AR15 "Wall Hanger" Device

Small market stuff tends to be pricey - just look at how much a simple part like a 1911 magwell or safety from a premium manufacturer is. We're not talking about a vendor who sat in one of those little booths as a supplicant while the WalMart buyer told him that the price was going to be if he wanted to do business. And it does look well made, but you lose the safety feature of the bracket breaking before the door or rifle if you pull in on it :oops:

Assuming "Many" means more than three, I'm not sure how one could spend "Many tens of thousands" developing such a product, though I have seen some people roll in the value of their time at consultant's rates into their stated "investment".

And back on topic - I wonder if the ATF would charge someone for selling a rubber stamp with a 1:1 image of a prohibited part.

I intentionally kept manufacturing in the US. It is more expensive but something I believe in. I also protected my IP via patent to prevent knockoffs.
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Good luck if one of the big players changes the styling a bit, claims they did not infringe, and challenges you to prove it in court.
 
Rob Boudrie said:
Small market stuff tends to be pricey - just look at how much a simple part like a 1911 magwell or safety from a premium manufacturer is. We're not talking about a vendor who sat in one of those little booths as a supplicant while the WalMart buyer told him that the price was going to be if he wanted to do business. And it does look well made, but you lose the safety feature of the bracket breaking before the door or rifle if you pull in on it :oops:

Assuming "Many" means more than three, I'm not sure how one could spend "Many tens of thousands" developing such a product, though I have seen some people roll in the value of their time at consultant's rates into their stated "investment".

And back on topic - I wonder if the ATF would charge someone for selling a rubber stamp with a 1:1 image of a prohibited part.


Good luck if one of the big players changes the styling a bit, claims they did not infringe, and challenges you to prove it in court.
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I bet they would if you rubber stamped a piece of sheet metal with it, that's why this case is such a dangerous rabbit hole.
 
moojpg2 said:
Atf raided his house, seized all of his assets, left his family basically homeless, saying he was making and selling machine guns, over what amounts to a bottle opener/novelty item with the image of a lightning link drawn on it.
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That makes it an 80% lightning link, according to ATF.
 
Spartan65 said:
This things a little bit different than a bottle opener with a design on it.
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The guy with the "wall hooks" having a certain geometry knew he was well beyond just pushing the envelope.
Spartan65 said:
I agree everyone should be contributing to the auto key card kids legal defense.
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The AutoKeyCard guy is well beyond being a "kid".

OTOH, absolutely the autokeycard guy needs a robust defense, the key difference between the two cases being "The owner of [autokeycard dot com] did not even etch the lightning link on the piece of metal. It was just an outline" (Update: ATF search warrant does use the word "etched"?)
 
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Does anyone know what happened to the wall hanger kid (the seller)?Did he plead it out and that’s why they came knocking?
 
Bonesinium said:
I hope everyone involved in the persecution of these guys OD’s and chokes on their own vomit. Evil freedom hating criminals.
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The two cases are not equivalent, the autokeycard was literally just a picture of a certain shape, printed onto the surface of sheet metal stock.

I'm not saying that the law making auto sears illegal is constitutional (it isn't), but what did Timothy "wall hooks" Watson think was going to happen when he sold DIAS with a loosely attached modesty device?
 
richc said:
I did 3D print prototypes and attached them to the wall. One good tug from the butt stock of the rifle snapped it like a twig. Remember Archimedes and leverage?

Personally I'd rather trust costly firearms to T6 aluminum than plastic. I kept manufacturing in the US. It is CNC'd rather than far less expensive investment casting. And the design is patented...

Finally, have you seen the price of firearms parts?

Certainly YMMV...
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Remember him? He went to elementary school with Jack.
 
Kevin_NH said:
The two cases are not equivalent, the autokeycard was literally just a picture of a certain shape, printed onto the surface of sheet metal stock.

I'm not saying that the law making auto sears illegal is constitutional (it isn't), but what did Timothy "wall hooks" Watson think was going to happen when he sold DIAS with a loosely attached modesty device?
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I didn’t say they were equivalent though the differences don’t make me think any differently.

I also don’t see how knowing the government will come after you in any way justifies them doing so.
 
moojpg2 said:
We should all be throwing $5.00-10.00 at the legal defense fund for the autokeycard guy, he has a good chance of winning and the precident would be beneficial to 2A.


View: https://youtu.be/XSvfMHafZek
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If they're gunna lose and make it detrimental they don't prosecute
There was a dude in LA doing some serious no no stuff and they let him go because he'd have walked and set bad precedent
 
AHM said:
You just made me realize what else is probably coming:
Biden* outlaws all encryption algorithms lacking an NSA backdoor.
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Let him try. I will proudly go around any such laws. Oh and it would cause worldwide economic destruction.
Kevin_NH said:
The guy with the "wall hooks" having a certain geometry knew he was well beyond just pushing the envelope.

