The Bullshit of the AR-15's "Subtle Design Nuance"

This story has been circulating for awhile, and went out on the AP wire two days ago. It still isn't newsworthy at ABA Journal (even though I emailed them a link to it), but that has to do with the substance of what is really going on here.

As the media would have it, federal prosecutors are having trouble with charges based on possession of the lower receivers for AR-15s, because of what the press terms a "subtle design nuance." Stepping into the real world for a moment, that "subtle nuance" is simply that the lower receiver is in fact not a functional receiver, but only half of a functional assemblage that requires both upper and lower receiver. Neither part, in isolation, is a functional receiver, and neither part, in isolation, can discharge a round. The legal result of this (as now confirmed by several federal courts) is that the lower receiver, in isolation, does not meet the statutory description of a firearm and cannot be regulated as a firearm. Felons who have one cannot be convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm solely for possessing the lower receiver.

Contrary to the media suggestion that the AR-15 has somehow been redesigned to skirt the law, that is not the actual problem here at all. To revisit the basics of federal criminal law, there is no federal common law of crimes. In order to charge a crime within the federal jurisdiction, elements of statutes creating the crime must be met. The lower receiver of the AR-15 was never a functional receiver, never could discharge a round, and never met the federal definition of a firearm.

So, the problem here was always unethical prosecutors jacking defendants up for conduct that was never a chargeable crime to begin with, and this was coupled with courts turning a blind eye as defendants copped pleas to federal charges that were missing basic statutory elements. That was the problem, and now, the courts are fixing that problem by increasingly dismissing these baseless and overreaching charges when federal prosecutors file them.

Note that the DOJ and the media, for all their bitching and whining, do not rationally explain why following the letter of the law enacted by Congress will or could cause any real problem. The lower receiver can't discharge a round. Unless and until it is assembled into a completed receiver, it has no more functionality than a rock or a paperweight. You could throw it at someone, and maybe bruise them, but that would be about it for the alleged dangerousness of this component. By contrast, if the lower receivers are combined with upper receivers and assembled into functional receivers that can discharge a round, they will at that point meet the definition of firearms, and the feds can charge violations accordingly. So, there is nothing wrong with the law. Basically, the prosecutors weren't following the law, and now, they have been caught and will have to follow the law. The cat is out of the bag, as they say, and they will have to scrape up a dime to buy some ethics somewhere, and start evaluating these cases properly.

https://apnews.com/396bbedbf4963a28bda99e7793ee6366