➡ The video discusses the ATF’s (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) controversial decision to classify an unfinished gun frame as a firearm, despite it being a prototype and not yet functional. The ATF’s decision, which contradicts previous promises, has caused concern among gun owners and manufacturers. The video criticizes the ATF for creating new terms, such as “critical area”, to justify their decisions, and for not correcting their mistakes. It argues that this lack of clarity and consistency is causing fear and uncertainty among gun owners and manufacturers.
➡ The author is upset with the current administration and the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), believing they have overstepped their powers and are not respecting gun owners’ rights. They feel that the ATF should be abolished and that the administration’s actions could lead to their loss in the midterms. The author encourages viewers to subscribe and share the video to spread awareness about the ATF’s actions.

What’s up everybody? Jared here with Guns and Gadgets, the premier source for Second Amendment News. Welcome back. Today I’ve got a story that exposes, yet again, ATF’s double-dealing and outright hostility towards law-abiding gun owners. We’re talking about a classification letter that the ATF itself admits should never have been issued, yet they’re refusing to withdraw it. We made a mistake, we shouldn’t have done that, but we’re not taking the mistake back. Even worse, this letter directly targets the 80% industry, despite promises from leadership that this ATF is not the same as the last four years.

Bullshit. So why is the ATF playing games, still targeting unfinished frames or receivers, even as Donald Trump’s Attorney General was ordered to review Biden’s unconstitutional rules? That’s what I’m about to break down for you today. This one will anger you. Today’s video is brought to us by CMMG, the innovators behind some of the most versatile and reliable tools on the market. Whether you’re looking for groundbreaking banshees, heavy-hitting Resolute, or CMMG’s revolutionary radial delayed blowback system, you’re getting American-made performance that you can trust. Built tough, built right here in the United States of America, and built for patriots who demand the best.

See why they continue to raise the bar for modern tools, innovation, reliability, and freedom engineered. And whatever you do, don’t use G&G 10. All right, let’s get into the meat of this. Not long ago, a GOA member reached out with some shocking information. I know who it is. I know the company. I’ve been asked to keep that off the record at the moment, but an official ATF classification letter was sought after, and it’s just crazy what happened. But this is what you guys need to know, right? About actually over five years ago now, this member submitted a prototype unfinished frame that we would call an 80% frame or receiver, an unfinished frame or receiver, and he submitted that to the ATF for evaluation.

Now, this process is an unusual. Firearms manufacturers often submit prototypes or designs to ATF’s firearms technology branch, and then ATF would issue an opinion letter saying whether the item would be a firearm or not under federal law. And for manufacturers, the opinion matters because it determines whether or not they need an FFL, record-keeping background checks, all the other things that come with that under the Gun Control Act. What is unusual is what happened here. After sitting on this submission for more than five years, ATF suddenly issues a classification letter this year in 2025, not too long ago, right as Biden’s anti-gun rules and regulations and policies are being reviewed by Trump’s Attorney General.

And how they did it is concerning that this, this is right after ATF told GOA and industry members that it had stopped issuing 80% classification letters. Now, under federal law, the word firearm is very specific. It’s defined. It means any weapon which will or is designed to or maybe rarely converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or the frame or receiver of any such weapon. That’s what it is. It’s not what it’s not, and it ain’t what it ain’t. And that definition is the whole ballgame, because if ATF decides that your item is a firearm, even if it’s unfinished, you’re suddenly subject to the entire federal regulatory scheme, and you need a license to manufacture it.

You need a background checks to transfer them. You need to create the crazy permanent paper trails that ATF has been digitizing into the billion-plus record database that they’re not supposed to have, right? Now, that’s why one of the reasons that the 80% market has flourished over the years is it lets law-abiding Americans build firearms for personal use without being added to ATF’s digital registry. We’re acting like this is a new game here. People have been able to make their own firearms in this country since before we became a country. It’s been here all along.

When we got to the continent, it was a thing. But to ATF and the anti-gun politicians that they serve, that privacy is unacceptable. They want every single transaction tracked, they want every single gun registered, and they want every single one of you on a file that they can revert back to. And that’s why Biden’s ATF went after unfinished frames and receivers in the first place. They tried to broaden the definition of readily convertible with vague subjective factors, things like what tools are needed to do it, how much time would it take, how much skill is required to do it, how expensive would it be, and what kind of marketing material is submitted with it.

It’s crazy. Now, basically, it gave the ATF power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether a chunk of polymer or aluminum or steel or rubber or what have you suddenly became a firearm. Now, FPC’s famous case, Van der Stock versus Garland, even made it all the way to the Supreme Court. And unfortunately, the court stubbed its toe and bumped its head and drank some bad water and upheld Biden’s rule on narrow grounds and left it in place for now. Meanwhile, President Trump issued a historic Pro 2A executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to review all Biden-era regulations and to roll back infringements.

