They can sell parts of a firearm, for instance something like an 80% lower, that may not be regulated the same way as an assembled firearm. They can also sell files if they wished, to print or mill firearm parts.
Still depends on UK laws, sorry I’m not familiar with them past (at least I think) the full ban of handguns.
So for UK firearms, you are allowed them for very specific purposes and can't ever use it outside of those purposes. You have to make your case and get a license before you can buy a gun more powerful than an air rifle/pistol. You can't carry in public, even concealed.
There’s a term known as an 80% lower. The lower receiver of an AR style rifle is what’s considered the firearm. By selling an 80% finished product, the seller skirts pretty much all gun regulations as the person isn’t selling a gun, and the buyer has to complete the last 20% of manufacturing which transfers the ownus of the legality onto the buyer/end user. In the USA it is perfectly legal for an individual to manufacturer a gun for their own personal use so long as they are not manufacturing for later sale.
Each country has their own importation rules and regulations. Most likely UK customs will have their own definition of what a firearm is, and will likely not allow an import of finished or partially finished gun parts.
The FGC9 is a 3D printed gun, developed by a German, specifically for people who do not have access to firearm parts. The FGC9 relies entirely of off the shelf hardware store parts and has been tested to fire multiple hundreds and in some cases thousands of rounds accurately before failure.
You gotta understand something about the modern firearms industry that I think gets at your #1. In the past, a “gun” or “firearm” was a complete, assembled package of pieces. It’s riveted, screwed, or bolted together, and you buy it as a pre-made set. During the Prohibition era where things like moonshiners and Tommy Guns were popular, Congress passed the NFA, which dug into the parts of a firearm that might be significantly more dangerous than others. Those included things like a) selective fire, b) barrel length, c) sound reducers, and d) portability. Suddenly a shotgun was legal, but a shotgun with a barrel sawed off to be shorter than 18" was illegal. A weapon that fired one round per trigger pull was legal, but a weapon that fired multiple rounds per trigger pull was illegal. A barrel with a device that covers the explosion was legal, but a barrel that silenced the explosion was illegal. A barrel sold as a non-handgun could not be converted to a handgun, which would make it illegal. The NFA was the first time Congress really tried to grapple with the multi-faceted definitions of “firearm”, and many gun enthusiasts can point out the idiocy of some of the weird attempts to define parts and pieces that fit one category but somehow not another.
Fast forward to the post-Vietnam era, and you find that suddenly you could disassemble and reassemble firearms to make new configurations. That includes changing barrels, lower receivers, grips, foregrips, stocks, etc. Suddenly you could shoot a .410 shotgun shell out of an AR-15 “rifle” simply by expanding the chamber and barrel to accommodate the larger diameter. You can also shoot a shotgun shell out of large caliber handguns. You can also shoot a pistol round out of a “rifle”, and a rifle round out of a “pistol”. The definitions are maddeningly confusing. In its attempts to try to stay ahead of the industry, the federal government had to decide which pieces counted as a “firearm” and which ones were just added furniture. The “lower receiver” is actually a “firearm” by law, even though it needs a barrel and stock to fire effectively and accurately, and it must have a serial number. The upper receiver is not a firearm because it’s just a barrel and a grip, so it can’t fire a projectile. Upper receivers are significant parts of a firearm, but they aren’t technically a firearm in and of themselves. So until ghost guns you could buy parts like Legos, and piece them together to make whatever kind of gun you wanted.
It was only a matter of time before someone realized that you can finish steps 1-9 in making a lower receiver, but if you don’t take step #10 it doesn’t fit the legal definition and therefore doesn’t have the same requirements. With a simple drill press and basic instructions someone can convert a block of shaped aluminum into a fully workable firearm. This is only a few short steps removed from the fact that anyone can use a bit of machinery to mill a lower receiver out of stock aluminum from scratch. Firearms are not terribly complicated to make as long as you have machines that are capable of producing pieces that fit snugly together with low tolerance (wiggle). A “ghost gun” is simply a bit of metal with most of the complex configurations of a receiver finished, but that needs a few final tweaks at home before it’ll fit with other pieces of a firearm. It therefore is sold without a serial number and significantly blurs the boundary between firearm manufacturer and consumer. They’re sold exactly as you’d think, as unfinished lower receivers.
In response to your #2, that depends on how your government defines “weapon” and “firearm”. You’re likely only buying a chunk of metal in the shape of a lower receiver, and if you don’t know how to mill it yourself it’s 100% useless as a firearm. I have no doubt you could import one to your home country, but your law enforcement agency would have difficulty figuring out what law you’re violating by doing so, because a law has to have a very specific definition to be actionable and enforceable.
Wow what a detailed, well-written and fascinating response. Thank you for writing that, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
It would almost be worth putting #2 to the test, just to see what would happen. As you mention it would be a legal minefield.
Interestingly (and I guess this is the same in the US?), it’s illegal to open someone else’s mail. For sure Law Enforcement could get around that, but they would need a court warrant and you’d have to pity the judge whose desk that landed on.
The law states:
84 Interfering with the mail: general
A person commits an offence if, without reasonable excuse, he—
intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission by post, or intentionally opens a mail-bag.
I think that if the package was innocuous (i.e. didn’t have <b>Jeff’s Gun’s By Post </b> emblazoned on it with a drawing of a strutting Texan blowing the smoke from his revolver), then it could be tough to find “reasonable excuse" to open the package.
