Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Merrick Garland
President Joe Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris, and Attorney General Merrick Garland, speaks about gun control in the Rose Garden at the White House, Thursday, April 8, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

By Chris Arnet, 80 Percent Arms

For the past eight years, 80 Percent Arms has been the leading manufacturer of AR-15 80% lowers nationwide. As a California-based company, we’re no stranger when it comes to political attacks, and we’ve dealt with more legislation, lawsuits, and Second Amendment infringement than we care to remember.

It likely won’t come as a surprise, but manufacturing so-called “ghost guns” has put us at the top of the anti-gun hit list. We’ve been expecting (and preparing) for legislation and regulation to come to the national stage for a while now, and today’s press conference from the White House confirms it: 80% lowers are the main target of an aggressive executive push to undermine the community of home builders.

We believe the best way to ensure Second Amendment rights is to provide a method that allows citizens to manufacture their own firearms at home. Firearms they can trust, train with, and defend their lives with. A citizen’s ability to self-manufacture is the fulcrum point that balances governmental overreach with the power of the citizens. The removal of that right leaves a government no more significant barriers to taking further control of whatever rights they so choose.

80% lower receiver ar-15
This is not a firearm. (JWT for TTAG)

Remember, the Second Amendment wasn’t written about hunting rifles as some would prefer you to think. It was written by a group of men who had just won their freedom from a tyrannical government, a battle fought with personally-owned firearms by private citizens. The Second Amendment exists to keep the balance of power in the hands of the people, and having every firearm regulated by the government destroys that balance.

We have been involved in a lawsuit in conjunction with the Firearms Policy Coalition that intervenes between the state of California and the ATF that sought to reverse the 2006 ATF ruling on 80% lowers. Such a ruling would ban 80% lowers nationwide.

80% 9mm pistol build frame
This is not a firearm. (JWT for TTAG)

We believe it’s important to intervene in every battle for 80% rights, no matter how hard the fight. We have also made sure a portion of our proceeds go to supporting the FPC in other fights as well, not just for 80% lowers, for protecting the Second Amendment as a whole nationwide.

Whether big battles or small, you just don’t exist in the ghost gun industry without being somewhat hellbent on helping win every Second Amendment battle you can. And to help our customers do the same, we’ve also implemented the opportunity for every shopper to round-up their change at checkout and donate to the FPC, which we’ve matched up to 500%.

We all have a big fight in front of us, and we’re asking that you join us in it. This isn’t just about 80% lowers, this is about turning a corner that our rights as gun owners and Americans may never recover from.

So, what can you do to help? Several things. First, contact your Congressman, your Senators, and let them know exactly why 80% lowers matter to you. Second, support gun-rights organizations like Firearms Policy Coalition, NRA, and Gun Owners of America. Third, and finally, it might be wise to pick up some 80 percent lowers, because who knows what the future holds?

 

Chris Arnet is the Marketing Manager of 80 Percent Arms.

 

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

60 COMMENTS

  1. It was NEVER about the bump stock. But the “gun community” did not care. And they won’t care about 80% lowers.

    • Chris……. You are correct until they have the ” now they are knocking at my door” experience. Too late then.

        • Thanks for the link, Deborah, no trigger pocket makes that an easy build, considering I’ll be dropping in a Timney trigger group in there… 😉

      • Looks like Biden is doing his best to “outsell” Obama on guns, and 80% lowers especially. In response to Biden’s bigotry, we should all make dozens of finished 80% AR15 receivers and start leaving them around in places people can find them. Friends, family, strangers. Just make a lower, and throw it in someone’s car without letting them know as a happy surprise later. We can make leftists nightmares a reality. Let’s do it.

        Ghost gunner? Need to start cranking these out.

        • Put them under Gunm Free Zone signs. It’s not quite the whole gunm but it’s a start.

    • Surprisingly, I recall a lot of pushback among the active “gun community” who paid attention. It seemed to me that I saw a lot more “this is wrong” comments than “who cares?” comments. The average “condition white” gun owner was probably unaware that anything was even going on, and may still be unaware of it.

