FTF transfer of AR15 stripped lower: FA-10?

[jdubois]

Who the heck wants to sell a lower anyway?

If somebody wants to FA-10 a stripped lower they're transferring to me, I'll buy from somebody else. And when selling, given the gun unfriendliness of this state, I'll always want to see a MA license or FFL, and get bill of sale / receipt for a federally defined firearm that I'm not going to file an FA-10 on. If somebody doesn't want to buy from me because of it, I completely understand.

 

[GSG]

This is a good question. What if the lower has the fire control grip but no stock? This isn't stripped but doesn't have a barrel length or caliber either. Do you need an FA10 for this scenario?

This gets into gray area that's only lightly answered in caselaw. I posted most of the cases relevant to this discussion in this thread.

Something worth noting when reading the stack of cases I referenced above. In every single one of them, the guns involved were completely functional aside from one missing component. They had triggers, barrels, internals, etc. A stripped lower has none of those things, and while it could be assembled into a functioning gun, that's hardly a slight/minor modification or repair. Every part added makes it more like a gun and less like a lump of metal though. With the weight of the possible penalty (if convicted) for violating MGL on the subject, I'm the kind of guy that would want to make the lower as in-operable as possible if no FA-10 was involved.