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Comment by colemannugent | Hacker News Reader

The worry about this being a new avenue for "ghost-guns" is absurd. All you need for a gun is some metal pipe from a hardware store. These "downloadable guns" would be about as effective. Plus it's perfectly legal to make your own firearm from readily available parts. And it's not like the fed tracks guns anyway, so what's new?

The debate on this issue seems to be centered around the fact that these plans are downloadable online, which I think is silly since Google happily provides you with most of what you need already:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US984519A

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6279258

https://patents.google.com/patent/US4539889A

https://patents.google.com/patent/US5827992A

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> make your own firearm from readily available parts

I am not a legal expert and it's not a legal advice, but in case of a bolt-action rifle, I think the action is still legally treated as a firearm. So you can buy most parts without hassle (barrel, trigger, stock), but you need to go through the FFL to buy the action.

Reference: https://www.brownells.com/aspx/general/faqdetail.aspx?fid=10...

Yes- but if you make the part that is legally the gun yourself, it's fine.

Anyone is allowed to manufacture a gun, as long as they don't sell it. If you want to sell it, you'd need a license.

So it seems it was already fairly easy and legal to build and own a very high-quality firearm with general attention-grabbing features mentioned in the article? Not a legal advice or suggesting you should do so:

1. CNC the Remington 700 action: https://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/gunsmithing/making-rem... . This is the hard part and would probably need a week of dedicated work...

2. Buy barrel, trigger and stock.

3. Everything mostly just fits into the action, so assembly is just like putting lego pieces together.

I've purchased unregulated 80% lower receivers (they're only legally "a gun" if more than 80% of the machining work is complete. At or below 80%, they're just considered a chunk of metal.) and machined them using nothing more than a woodworking router, a hand drill, a jig, and a vise in about 30-45 minutes.

The jig is the most expensive part, costing about $160 or so, but once you have it there's no wear parts and you can use the jig to build as many as you want.

You can still sell it. You just can't be producing guns for sale. There are limits to how many you can sell and when you can sell them, beyond which the federal government will presume that you are producing the guns for sale.

To be a firearm dealer you need an FFL license, but there are no federal laws against making your own firearm (as long as it is not restricted by the ATF, such as select fire, or destructive device or something). States may have their own laws against firearm manufacturing.

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