The Supreme Court recently upheld a Biden era ATF rule that requires serial numbers, background checks and a dealer to transfer their “buy, build, shoot” kits- ruling that selling a kit that could readily be turned into a firearm is the same thing as actually selling a firearm. This decision is going to put Polymer80 out of business. You can read the actual decision here (pdf alert, hosted offsite). It’s a major defeat for liberty, and a bellwether of things to come from this court. The only two justices who dissented were Thomas and Alito. Now you know why the left wants Alito gone.
The decision for now is narrowly targeted at the Polymer80 kit, which came with the unfinished frame, the jig, and the tools needed to convert the parts into a firearm. The court’s majority specifically said that this applies only to parts sold as a complete kit, so for now 80% frames and receivers from makers like 80% Arms are completely legal, but you can expect that to be dealt with in later courts.
I have said for awhile that Trump’s best attribute was his SCOTUS picks. Now that it appears that those picks and Congress have again turned their backs on the 2A crowd (as Republicans always seem to do, once they have the pro-2A vote in their pocket), the only difference between the two parties is the speed with which we are headed off the cliff. No matter what Trump does, he can’t overcome the inertia of the uniparty.
You can read the informational post from 80% Arms here. The reason that 80% is getting away with this, is that they are not selling the jigs or tools needed to finish their lowers. They are continuing to sell 80% AR lowers and 76% Glock lowers, even though the Glock lowers are sold out.
As I have pointed out time and again on this blog, no one is coming to save you, and there is no voting your way out of this. We are too far down the path to totalitarianism. SCOTUS is not going to be a big friend to the gun community, and this Trump administration is a mere speed bump on the way to tyranny. At this point, we are looking at a pretty bleak future for the country. The median income in the US is just shy of $40,000 a year- but those who make less than $40k don’t pay any income taxes, once you factor in refundable tax credits. Those who make less than $25k don’t pay any taxes of any kind. Those who vote for a living are out voting those who work for a living. There is no coming back from that.
What that means is that the Democrats are promising free shit to the poor while simultaneously using those votes to slowly enact a tyranny. That’s why they want you disarmed. So here is my advice- do one of the following:
Buy a 3D printer. The left is already making it a felony to use a 3D printer to make firearms, and a misdemeanor to exchange the files needed to do so. They are also pressuring the makers of 3D printers to encode blocks on the printers making it impossible to make firearms or firearm parts. If you have a 3D printer, I would make sure that firmware or software updates don’t happen automatically, or you may find that your 3D printer gets neutered. You can find a guide for making your own receivers here.
Or you can buy a Ghost Gunner for about $2500 that will allow you to make AR receivers from plain aluminum blocks, as well as do all sorts of metalworking like cutting slides for red dot sights.
I am planning on buying one or the other this summer, once my current projects come to a conclusion. I am nearing completion of my 300 Blackout project. Once that is done, I will put a deposit on a Ghost Gunner 3 or buy a 3D printer.
The disclaimer: I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I don’t think that I ever will. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested.
16 Comments
Joe Blow · April 1, 2025 at 6:44 am
You’re not wrong, that much is for sure. I would argue it wise to stock up on supplies for boolits and such as well. Primers are really tough to make at home, without ’em, you’ve got a fancy paperweight. Home-made blackpowder is easier to make, however it doesn’t burn like modern nitrocellulose powder. Stock up on primers and powder if funds allow (you can buy bullet molds, too). Even a single-stage reloading setup will be worth more than the firearm itself.
Divemedic · April 1, 2025 at 8:16 am
In the case of stockpiling, you are losing the chief advantage of reloading: reusing the brass. If you aren’t doing that, just stockpile ammo.
mike · April 1, 2025 at 9:28 am
“Primers are really tough to make at home, without ’em, you’ve got a fancy paperweight”
Improvised Munitions Handbook V1. Shows how to remove a primer from spent shell casing and chemical recipes for recycling them back into service. While this has a distinct air of desperation to it, things could actually get that bad. They are reliable enough, like everything else in the 3 volume series, to warrant inclusion in the published manual. There are some guys on Utoob making devices under permit from ATF of recipes from this series and testing for effectiveness. From what I have seen, they all work as advertised.
Divemedic · April 1, 2025 at 9:45 am
It’s easier to remember that every cop is driving around with a box or two of ammo in his car.
EN2 SS · April 2, 2025 at 7:37 am
But once the SHTF, we’ll run out of cops pretty quick, don’t you think?
SiG · April 1, 2025 at 7:19 am
I’ve been relatively late to 3D printers, but started learning machine tools and CNC 20 years ago. My take on the two is that 3D printers are really worth having, but a small metalworking shop is far more useful. If I could only have one, I’d prefer something like the Ghost Gunner. It’s only drawback is the small work envelope.
I don’t know what to make of Bragg’s demands of Creality. A file for a 3D printer is list of coordinates in space that the printer goes to while extruding molten plastic. There’s nothing in there to tell it what it’s printing, it’s just thousands of lines saying “go here” with numbers for the XYZ coordinates. There’s software that’s available for free that allows you to look at the paths and you can recognize the shape, but that doesn’t work on the printer. There could be plain text comments that say what a bunch of those “Go To” points are making but those comments could be deleted without affecting the print at all. Even if that text was there, those can’t come from the printer, they have to be from the software that creates the tool path.
Is he really saying he wants the printers to be Artificial Intelligence so that they can recognize what it’s printing?
You: “print this”
Printer: “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” (To borrow the line from the movie 2001.)
mike · April 1, 2025 at 7:34 am
No one is coming to save them either.
Jonathan · April 1, 2025 at 10:34 am
Polymer 80 is already out of business; their products aren’t protected by the PLCAA and they lost a bunch of lawsuits brought in liberal jurisdictions.