OTOH, absolutely the autokeycard guy needs a robust defense, the key difference between the two cases being "The owner of [autokeycard dot com] did not even etch the lightning link on the piece of metal. It was just an outline"
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Wow, that's nuts. I clicked on the article though, which loaded the same image this guy was selling. Did I just accidentally manufacture a machine gun? (Obviously not. It shows how nuts this is. How can information be illegal?)
 
Prepper said:
"The owner of [autokeycard dot com] did not even etch the lightning link on the piece of metal. It was just an outline"
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Wow, that's nuts. I clicked on the article though, which loaded the same image this guy was selling. Did I just accidentally manufacture a machine gun? (Obviously not. It shows how nuts this is. How can information be illegal?)
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Text and diagrams and instructions are legal (for now), but at some point in making a functional object the production crosses a line (not just 80%), like this other product sold under another name:
VL9pu5M.jpg


I've seen these unsourced photos of a different product where the parts are almost entirely milled out, held in only by tabs; perhaps ATF just chose to go after everybody selling anything at all like this with a broad brush?

The above does seem to be a lot closer to "finished" than what Kristopher Justinboyer Ervin (age 41, not a kid) was selling under the name autokeycard, which the feds described as "metal cards etched with a design for an auto-sear"
 
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moojpg2 said:
We should all be throwing $5.00-10.00 at the legal defense fund for the autokeycard guy, he has a good chance of winning and the precident would be beneficial to 2A.


View: https://youtu.be/XSvfMHafZek
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That guy is not only annoying as hell, he provides no verifiable information and seems all-around sketchy. Especially since the gofundme has no details at all.
 
KBCraig said:
That guy is not only annoying as hell, he provides no verifiable information and seems all-around sketchy. Especially since the gofundme has no details at all.
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May be or it may just because it’s a low quality video from someone trying to be a YouTuber who’s doesn’t actually know how to be a YouTuber.
 
Kevin_NH said:
Text and diagrams and instructions are legal (for now), but at some point in making a functional object the production crosses a line (not just 80%), like this one:
VL9pu5M.jpg


I've seen these unsourced photos of a different product where the parts are almost entirely milled out, held in only by tabs; perhaps ATF just chose to go after everybody selling anything at all like this with a broad brush?
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In that case, I would agree he made a machine gun part. Not that I think that should be illegal though. But then, I think we should be allowed to have rocket launchers, SAMs, and backpack nukes.
 
moojpg2 said:
Atf raided his house, seized all of his assets, left his family basically homeless, saying he was making and selling machine guns, over what amounts to a bottle opener/novelty item with the image of a lightning link drawn on it. They then called him a flight risk and stuck him with a public defender who was bull guarding him from getting proper council and already trying to sand bag his case. This is important because ATF is saying the mere image/drawing of a lightning link is machine gun. If this guy gets convicted, having a simple picture or technical drawing of something is basically fair game for the ATF. Opens up a lot more what if's around 3d printing and 80% guns too. We need to fight any legal case that could set precedent that could give the ATF more power. This guy is also a good dude and him and his family need the 2a communities help, he has already said he understand the importance of the case for 2a and he won't plea out on it.
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more to it than that. Atf defines a lightning link as a machine gun and we can all agree upon that. He was laser engraving material away in the pattern of that part. At that point even in its not complete state atf still considers it to be a machine gun. It would be like drilling an auto sear hole through one side of the receiver only. It still becomes an MG the second that drill starts moving material. There is precedent from previous determinations and that is why that dude is getting smoked. I don't agree with it but it is what it is.
 
groundscrapers said:
more to it than that. Atf defines a lightning link as a machine gun and we can all agree upon that. He was laser engraving material away in the pattern of that part. At that point even in its not complete state atf still considers it to be a machine gun. It would be like drilling an auto sear hole through one side of the receiver only. It still becomes an MG the second that drill starts moving material. There is precedent from previous determinations and that is why that dude is getting smoked. I don't agree with it but it is what it is.
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Here's some more information, including how they are able to track down the people who bought it:

Agents with ATF and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service purchased multiple items from AutoKeyCards.com consisting of metal cards etched with a design for an auto-sear. The agents paid for the metal cards etched with a design for an auto-sear using postal money orders, which Ervin then deposited into his account at a local credit union. An ATF expert analyzed one of the devices that had been purchased undercover and was able to convert an AR-15 style firearm into a machinegun by cutting out the etching for an auto-sear using a commonly available tool and then inserting the auto-sear into the firearm.