      I suspect that those who really care about the most important feature of 80% lowers are the ones least likely to draw attention to themselves by fussing about it.

      Fortunately, I’m seeing active pushback against the BidenHarris idiocy even on non-gun sites.

      • You are a worthless defender of the Second Amendment. If you can’t come out and defend the 80% lower. Especially if you have one. Or two. Or three. Or etc, etc.

    • Au contraire bombthrower Chris..I care about all this anti-gun BS. They ARE coming for my guns whether I gave a damn about bumpstocks. Time to lock n load.

      • The weakness in the “Second Amendment community” has made me very angry. And I have become, as you say, a “bomb thrower”.

        The end of times is coming. But it’s not what you think. And from 1861 to 1864 was the end of times.

  2. Now is the time for 80% manufactures to unload their excess inventory, if any, to retailers at the lowest possible cost they are willing to do. If this administration has it’s way, 80% manufactures will be put out of business. Flood the market, get a million out and sold. Pay cash at retail.

    This is the F you we can give to them as a unified front. A million sold in a matter of days would support our lgs and manufactures. This creates a situation they know they cannot control and shows that we the people are toying back.

    • Biden is going to have trouble with these executive orders. There is no law requiring people serialize paperweights – and that is what an 80% lower is. 80% has existed so long, it is precedent. A court challenge will be coming, and it will likely be successful.

    • I have no doubt they’ll sell as many as they have, for as long as they can. Since their livelihoods are about to be wiped out at the stroke of a pen, I sure as hell hope the “lowest possible cost” nonsense never crosses their minds.

    • Maybe a stupid question, but do 80% lower manufacturers keep customer lists? If so, and if they are concerned about these developments, it would be very helpful if they deleated all the customer lists before this really gets underway.

  3. It’s enough to correctly assemble an AR from a stripped receiver so hats off to those who go the extra mile to complete a receiver.

    However whoever is behind advertising 80% as “Untraceable” helped fuel the fire. LE does not need a serial number to find a perp or someone who completed an 80%, etc. They have other ways so for the most part Untraceable is BS and does nothing but imply criminality. Besides, what hard working machinist DIYer who has spent a good portion of their lives learning how not to loose fingers wants to be associated with anything criminal? The Untraceable aspect needs to go just like Assault Weapon, etc. IMO.

  4. The only thing the progressives and communists understand is a hard smack in the mouth!! I mean that in the literal sense!! If you try speaking to them they run all over you! They are bullies and they are bulling us into surrendering our God given rights!! Time to hit them square in the mouth repeatedly in order to make them back off for good! After all there goal is to put 78 million of us in Re-education camps anyway! It is time to get down off our collective high horses with this crap of being morally above the fray and get our knuckles dirty!! We have the means! We have the numbers!! They believe we can and won’t galvanize our people to literally fight back. I’m here to tell you if we start with the media and move on to the billionaire that are in charge of this crap the leftist politicians will cower and flee!!! Come on people! FIGHT BACK!!!

    • Krp,

      I came to share a similar sentiment in response to the article’s recommendation that we contact our elected representatives: they don’t care what we say.

      As you stated, Progressives and Communists are nasty bullies (at best) plain and simple. They want what they want and do not care about right nor wrong nor inalienable rights. And they certainly do not care one bit about what you or I have to say about anything. They will steal as much as they can until someone physically stops them.

      My father taught me a lesson many moons ago about such human trash who have no regard for your human dignity and readily violate your rights: the only “language” that they understand and respond to is a punch to their face and/or a firearm pointed at them in self-defense.

  5. Not more than two months ago he took an oath to protect the constitution. Liar, Liar, Liar. This single issue will be his achilles heal. Law abiding citizens will not comply.

    • Doncha know? He had his fingers crossed behind his back. So the oath means nothing.

    • No, but the pipe caps and #10 nails are going to be regulated like those spoons and forks that make people obese.

      The Federal Bureau of Knives, Forks, Spoons & Ladles is going to see “& Plumbing Parts” added to their list of regulated stuff.

