Shipping AR upper

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Can I buy an AR upper online and have it shipped to me, or must I go through an FFL? Provived of course that barrel is 16+ in.

If not, which AR parts may I purchase online and shipped to me directly? Thanks much.
 
Even if its under 16 you can have it mailed directly to you, just as long as you dont have a lower receiver in your possession that isnt registered as an nfa item.


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First Off. IANAL

The only part of an AR or any firearm that needs to be transferred via FFL is the Lower Receiver. You can have any upper shipped to you. Now where things get fuzzy is if the company selling the item wishes to "over comply." For example, in MA, you can legally own and have shipped a non compliant upper. That is, one with a bayo lug and threaded barrel and flash hider. However, you cannot mate it with a lower. At that point it becomes a firearm. Clear as mud right. Some companies will not ship it to you, even though they can. Just like the Ammo companies that won't ship to MA. No law against it, just an over zealous AG with an agenda.
Long story longer, you can order the whole AR minus the lower receiver, and have it shipped to your house.
 
Can I buy an AR upper online and have it shipped to me, or must I go through an FFL? Provived of course that barrel is 16+ in.

If not, which AR parts may I purchase online and shipped to me directly? Thanks much.


You can buy any ar part and ship to you're home except a stripped lower ( the part with the serial number on it )..
 
Be careful also of being in constructive posession of a non-complaint AR if you get a nasty upper and have a lower that is post ban.

This is one of the great myths. Nobody is ever prosecuted for anything like this.
I found a deal on a LMT 10.5" upper while I was waiting 4 months for my form 1 to come back from the ATF.

I bought the upper anyway. Nobody cares.
 
This is one of the great myths. Nobody is ever prosecuted for anything like this.
I found a deal on a LMT 10.5" upper while I was waiting 4 months for my form 1 to come back from the ATF.

I bought the upper anyway. Nobody cares.


I did not say that you would be, I said "be careful." All it takes is the removal of 2 pins to swap out that upper. Also, the law on constructive possession can certainly be used by a zealous prosecutor. "To permit a finding of constructive possession there must be evidence sufficient to infer that the defendant not only had knowledge of the items, but also had the ability and intention to exercise dominion and control over them.   See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Sann Than, 442 Mass. 748, 751, 817 N.E.2d 705 (2004)." 
 
Having a 10.5 upper and no stamp or pistol for it can get you in deep with the ATF as they would be FEDERAL charges. And yes the ATF does prosecute this. There was a story recently with a FFL who had a short barrel at his shop with the rifle it was going to go on the original plus 16 barrel was still on it and the ATF took the barrel.

Is it a givin you will get into trouble? Nope
Is it a possibility? YES
Is it worth the risk? We all have to address that for ourselves.
 
Having a 10.5 upper and no stamp or pistol for it can get you in deep with the ATF as they would be FEDERAL charges. And yes the ATF does prosecute this. There was a story recently with a FFL who had a short barrel at his shop with the rifle it was going to go on the original plus 16 barrel was still on it and the ATF took the barrel.

Is it a givin you will get into trouble? Nope
Is it a possibility? YES
Is it worth the risk? We all have to address that for ourselves.


Citation?

We're also were not talking about a gun shop, which is subject to random, unannounced compliance inspections.

We were talking about private citizens with (some little piece of their) 4th Amendment rights.

Tell me. What is the probability that your house will be raided by ATF agents during a brief 3 or 4 month period while you are waiting for a Form 1 to come back? What is the chance that they will care about a SBR upper and a lower in the same residence?

The ATF does not care about individuals for the most part. They care about licensees. Time to take off your tinfoil hat.
 
This is how the typical constructive possession prosecution goes:

Florida Man Arrested for Constructive Possession of an SBR | Prince Law Offices, P.C.

1) public disclosure of the presence of 2 or more items that make for an NFA firearm.
2) clear proof and documentation that the items had at some point been combined into the NFA firearm. In this case, the mans gun case had been cut out to accommodate the SP89 with the foregrip attached (Making it an AOW) and he had advertised the SP89 pistol "kit" to include a shoulder stock (Making it a SBR).
 
Correct. This would likely be treated like not having your seat belt on: you get charged with it when you get pulled over for something else.

This may be what the was being thought of:

"The evidence indicates that the upper receiver unit was a complete, intact unit and that this short-barreled upper receiver unit was “compatible” and could be interchanged readily with the upper receiver unit on the Colt AR-15. Moreover, an ATF agent testified that the result of interchanging these upper receiver units would be “a weapon which is designed and intended to be fired from the shoulder, capable of discharging a shot through a rifle bore[,] and having a barrel length of less than sixteen inches.”   Because the short-barreled upper receiver unit and the Colt AR-15 lower receiver unit were located in the same, small apartment and could be connected so quickly and easily, creating an operable short-barreled rifle with only a minimum of effort, evidence that Kent possessed both of these units was sufficient to prove that Kent possessed a “rifle having a barrel ․ of less than 16 inches in length” for purposes of § 5861(d).   See United States v. Woods, 560 F.2d 660, 664 (5th Cir.1977);  United States v. Zeidman, 444 F.2d 1051 (7th Cir.1971)." United States v. Kent, 11th Cir. (May 1999).


It is unclear from the facts of the case as to how the Def. was bagged in the first place. There is some discussion in the footnotes of entrapment as a defense so perhaps it was a sting.[h=1][/h]
 
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Citation?

We're also were not talking about a gun shop, which is subject to random, unannounced compliance inspections.