I’m not clear whether the problem is including a jig, or whether its including all the parts as well – their Buy Build Shoot kits included the slide, barrel, and internal parts.
I’m not really a fan of these – bringing parts together from different sources can have tolerance and fit issues.
I’d suggest finding someone selling guns privately and buying them without paperwork if you want something untraceable – in the current environment there are lots of people selling because they need the money.
Jonathan
Divemedic · April 1, 2025 at 11:27 am
So you think there are fitment issues? I have news for you- most commercial firearms, cars, and other manufactured products are assembled from parts that came from different sources.
This argument is a nonstarter. The government should not be regulating whether or not a company can do this. It’s like the open carry debate- I don’t care if it is a good or bad idea, but the government shouldn’t be getting involved.
Is it a good idea to eat a dozen donuts for breakfast every day? No. Should the government make the sale of donuts illegal? Also No.
I have built more than a dozen firearms using jigs and my own tools.
This isn’t about whether or not one company is out of business- the left wants to eliminate the entire industry.
Jonathan · April 1, 2025 at 9:47 pm
There is a crucial difference here; Cars, other guns, etc use parts ordered by one company and made to one customers specifications.
Third party parts ordered by many different companies to varying specifications and made with varying quality control are a very different matter.
AR-15s have a public mil spec that ensures compatibility – Glocks don’t. I’m glad to hear you haven’t had problems; I have seen lots of problems with “Glock compatible” parts.
SoCoRuss · April 1, 2025 at 11:33 am
BRAVO DM. Its real nice to have someone put out what I also have been saying for decades. The looks and comments from people I have worked with or talked to who think I was a nut but did say IF by chance this silly collapse happened, they would just come to my house! I made it clear I don’t defend anyone outside my family and very close friends anymore and most of them weren’t it that group, so if they show at my door they better have something we REALLY need or they get added to body count. You cant send people away from your location who know what you may have stored, they WILL rat you out for a sandwich. That’s a COLD statement but its the truth. I have seen the results of people who were ratted out by friends and relatives on deployments. Real Life, the kind that Americans don’t get to see or experience is a cold hard bitch who doesn’t give a fuck about you or your family.
NO ONE is coming to save you or your family. This has been made very clear. BUT still the right votes for Repubtards for absolutely no reason than that’s what their parents and them have done for decades.
They come home at election time, put on the local flavor clothes especially cowboy hats here and talk about freedom and how they will defend you to the death, they just don’t say who’s death it will be. Once they again fool the local yokels and go back to DC in $5k suits and attend more pedophile parties while laughing at how easy it is to fool morons who are so desperate to have a savior but too lazy and weak to defend themselves…
BUT don’t worry your MIGA Messiah and his merry band of Zionists will save the Zionist Jews at all costs….
Francis W. Porretto · April 1, 2025 at 12:37 pm
– I have said for awhile that Trump’s best attribute was his SCOTUS picks. Now that it appears that those picks and Congress have again turned their backs on the 2A crowd (as Republicans always seem to do, once they have the pro-2A vote in their pocket) –
It’s an open secret that politicians, regardless of party, fear an armed citizenry. Republicans are not exceptions, no matter what lip service they give to the Second Amendment. William F. Buckley once favored an amendment that would require anyone who wants to own a weapon beyond a shotgun to enlist in a state-supervised militia or the National Guard. Nine out of any ten Republicans, once “in their cups,” would agree.
Politicians being the kind of creatures they are, I don’t expect that to change.
4Smith · April 1, 2025 at 11:38 pm
>> Or you can buy a Ghost Gunner for about $2500 that will allow you to make AR receivers
>> from plain aluminum blocks, as well as do all sorts of metalworking like cutting slides for
>> red dot sights.
Don’t be too surprised when the APB (“Aluminum Block Po-po”) come knocking at your door.
Honk Honk · April 2, 2025 at 10:04 am
We won’t need any saving after conquering Russia, Iran, China.
Guns are a construct of the White Male Patriarchy, the workers utopia is just one more law or regulation away.
My purple haired gender studies professor told me and they be all smart n’ shit.
Henry · April 2, 2025 at 10:22 am
What I find infuriating is that despite the language of the Second Amendment being crystal clear, Congress, states, and the courts have spent the last 90 years either ignoring it outright or inventing arcane pseudo-technical workarounds to defeat its obvious intent. The Vanderstok ruling is just the latest in this long string of abuses. Once it became clear that Bruen, Heller, and McDonald were treated as mere suggestions by the lower courts, Congress, and the states, my hope for real reform of gun control legislation vanished. Sadly, I think DM lays out the case and summarizes perfectly with, “We are too far down the path to totalitarianism.”
Gryphon · April 2, 2025 at 8:12 pm
I’ve seen several different examples (different Machines, individuals using them) of “3-D Printing” (Moldless Injection Thermoplastics) of the ubiquitous “Glock” and None of them impressed me with the ‘fit and finish’ or how the Metal Parts fitted. And what’s the Point of making the Plastic Parts of a Gun, when the Barrel and Bolt and Receiver still have to be made with Forged and Machined Steel Parts?
Eventually, ALL Gun Parts, down to Pins and Springs, will be Licensed, Registered, and Banned. being able to make the plastic parts for a Gun won’t matter much at that point. As for CNC Machine Tools, like the “3-D Printers”, you have the problem of something that runs by Computer Code, that you didn’t Write, and don’t know what Connectivity and Identification capabilities it may have. Obtaining and Learning how to use a Lathe and Milling Machine is Essential if one intends to be a “Ghost Gunner.
Given that there are upwards of 500 Million, Factory-Manufactured Guns out there, I don’t understand the seeming Desperation to produce Inferior Products just to ‘send a message’ to the (((tyrants))). Not that they listen, either.
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