Joking aside, if the recipient was a known member of forums promoting hatred or violence then it could be considered reasonable to make at least a cursory examination based on “why was this package received from from there?”.
It’s legislation with good solid intent (IMHO), but it’s so vague that it can’t cover everything.
Nor yet anyway.
As we come from different nations, our feelings on the matter may differ and I don’t really want to discuss that. But thank you, you’ve made it easier to understand the context.
but they would need a court warrant and you’d have to pity the judge whose desk that landed on.
I’m not familiar with UK Customs laws, but I highly doubt a Customs officer needs any type of probable cause, let alone a warrant, to look through international mail or cargo.
Hmmm yeah you might be right. As soon as a package is in the hands of Royal Mail then it may not be opened. At Customs, it’s still outside RM’s domain. The Customs guy effectively posts it into the domestic system.
It’s almost funny watching people twist themselves into knots over Israel not occupying a territory that morons claim they already occupy, if only people weren’t dying because of Hamas terrorists.
Hey! Thank you reacting as soon as you knew. For the next time: you can edit your post body here on lemmy, so removing your entire post is unnecessary (:
Good. If the business is at stake then the shareholders should have no objections to paying these people what they're worth and doing so for all factories, not just the factories producing outdated internal combustion engines.
I support some common sense restrictions on abortion…
This is not that, hell it couldn’t be anymore obvious that the GOP doesn’t care about life or the safety of the child, they just want as many rules on the books as possible to let them punish “Enemies of the party”
Actually I vote Democrat exclusively because I’m aware that the GOP are domestic terrorists acting on behalf of Russian Homophobes, nice try.
See while I think just letting ANYONE get an abortion is morally wrong and that the procedure should only be done in extreme cases, like rape, ectopic pregnancy, incest, major deformity, and the like, etc…
I also realize Republicans are the opposite extreme in that they want NO ABORTIONS AT ALL and aren’t big on the concept of gender equality.
So I vote Democrat despite the Abortion issue, as I realize neither party has a satisfactory answer to it, but the Democrat Answer causes less problems.
It’s called “Don’t let Perfect be the enemy of Good”
Do you think people (in particular, yourself) should be forced by state violence to donate their organs to someone who needs it to survive? Especially when the forced donation process involves significant risk to your own life and health (though i do not think that aspect particularly important for my own reasoning, personally ^.^).
Because advocating for “”“reasonable”“” restrictions on abortion is advocating for forcing someone to act as, essentially, a breeding pod, forced to donate their body and organs.
I think Organ Donation should be an Opt Out rather than an Opt In.
Also Organ Donation isn’t done till after the person is dead, so your argument makes no sense.
Anyway, that aside, if you are in a position to save another person or prevent their death, and either don’t or even just expedite what was already going to happen… You’re a killer in my eyes.
So you haven’t donated any, you’re trying to evade the question.
Anyway, that aside, if you are in a position to save another person or prevent their death, and either don’t or even just expedite what was already going to happen… You’re a killer in my eyes
I’m not a hypocrite, I am merely not suicidal. If I were to donate my organs while I was still alive, I would be putting myself into unnecessary risk. Meaning I cannot blindly give them away, if I were to give them away at all, I would have to do so specifically because someone needed them and came to me for help with the understanding that if I refused they would die.
If you were paying attention, you would know that I do not advocate for a total ban on abortion, if bringing the human child to term is a non-negligible threat to the owner of the womb than an abortion isn’t just fine, it should be encouraged by a medical profession.
However if that is not the case, then an abortion would child murder.
Kinda like how if someone dying of kidney failure asked for my kidneys and I said no, I’m basically telling them to drop dead.
My logic isn’t inconsistent, you merely belong to a vocal minority of people who value self freedom over the lives of others. A vocal minority that was quite loud on reddit but seems to have migrated to Lemmy.
The kind of nut who would compare licenses to drive to licenses to use a toaster
Kinda like how if someone dying of kidney failure asked for my kidneys and I said no, I’m basically telling them to drop dead.
Currently, 17 people die each day on the organ transplant list. I’m representing one of them, and coming directly and specifically to you. Will you donate a kidney?
I am not a lawyer, however I have no reason to believe that this is a sincere request. Instead I believe this is an attempt to propose a Preposterous question without evidence, in order to use my answer against me. And for that reason I refuse to answer it.
No, it shows that most people are reasonable and understand that a woman who decides for whatever reason that she isn’t ready for the commitment of parenthood, that is her business.
Wacko spin, eh? Thank you for so clearly identifying yourself as a reproductive authoritarian for all the women on Lemmy. If you think many women get an abortion “on a whim,” then you have bought into the right-wing propaganda.
BTW, saying that the decision to abort should be made between a woman and her doctor means that medical ethics becomes the guiding framework, as opposed to criminal law. The state has no business criminalizing reproductive health.
Canada has the best abortion law, which is to say it has no law on abortion. And yet, Canadian doctors are somehow not killing babies at 36 weeks “on a whim.” Hmmm, what could possibly explain that?
Gee-wiz, Cletus, maybe we don’t have to criminalize abortion in order to get “common sense” behavior.
It all depends what the judge is willing to do about violations. If they really threaten the administration of justice, fines are probably the first step, but imprisonment is on the table though it seems unlikely to go that far. A new judge may treat these differently, or take previous gag order violations into account.
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