On February 22, 2021, agents surveilled Kristopher Justinboyer Ervin (age 41) as he delivered 22 packages to a post office in Orange Park. A Postal Inspector obtained warrants to search the 22 packages and found that each of them contained a metal card etched with an auto-sear design. A Postal Inspector was able to see that Ervin had created labels for more than 1,200 mailings that appeared to contain auto-sear devices
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Prepper said:
In that case, I would agree he made a machine gun part. Not that I think that should be illegal though. But then, I think we should be allowed to have rocket launchers, SAMs, and backpack nukes.
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The image you linked was of a link that was 98% cut out. To make it work, all one had to do was twist it out and file away the nubs.

groundscrapers said:
more to it than that. Atf defines a lightning link as a machine gun and we can all agree upon that. He was laser engraving material away in the pattern of that part. At that point even in its not complete state atf still considers it to be a machine gun. It would be like drilling an auto sear hole through one side of the receiver only. It still becomes an MG the second that drill starts moving material. There is precedent from previous determinations and that is why that dude is getting smoked. I don't agree with it but it is what it is.
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Except, this had nothing removed. It was a scale drawing printed on metal. It was a 0% kit.
 
KBCraig said:
Except, this had nothing removed. It was a scale drawing printed on metal. It was a 0% kit.
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The ATF complaint explicitly uses the term "etched", but I've never seen the 'card' in person. ATF has gone after makers for "engraving" the 3rd hole in a receiver, so going after "etched" cards would, while unconstitutional, at least be true to form.

The whole thing is stupid, but not unanticipated.
 
Kevin_NH said:
The ATF complaint explicitly uses the term "etched", but I've never seen the 'card' in person. ATF has gone after makers for "engraving" the 3rd hole in a receiver, so going after "etched" cards would, while unconstitutional, at least be true to form.

The whole thing is stupid, but not unanticipated.
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Yeah. I've encountered this before. People think that they have thought of a new angle without ever anyone else thinking of it.

I used to have season tickets to the PawSox (FU Larry the Squid!). You'd be amazed at the folks that would buy general admission tickets and then wander down and sit at the rail. Sure. Your ticket says anywhere (in the upper section). All of us NOT AT THE RAIL decided that we DIDN'T WANT TO BE THAT CLOSE TO THE ACTION. Some actually knew and were trying to get a good seat. Others were genuinely clueless. LOL

Or when a seemingly bright client tells me he wants to buy a mutual fund, but only if it goes up by a certain % today, so he can get that gain. Ummmm, no. That's not how it works. They think they can buy at yesterday's price - because that's what's quoted in the paper - and then get today's gains. Sure. No one ever thought up that one before you. You should be in charge of all Mensa, dude!


So it's no shock that some guy decided that "well, this isn't REALLY a Lightning Link so I'm safe" without ever consulting a lawyer to see if there is precedent to nail his sorry ass to a wall.
 
There are cases where the ATF has told sellers pushing the envelope "knock it off" (Maddi-Griffin case regarding how complete a kit has to be in order to be a gun comes to mind). In those cases, the subjects who fold and agree to stop the borderline activity that is annoying the ATF are often let alone, but.... When one replies with "This is legal, you are wrong" it becomes a test of will and power that the ATF will not concede without a fight.

It's similar to street or prison society - disrespect someone in power and you are in a world of trouble.
 
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Rob Boudrie said:
Small market stuff tends to be pricey - just look at how much a simple part like a 1911 magwell or safety from a premium manufacturer is. We're not talking about a vendor who sat in one of those little booths as a supplicant while the WalMart buyer told him that the price was going to be if he wanted to do business. And it does look well made, but you lose the safety feature of the bracket breaking before the door or rifle if you pull in on it :oops:

Assuming "Many" means more than three, I'm not sure how one could spend "Many tens of thousands" developing such a product, though I have seen some people roll in the value of their time at consultant's rates into their stated "investment".
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I've tried to break the lock with a rifle. The Rail Hanger was screwed into studs via 2" lag screws. I pulled on the butt end of the rifle to see what the weakest link is. The foregrip of the rifle broke. A metal one. The Rail Hanger didn't budge.

Security is an interesting topic. Allegedly the shitty little cable lock sold with many guns these days provides legal storage in MA. Of course it does not stop someone from stealing the rifle. A gun safe helps prevent theft, albeit certainly does not prevent theft, but makes the gun far less accessible in an emergency.

I designed this device to provide security, obscurity and storage. If you live in a state without onerous storage laws you can just use this for storage. It provides a very low profile method of hanging the gun on a wall or within a closet away from prying eyes.

If you live in MA you can both secure the rifle and run a cable through the action to prevent firing. Or if your state laws allow you can just put a padlock through this to help prevent unauthorized access. No security is perfect. There are just degrees of security. Given the right tools or skills almost any security efforts can be defeated. This device allows legal storage in all states as far as I know.

I have no delusions about selling at Walmart. Maybe a few dealers here and there. Maybe a gun show. I dunno. Depends on my mood. This is more of a hobby business for me. I make my living in software and kept my day job. I just like keeping my mind active and playing with toys.

www.railhanger.com
 

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