiver is the part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt, or breechblock, and firing mechanism."

And people think the Oxford comma is irrelevant...

[OlongJohnson]

Where as the way the ATF has been interpreting it is - "a receiver is the part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt, or breechblock, and firing mechanism."

I think the ATF's interpretation is the logical one:

(hammer, bolt or breechblock,) and (firing mechanism)

Any one of the three in the first parentheses plus the one in the second parantheses equals firearm. Just to note, it also makes logical sense to me that "firing mechanism" refers to the trigger, not the firing pin.

It's a bit of a reach IMO to argue that when that code was written, people would by then have been familiar with the existence of semi-automatic handguns with reciprocating slides, and yet would have drafted a definition of firearm that did not include them. Especially with the understanding that the 1934 NFA was basically an attempt to close potential loopholes in a total handgun ban. It also wouldn't include a bolt-action rifle or any other striker-fired arm, since anything without a hammer can't be a firearm under the three-piece interpretation accepted in Jimenez and Roh.

IANAL and I haven't read all the legal documents from the case, but I'd be kinda interested to do so. It seems that for a judge to be able to accept the three-piece interpretation would require ATF's lawyer's to drop the ball pretty severely. It seems that a reasonable test of the drafters' intent is to ask whether or not it covered firearms that were at that time well-known and iconic, such as the Mauser and 1911. Seems like you would have to go with the interpretation that did.

California did try to go after 80 percents in 2016. Passed a law that basically said everything's a gun. Any piece of metal or polymer with dimensions that could be machined into a receiver was to be controlled as a completed firearm. Would have ended manufacturing (all products, not just firearms) as well as transportation of raw materials in the state. Insanity. Brown did not sign it. I haven't kept up with all the latest. I think there's a thread enumerating the most recent pile-ons around here somewhere.

[RevolverRob]

I think the ATF's interpretation is the logical one:

(hammer, bolt or breechblock,) and (firing mechanism)

I concur that I think the ATF's interpretation is logical. I just think it was lazy writing on the part of the authors of the bill.

One comma could have prevented the "unconstitutional vagueness" alleged by the plaintiffs. Now the DOJ is making deals with people that they probably shouldn't have to, because if these interpretations get out, it could serve as a the basis for more legal challenges.

Good luck getting GCA or FOPA amended without significant political fight.

[OlongJohnson]

I just think it was lazy writing on the part of the authors of the bill.

Comma discipline doesn't seem to have been as much of a thing historically as it is now.

Exhibit 1: 2A.

Overuse of commas, gratuitous capitalization, how-you-feel-like-it spelling and all other manner of what we would consider errors today were rampant in the 18th century, even among the relatively lettered classes.