  8. So since I own several cars & trucks with exhaust pipes do I now own a bunch of STEN gun receivers??? If so my 93 Ford just became much more valuable cause technically it’s still registered…….with the DMV.

  9. “We’ve been expecting (and preparing) for legislation and regulation to come to the national stage for a while now…”

    So they’ve been doing things that are more useful than the NRA… strange how people act when they have skin in the game.

    • “So they’ve been doing things that are more useful than the NRA…”

      Preach it –

      BTW, you were right about the gold coins, the ones the Fed wanted was a specific case involving ‘Double Eagle’ coins stolen a long while back.

      Funny how some trivia thing sticks in your brain to be recalled years later.

      And BTW 2 – Just assembled my first stripped lower. I consider myself reasonably-skilled in putting mechanical things together, but there a few times I really could have used a third hand to put that sucker together…

      • Soon-to-be-captive springs can be a PITA.

        I usually have this feeling while working on a car though. But sometimes building a computer when the PSU is already in but the cable management isn’t.

      • Those ‘third hands’ are called ‘special tools.’ Brownells, for example, will sell you all of the ‘third hands’ that you need to properly assemble an AR lower. And upper. Without scarring either yourself or the aluminum, or trying to chase down tiny springs and plungers in the carpet. And they’re cheap.

        • Don’t worry, guys- it gets a lot easier each time you build one. My first was from parts I got ca 1983 from a supplier in Lake Zurich,IL. Can’t remember company but even had to assemble the A2 rear sight. No manual at the time but it worked fine and is still shooting. Much more simple today.

        • I got it done, and the next one will go faster… 🙂

  10. They want all gun transactions on a form 4473 for their illegal data base that is a registration scheme. It’s not legal to do so but that has never mattered in D C. The excuse that they can’t trace a home built firearm as to where it came from and who bought it is a foolish excuse, ” a this point what difference does it make”. All red states need to tell D C to go to hell and ignore them in the future.

    • With DNA, surveillance cameras everywhere along with a proliferation of witnesses with cell phones/cameras and the ability to trace anyone who uses them, I wonder just how many times a firearm actually needs to be traced?

      And forget about guns- look how easy it was to discover the identities of the OK City and Boston Marathon bombers, along with where they got their components. The “ability to trace” is garbage in today’s world- primarily another regulation to infringe on one’s ability to live one’s life and “pursue happiness”.

  11. I’m waiting for the government sponsored class action lawsuit against the fast food industry. Because obesity is the next public health crisis.

    • Next?

      I’ll just make the assumption that you’ve been in a coma for 20 years and say “Welcome back to the world”.

      As per fucking usual the government is going to already has encouraged a shitload of bad behavior and unintended consequences and then used that as an excuse to shove regulation down your throat as the “cure”. Same as they’ve been doing for the last century.

      And, also as per usual, when it comes to advancing a complete police state, most people will line up and clap for this like the trained seals that they are because they can’t see how all this shit is interconnected and they’re being led to their own detriment.

  13. Don’t misunderstand; I have, personally, NOTHING against 80% kits, 80% lowers, or anything else being discussed. They may not be for me, but I’m not going to say that another ‘legal’ citizen can’t have one of them.

    It cannot be denied, however, that the concept of the ‘80% Anything’ is shocking, threatening, and ‘dangerous’ to people who are NOT believers in the 2nd Amendment, and that seems to be an overwhelming majority of our fearless ‘leaders’ in government. We can’t argue with a straight face, either. that the ‘80%’ packages, or individual frame ‘kits’,’ are NOT a really, REALLY easy for someone with minimal mechanical skills to fudge together a marginally-functioning firearm even if they screw up rather badly, and that a skilled person will do a much better job at ending up with a finished product.

    The historic idea of a citizen ‘building’ his own firearm is based upon the traditional concept of what firearms used to be: Machined steel, carved wood, intricate hand-fitted internal parts coming out of a skilled artisan’s workshop or a fully-equipped machine works. The NEW idea of ‘building’ one’s own firearm, when the firearm is a modern modular weapon, is completely different. The NEW ‘build’ is done by finishing, with fairly minimal effort, a ‘frame’ upon which can then be mounted pre-finished, bought-in, factory-made components that require no fitting for the most part, and ending up with a fully functional modern semi-automatic repeating firearm.

