re: Official AR-15 thread

Mostly the last paragraph pertains to this. As long as you do not have a stock on the thing you are fine.



Ruling on having parts in a general area

quote:

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Unassembled Parts Kits In United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, 504 U.S. 505 (1992), the United States Supreme Court examined whether a short-barreled rifle was “made” under the NFA when a carbine-conversion kit consisting of a single-shot “Contender” pistol was designed so that its handle and barrel could be removed from its receiver, and was packaged with a 21-inch barrel, a rifle stock, and a wooden fore-end. The Court held that, where aggregated parts could convert a pistol into either a regulated short-barreled rifle, or an unregulated rifle with a barrel of 16 inches or more in length, the NFA was ambiguous and applied the “rule of lenity” (i.e., ambiguities in criminal statutes should be resolved in favor of the defendant) so that the pistol and carbine kit, when packaged together, were not considered a “short-barreled rifle” for purposes of the NFA. However, the Court also explained that an NFA firearm is made if aggregated parts are in close proximity such that they: (a) serve no useful purpose other than to make an NFA firearm (e.g., a receiver, an attachable shoulder stock, and a short barrel); or (b) convert a - 3 - complete weapon into an NFA firearm (e.g., a pistol and attachable shoulder stock, or a long-barreled rifle and attachable short barrel). Id. at 511-13.

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In that ruling the courts explained that having the parts in close proximity with no other purpose other than to assemble the "pistol" into an illegal SBR would be illegal. But they clarified it by saying that parts kits are ok if you have another reason for them to be around and their sole purpose was not to assemble the pistol.

But to be completely safe just do not have an extra stock laying around if you so choose to use the standard buffer assembly and not the pistol buffer tube. Also you can not have a vertical foregrip on a "pistol" but an angled foregrip is legal.