"Can you provide a link to that page so I can read the entire document? I looked up the code cited here: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2003/ ... 478.92.htm and it specifically is for licensed manufacturers. As a non-licensee, those provisions don't apply. I'm not a lawyer but can read english. I'm willing to be educated on this issue if I'm wrong."Hello all,
I just joined after pondering the serial number thing on a firearm made from scratch as seen on American Guns. I happen to like the show overall and have no judgments to make on any of the cast. I like them all just fine and just enjoy seeing what they can build or what I can learn about guns I've never heard of. Anyway, after watching the last episode where that cowboy wanted the 1866 Yellow Boy to be an American made rifle and paid that exorbitant amount of money to have a one-of-a-kind rifle (and that was his choice and btw, I had never heard of that gun and one reason why I like this show), I was expecting to see and would have liked to have seen, 'Made In The U.S.A and serial number '1'' stamped clearly on that rifle as part of the presentation. I know if I would be able to pay that kind of money for something that unique and was concerned about the country of manufacture being provable, I'd probably have asked for that to be stamped on it, with Gunsmoke as the maker.
In reference to the quote, there's another forum on the topic you asked for a link to (the letter),
http://www.firearmstalk.com/forums/f47/gun-building-legality-2894/ (scroll down to post by BBet), but the link didn't work, however the post includes an excerpt and some further discussion on how the ATF has discretion on applying laws. It is similar I think to how government entities have discretion absent any existing law for a unique situation, to enforce compliance by persons not specifically addressed within a statute or who the statute was intended for if the governmental entity deems it sufficiently applicable (again absent any specific law for a unique situation), and that discretion is often granted by other laws which allow that discretion for the public good, as it were.
I don't make the laws; just certainly don't want to break them either. I’ve run into this same type of thing with the laws governing Medicaid regarding my disabled sister that I take care of. The state has broad discretionary power granted to them by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare and when I've tried to involve the CMS over matters where I know the state isn’t following the federal statutes set forth in the Social Security Act (which CMS is put in place to administer for the federal government), I get the answer that the state has broad discretionary authority and if they choose to do something that I may feel contradicts SS Act law, they just tell me that's their right to do so.
I think the ATF is in a similar situation and has broad discretion and authority to apply related laws to a given situation or person even if the statute would seem to exclude the person that the law is being applied to by the ATF.
That's beaurocracy for ya!