    The way things are going, it may come down to a choice: Give up the no-background-check, mail-order ‘80%’ unserialized-frame idea of ‘building,’ or see legislation that makes all of the OTHER components–barrel, slide, upper receiver, stock, extension, forearm, and so on–serial-numbered parts subject to the NFA that can only be ordered through an FFL. One way or another, Xi BidenHarris and his newest minion at the head of BATF are going to control; It’s only a question of when, how, and how bad it’s going to be (having absolutely NO faith in the courts, mind).

    These are indeed dangerous times.

    • Don’t take this the wrong way John, I like your comments and this one is no exception.

      From my personal point of view however, I deeply suspect that all this kind of talk is “so 2019”. IMHO, it’s over. The country’s done. This place is a banana republic at this point.

      Now, in theory it’s possible that we can rescue the country but in reality we can’t because of the very reasons we ended up here.

      And no, not because of questions about the election but rather about the electorate. This country has spent the last year proving that 95% of people know basically fuck-all about anything and are therefore easily manipulated into doing whatever someone using six letter words tells them to do. Stats suggest strongly that this is true across all demos, age, sex, race etc. Some demos are a bit more resistant but not enough to change the overall outcome.

      Virtually nothing this country has done in the last year, at nearly any level, has a logical base to it. Arguments revolve around one or both sides not searching for a better argument but simply denying facts or making shit up.

      When you’ve got agencies across the government doing research, posting that research publicly, then ignoring said research and issuing guidance and “laws” or “rules” that fly in the face of their own publicly posted data, you’re in trouble. When 95% of people don’t care that this is happening because they’re too lazy to even look up what that agency actually posts as data, then as a country you’re fucked.

      And that’s where we’re at. The list of topics where we’re doing this, just in the last year, is too long for me to bother typing out, and really, why bother because it’s depressing.

      IMHO, we’ve hit and passed critical mass on the Idiocy Index by… God knows how many basis points and we’re still not to Peak Idiocy. Not even close. People use the internet and talk like idiots when they could just open a new tab and look up the answer FFS. God help them if they ever needed to use… oh, I dunno… a library?

      Will people realize? Yeah, they will. Reality will eventually constrain behavior but by then it will be far, far, far too late.

      The country’s boned. Done as we all knew it. Could it come back? Sure, but you’ve got a better chance of winning Powerball while getting attacked by a shark, struck by lightning and swarmed by killer bees all at the exact moment you die from Covid.

      • I believe, sadly, that you are correct. We are NOT coming back. The country is under occupation by a hostile power with a near unshakeable majority in every branch of the Federal government and in the most populated states. The courts are laden with Liberal Progressives for the most part at every level, and the population seems completely accepting of the new status quo. If they WEREN’T, then our alleged constitutional republic (which is functioning awfully like a People’s Republic or ‘democracy’, albeit one without a written constitution) would not be in this condition.
        Now, whether we voted Trump or NotTrump, every citizen must now dine at the same Great Big Government Feces Subway Shop; We will be allowed to choose the type of bread, and whether or not we want it toasted, but a feces sandwich it shall be for all.
        Many will enjoy the piquant flavour, of course. I can just imagine Minor69er taking a big grinning mouthful, can’t you?

      • Strych9,

        Sadly, I cannot find any glaring errors in your analysis nor your conclusions.

        I can only think of one potential winning strategy going forward and, if I remember correctly, you stated the same idea a year or two ago: tell the masses that “the powers that be” have been lying to them for the express purpose of screwing them over (e.g. stealing their stuff and their humanity).

        If the masses got that message loud and clear, I am somewhat optimistic that we might be able to right this ship.

        Now, having said that, there is a significant hurdle in that strategy: getting the masses to believe that “the powers that be” truly are that evil. I recently came across compelling evidence of just how evil “the powers that be” truly are. When I shared that evidence with a couple people, they appeared to almost entirely shut down mentally. My intuition tells me that my listeners checked-out mentally for two reasons: they did not want to acknowledge that truly evil people exist and are that depraved; and my listeners did not want to acknowledge the resulting horrific and widespread implications of such evil, depraved people having so much capacity to harm all of us. Any ideas on getting over that hurdle?