We were talking about private citizens with (some little piece of their) 4th Amendment rights.

Tell me. What is the probability that your house will be raided by ATF agents during a brief 3 or 4 month period while you are waiting for a Form 1 to come back? What is the chance that they will care about a SBR upper and a lower in the same residence?

The ATF does not care about individuals for the most part. They care about licensees. Time to take off your tinfoil hat.

Well let me direct you to the Atkins accelerator. In case you do not know what this is a guy Named Atkins invented a bump fire 10/22 stock that worked with a spring in it. He submitted one to the ATF and they sent him a letter saying you are all legal sell away. He did just that. Then after a while the ATF decided it was not legal and through the company and threats on many shops they got the sales records and sent out letters to the people they could saying send us the spring OR we will come for you.

By you're response I am guessing you are not involved in NFA.
 
I am Travis. I'm very very familiar with the Atkins accelerator and NFA stuff in general.

What on gods green earth does that have to do with possession of an upper that is completely off the radar screen of anyone.

The AA example you cited of them getting a hair across their ass about a manufacturer's product, changing their mind about whether the product in and of itself is a Machine Gun. The ATF ruled that the buyers of the AA actually OWNED a MG. Not that they had constructive intent, but that they were in posession of a post ban, illegal MG. But still the ATF did not "go after" any AA buyers. They simply changed their mind on the legality of the AA and demanded under threat of prosecution that AA buyers make them legal.


A few years ago a bunch of us thought a similar thing was going to happen with the Yankee Hill Cobra II silencer. The Cobra II was very slick in that the gun side of the silencer was threaded to accept multiple barrell adapters. You could buy the 1 Cobra and then buy a fixed 1/2x28 block for use with 9mm ARs, a 3 lug adaptor for an MP5, and a piston adapter in 1/2x28 for use on a browning action pistol.

Then the ATF decided that YHM couldn't sell the adaptors and told them that each adaptor was in effect a NFA firearm, a suppressor. But they never asked for, or received a list of all the customers who bought multiple adaptors.

But again. This is VERY different from simply possessing a lower and a SBR upper. SBR uppers are sold by dozens of manufacturers to thousands of people every year. If you own a SBR or a MG, you can put the upper on your AR. Nobody checks to make sure that uppers go to people with registered SBRs or MGs.

So again. It makes no difference if you have a SBR upper. The mythical constructive intent bogeyman is not coming to your house.
 
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Constructive intent worrying gone crazy.

I have an AR built on a pre-ban lower with an evil upper with a bayonet lug.

In the same safe I have a post ban AR, with a properly configured post ban upper.
Whats to keep me from swapping the upper and lower around so I now have a pre ban upper on a post ban lower? Oh my god.

Comeon. I've actually heard that one before.

Don
 
I buy a post ban lower stripped on a gun shop last week here in Mass. Can I buy all the other parts online and build a 16" ar without get in trouble?

I'm new on this
 
Let me as broad and general as possible.

It is 100% legal to purchase and have shipped to your home every other firearm part other than the lower receiver.

No ifs, ands, or buts. This is not a grey area, nudge ,nudge, win, wink,.
It's 110% white as the driven snow legal.

If a vendor says they won't ship to MA, then that is because of their internal policy. It's certainly their right not to ship here, but it has no bearing on the law.

Because of these kinds of policies that some vendors have, it's perfectly reasonable and legal to circumvent these policies. I've had parts shipped to a friend's in Salem, NH. The parts were legal in MA, but the vendor didn't ship to MA.

The vendor even required your CC billing address and shipping address be outside of MA.
That was easy to get around. I went into my CC company's website and changed the billing address of my card to my friend's house.
Then I ordered the stuff with both the billing address and shipping address of my friends house.
Then the next day, I changed the billing address oof my CC back to my actual home.

Pitfalls - you can order stuff and have it shipped to your friends in NH that is illegal to bring back to MA. Standard capacity magazines for example. But it is illegal to bring that back into MA. Don't screw yourself over and buy things you can't bring back into MA.

You also need to make sure you are compliant with the current assault weapons ban. (until it probably changes).

So if you own a fixed magazine lower, a transferrable machine gun or a pre-ban semi auto and you buy an upper with a threaded bbl and a flash hider with the intent to build a gun with that upper, you are clean because if you put that upper on either of those lowers, the gun is legal in MA.

However if you have a recently acquired lower, then that finished rifle must meet the current AWB. Which means restrictions on threaded barrels bayonet lugs, and flash hiders.

Note, the passage of H.4139 would change much of this. So this info may have an expiration date of only week or so.
 
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Do I have to register the rifle after complete it ?
You do have to EFA10 it once you attach the upper to the lower. From MA law's point of view you have just "manufactured" a firearm and that event must be reported via an EFA10, same as a purchase. Note that MA gov claims that this is not "registering" the firearm, their claim is that it is reporting a transaction.
 
You do have to EFA10 it once you attach the upper to the lower. From MA law's point of view you have just "manufactured" a firearm and that event must be reported via an EFA10, same as a purchase. Note that MA gov claims that this is not "registering" the firearm, their claim is that it is reporting a transaction.
"have to"... it's not like they'll know WHEN you attached the top, don't they say you have like 10 days or some shit to efa10 it after "manufacturing" it?
 
"have to"... it's not like they'll know WHEN you attached the top, don't they say you have like 10 days or some shit to efa10 it after "manufacturing" it?
Technically it's within 7 days of the firearm being capable of firing a shot or bullet. That would be when you attach the upper to a lower (and only you know when you've done that).
 
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