We’re still waiting. And that includes Biden’s 80% frame rule. We’re still waiting, DJT. We’re still waiting, Bondi. And ATF promised to stop issuing classification letters while that review is underway. Yet, here we are. And here’s how it happened. GOA asked ATF directly, what’s the status of 80% frames and receivers after Van der Stock? ATF’s answer to GOA was, all right, hold on, pump breaks, hold tight. We’re not issuing any new classification letters right now. Then, a few days later, out of nowhere, they issued this one anyway. For a prototype submitted half a decade earlier.

And the letter declared that that prototype was a firearm. But wait, there’s more. When pressed, ATF admitted that the letter was a mistake. But instead of withdrawing it, they went radio silent. No correction, no retraction, no accountability. It’s almost like the ATF is a bunch of anti-gun hacks who’s only living the facade of working with the second amendment community. Hmm. Strange you should say that, Jared. And if that weren’t bad enough, the reasoning in the letter is downright absurd. ATF claimed that the prototype was a firearm because it could, quote, readily be converted.

But they never tried to finish the damn thing. In fact, they contacted the person who submitted it after issuing the letter, asking how it can be completed. Think about that. These clowns didn’t know how to finish it, but still declared it a firearm. The member himself, the person who submitted the letter admitted that he didn’t design a process to finish it yet. It was just a theoretical prototype that he wanted to see how they would classify it before he went any further with his company. How can something be readily convertible when even the person who created the idea doesn’t know how to finish it yet? Then ATF invented a brand new concept, the so-called critical area.

You ever heard that before? Nobody had. They said the prototype had a partially formed cavity where the trigger could go, and that was enough to make it a firearm. According to ATF, once this critical area exists, completing the rest of the frame becomes much easier. But here’s the problem. Critical area doesn’t appear anywhere in their own frame or receiver rule. They just made it up out of thin air. What can we screw people on today? Oh, I got it. I got it, boss. Critical area. Under their logic, you could machine a very tiny cavity, big enough for a trigger to go into, into a block of steel, a chunk of melted plastic, or even a log.

An ATF would declare that tree is a gun because it had a critical area. Never mind that no average person could ever create that log into a functional firearm. I mean, that’s why these bureaucrats are such a risk to the United States Constitution. They’re constantly inventing shit. They’re constantly applying it however they want, and they think, they think that they are the rulers of us. Now this is exactly the same kind of nonsense we saw from the ATF under Biden, and they claim, I mean, that group of clowns said that a potato was a silencer and a shoelace was a machine gun.

They said a whole bunch of crazy things, and now under Trump, with the promise of reform, they’re still doing the same thing. Issuing letters that they said they wouldn’t. Making up new terminology. Refusing to fix mistakes when they’re caught. Now this is business as usual for this rogue agency that should be absolutely wiped from the map, and it’s dangerous because it leaves every gun owner, every manufacturer, every hobbyist hanging by a thread. If ATF can invent critical area today, what will they invent tomorrow? Now the lack of clarity is intentional.

Make absolutely no mistake about it. It lets ATF rule by fear and threats and intimidation and uncertainty. And at the very least, ATF should be barred from classifying anything as a firearm unless they actually can demonstrate how you can turn that tree, that log, into a firearm. If they don’t know how, then it isn’t readily convertible, and that’s real common sense. But the bigger picture here is ATF needs some house cleaning. In fact, they need to be abolished. How many times do people need to make it clear to this current administration? That shit needs to change.

You guys are gonna lose the midterms, because you have lied to the gun owners in this country time and time again. We don’t get our rights from you. We don’t get our rights from ATF. And the powers that ATF think that they have just to create critical area. It’s not in the US Constitution, which means it’s a power not specifically designated to Congress, which means it doesn’t exist. And by the consent of the governed is what I’ll leave you with there. I’ll go one step further, and I’ll say it yet again.

We are far too far down the road with this current administration for anybody in the upper echelon to throw their hands in the air and say, well we don’t know, we know nothing. We didn’t know about this. This must be a rogue leftover from the Biden administration. We don’t know nothing. It’s unacceptable, and it’s insulting. Guys and gals, if you’re new here, hit that subscribe button so that you don’t miss future updates. Share this video wide, because the more Americans that know about ATF’s games, the harder it becomes for them to get away with it.

This is Jared from Guns and Gadgets, where you’ll always get the truth about what’s happening in our fight for the Second Amendment. Stay safe, stay free, and I’ll see you all in the next one… for the ATF. you
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