        • I dunno what Strych9 would say, but I don’t think that hurdle can be got over — not until it’s too late to stop the disaster, anyway. Anyone who tries will be dismissed as a conspiracy theorist or simply deplatformed (or both). Put those barriers together with the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans don’t want to hear it and wouldn’t believe it anyway, and it just isn’t going to happen.

          If a very large number of people somehow did open their eyes to the truth and say “no more” — say, sometime this year — and start working together, maybe this whole thing would be recoverable. Maybe. But not without a horrific amount of damage first.

        • I’ve tried the same thing as you with people I know and love and who know and love me, who already know that I usually do know what I’m talking about (one of whom married me in part because she thought I was super smart), and all it did was damage our relationship to the exact extent that I persisted. People can be amazingly resistant to changing their cherished ideas of what’s true and normal.

          The major result of trying to change their mind on things they’ve been socially primed to believe are True and Normal is that they no longer trust that I’m true and normal. (I maintain that I am true, but I have to admit that “normal” was never an option anyway.)

          This could also have something to do with the fact that I’m not great at reading social signals, so I might have made more headway if I’d been capable of being less blunt and thinky and more (manipulative? well, yes, but…) let’s say sensitive with the whole thing.

          Anyway, yeah. My personal experience — and all the reading i’ve done about human nature — tell me that we aren’t going to make any headway on this one. Ugly, inescapable reality will have to do it for us.

        • I recently rewatched “The World at War”. At one point they’re interviewing Deitrich Bonhoeffer’s sister-in-law. She relates a story of her attempt to inform some of her neighbors of what was going on in the camps. They actively refused to believe her.

          The only thing that ultimately worked was forcing the townspeople to tour the camps after they were liberated.

          We are only at the point where the same path is being followed, but there is not yet anything to show, let alone victory over that thing. People have a tendency to disregard the “unthinkable”, especially if that is the predictable result of their well-meaning foolishness. I don’t see any successful way to avoid the path through the fire, though I keep praying and working for that to happen.

        • Good, honest, everyday, Condition White people will always refuse to believe that really awful, evil people exist–until it is brought graphically home to them in some manner. Otherwise, it’s simply unimaginable, except in the abstract, to even think of another human being doing horrendous things that they would never consider. Therefore, their minds cannot accept the premise, as it is beyond their comprehension.
          And there is no cure, unless or until something horrendous happens to them or someone close to them; You’ll be wasting your time trying to convince them otherwise.

      • The only sensible solution is a national divorce and I truly believe that you can get a majority vote on that. Probably 80% of Republicans and maybe 20-30% of democrats would get us a majority vote divorce. (the other 70% of Democrats wouldn’t want us to leave but rather make us submit and kneel).

        Unfortunately there is not a single Republican in Congress that I know of that has the balls to start the discussion.

    • John so far only 10-22s but I’m up to 2 now with the only part not made by me being the barrels, springs and trigger assemblies. One is in leaded brass, since the receiver is small it did not add much weight. Looks good with the walnut furniture. Honestly though for the price that 10-22’s go for it was not really worth all the work. But hopefully it will stay with the family.and way in the future someone,will enjoy shooting it.

      I have a PLA model of a AR15 lower completed. Thinking about casting it and an upper in leaded brass. Buff it out and then tell folks its a special model that Henry was thinking about making. Maybe inlay some of the turquoise I have boxes of into it while I’m at it.

      • What you are describing is the ‘traditional’ way of ‘building’ your own gun; You obtain a barrel from a barrel maker, a ‘lock’ (trigger assembly) from a lock-maker, but you carve the stock, cast/forge a receiver, and make the other bits. The OTHER way of ‘building’ your own gun by buying a nearly-completed receiver assembly, following a pattern or jig to finish it, then adding on everything else as prefinished ‘factory’ parts to complete it is just not the same thing.
        From my point of view, either way is fine; Our ‘leaders’, unfortunately, do not see it that way.

  15. First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a communist;
    Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist;
    Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist;
    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew;
    Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak out for me.
    Martin Niemöller about Nazi Germany

    First they came for the SBRs and SBS. Then they came for machine guns. Then they came for bump stocks. Then they came for 80% lowers. Then they came for hunting rifles and double-barrel shotguns – and there was no one left to speak out for the Fudds.
    Me about this bulls#*t

    • OK, well, if ‘they’ come for the Communists and Socialists, they’ll be coming for their own, and I have no problem with that at ALL. And I’m not entirely sure about the Trade Unionists, either.

  18. Contacting Representatives and Senators only works when they hold the same values. I’ve written both my US Senators, Bennett and Lickshispooper. Both replied telling me to basically fornicate myself.
    I Thank God everyday for my US Representative, Lauren Boebert, but she’s just one voice in the House of Reprobates.
    Locally, both our Senator and Representative are both Libtard A-Holes.

    No, I forsee the time coming, when it will be necessary to take up arms to overthrow the Tyrannical Government in place.

    • Same situation here. No point in writing or otherwise contacting anyone at all. My state’s senators are useless progtard biddies and my district’s representative, although not a Boebert style firebrand, is reliably steady on the 2A front. Those who we need to reach can’t be, and those who might listen were already with us anyway.

  19. Gun Control has NOTHING to do with SAFETY as much as a Left Wing COMMUNIST gun CONFISCATION. And, Gun control does NOT make a nation SAFE, but rather LESS SECURE from TYRANNICAL government TAKEOVER. Remember that every time we hear about “common sense gun legislation”. Be AWARE and ALERT! One Enlightened and WARY Patriot. Team Trump And His Allies 2020 – MAGA (WE’RE NOT going away!).

  20. *In Fatale Die Tempus

    Somewhere out there in this rapidly darkening Land of Liberty are two people, each destined to an ominous fate when they meet. One person is a Patriot, a defender of the Rights and Liberties given to man by God, and the other poor damned soul is a Coward, a representative of his Leader Satan and his plan to deprive the Patriot of his right to pursue Life, Liberty, and Happiness. The Patriot is in possession of a tool, a weapon, in this day in age- a firearm. The Coward holds in hand a piece of paper, a tyrannical dictate, in this day in age- a law. Both believe utterly in their ideological ground and intend to see their ends met, regardless of the means. No one knows this *fateful day in time, but it must come, and there can be only one outcome, and that outcome will irrevocably determine the future of our country. One or both of these individuals may die as a result of this meeting.
    One day the Coward will be ordered by his Leader to carry the piece of paper to the Patriot in order to deprive the Patriot of that tool which helps insure the preservation of the Patriot’s rights accorded to him by God. This ‘order’ will be issued to the Patriot in the name of ‘Peace and Safety of the Nation’. Ostensibly that the rights of the Patriot are some sort of ‘privilege’ that somehow deprives others of their rights. This is the lie that Satan employs that perverts the mind of the Coward.
    The outcome of this VERY FIRST interaction will cast the die, and cast it in such fashion that will inevitably bring bloodshed to the Nation in a manner it has not experienced since its’ existential struggle known as The Civil War. For the American Nation to maintain possession of those aforementioned God-Given Rights and Liberties that Patriot must intentionally and inevitably; and with full knowledge of the consequences, use that self-same tool to slay that Coward and all who accompany him. This must happen at that VERY FIRST instance and at EVERY instance thereafter until the tyrant leader and his cohort of cowards are themselves destroyed, or the Light of Liberty is extinguished by the blood of the Patriot and his brothers.

    “IS LIFE SO DEAR, OR PEACE SO SWEET AS TO BE PURCHASED AT THE PRICE OF CHAINS AND SLAVERY? FORBID IT ALMIGHTY GOD! I KNOW NOT WHAT COURSE OTHERS MAY TAKE, BUT AS FOR ME- GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH!” PATRICK HENRY

    Benjamin Martin
    New Guard of the Republic

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