It’s perfectly legal — in most states — to make your own firearms. Pistols, rifles, shotguns…as long as you’re building it for yourself and not to sell, you’re well within the law to make your own guns.

That state of affairs has never sat well with the civilian disarmament community and their helpful adjuncts in the media. They’re only too happy to apply the scary moniker “ghost gun” to any home made firearm without a serial number. And the rapid advancement of 3D printing has them positively apoplectic.

So a recent story at Wired.com plays right into their hands. The article portrays 3D printing as an easy way for prohibited people and violent insurrectionists to get their hands on machine guns.

3D-printed gun was fired more than seven years ago, the technique has loomed as a potential tool to arm individuals with lethal weapons they couldn’t otherwise legally obtain. Now criminal charges against one West Virginia man suggest that the digital gunsmithing method has been adopted by violent, anti-government domestic extremists: the Boogaloo movement.

Last week, the ATF arrested a man who’s been selling auto sears “wall hooks” to buyers, some of them allegedly Boogaloo aficionados.

A criminal complaint filed last week accuses Timothy Watson, a resident of Ranson, West Virginia, of selling more than 600 3D-printed plastic components of automatic rifles through his website, Portablewallhanger.com. The FBI says Watson attempted to disguise the devices as wall hooks for keys or coats. Remove an extraneous bracket from the “wall hooks,” and the remaining small plastic piece functions perfectly as a “drop-in auto sear,” a simple but precisely shaped rifle part that can convert a legal AR-15 into an illegal, fully automatic machine gun. Those simple components have been banned in the US—aside from rare, grandfathered-in automatic rifle registration—for more than 20 years.

It takes about 10 minutes to print out an auto sear with a 3D printer. All you need to do is download an electronic file, the “plans” for the sear. It should be noted that unless you’re an SOT, making a drop-in auto sear — 3D printed or not — is illegal. It’s a federal felony as an auto-sear is regulated as if it’s a machine gun.

[T]he files themselves are legal, after all, even if the printed part isn’t. The decentralized gun access group Deterrence Dispensed six months ago released a printable auto sear file called the Yankee Boogle, an apparent Boogaloo reference.

And if you don’t have a 3D printer, sites like Watson’s portablewallhanger.com are selling the “mask hangers” and “coat hangers.”

drop-in auto sear
Courtesy PortableWallHanger.com

Of course, making an auto sear isn’t confined to 3D printing. Anyone with some basic tools can make one out of metal or plastic by applying a little easily-acquired knowledge and elbow grease. But Watson’s online business selling hundreds of “wall hooks” — some allegedly to Boog Bois — is tailor made for shrieking gun control groups.

…Watson’s alleged sales of 3D-printed gun parts, including to Boogaloo members, show not only that the domestic extremist group has been adopting its own DIY gunsmithing tricks, but also the scale of the group and its adaptability in its attempts to evade law enforcement, says George Washington University’s Jon Lewis.

“Extremist actors will always try to adapt and make use of the newest technology to continue to engage in overt acts in furtherance of domestic terrorism,” says Lewis. “What this really shows is the commercialization and the reach of this broader Boogaloo movement.”

Much like customers who bought Chinese full-auto GLOCK conversion kits, if you bought one of Watson’s “hangers,” you may be getting a knock at your door from a federal agent in the not-too-distant future.

 

 

 

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129 COMMENTS

    • Have you considered “Southern Comfort” as a medicinal response? I recall it being quite helpful in event of a toothache.

      As I recall “The Dude” was into “White Russians” for the calming effect, but in his case it was probably overkill.

      • Or as Mark Twain recommended, whiskey as a preventative for tooth ache. I medicate often with whiskey, and have never experienced a toothache. The man was on to something.

        • It takes about 10 minutes to print out an auto sear with a 3D printer. All you need to do is download an electronic file, the “plans” for the sear. It should be noted that unless you’re an SOT, making a drop-in auto sear — 3D printed or not — is illegal. It’s a federal felony as an auto-sear is regulated as if it’s a machine gun.

          People need to be making the case that no one should be going to prison for printing any small piece of plastic. If you print a small piece of plastic, of any shape or size, you shouldn’t have to go to prison for it. The founders would have blown chunks everywhere if they were here today to see a person seized and arrested and imprisoned for a small piece of plastic.

        • ‘Southern Comfort’ is almost as repulsive as ‘Jägermeister’…

        • In my old age I’ve pared my spirits down to second-to-top shelf Gin and Tequila. And Busch Latte. The garbage we drank in our yoot, though.

        • In my 20s, I *loved* ‘Maker’s Mark’, even more than ‘Jack Daniels’…

        • In my 50s I’m coming back to Makers. I genuinely like a wheated mash bill and Makers has a solid, affordable, tasty bourbon.

    • One of my favorite words. It comes to mind often while I am watching the “news.”

    • Kind of interesting the file is floating around “In the wild” where anyone could probably find it, if they looked for it.

      And I bet Google would be happy compile a list of the IP addys of those who made that search for the Harris administration.

      (Yeah, yeah, yeah – DuckDuckGo, ad nausium…)

      • Don’t forget Tor onion browser, for layered encrypted browsing.

        It’s slow, probably has some zero-day flaws that the feds could exploit (it was developed by the DOD after all) but is none the less your best bet for anonymity in the current environment. Combined with some free WiFi and a device bought second hand (no MAC address associated with any email or personal accounts), and you should be truly anonymous on the web…

        Enjoy your freedom and don’t end up like Poo bear with your head in a federal honey pot.

    • It depends on the material and quality of the print. The designer said it easily lasts over 200 rounds. When it fails, it just reverts back to semi-auto fire (it just gets beat down and stops being engaged by the Bolt carrier).

    • Less than the trigger unit but more than a previous edition (green follower) magazine would be my guess.

    • Yeah. I’ve seen the design for those floating around on the dark inter-webs. It always seemed to me that these wouldn’t last. Especially with extended firing. Probably make more sense just to make one of the all metal versions of these I’ve seen out there on the internet.

  4. “Mere possession” somehow equates to criminal activity against your fellow man.

    Here in CA, it’s a felony for anyone (non-sworn, as of course LEOs are always exempt here) to simply possess a collapsible baton. And yet when I visited another state in Free America where it IS legal, they were right there on the store shelf next to the running/jogging products for anyone to buy.

    Also here in CA, sometimes even standard semi-auto is illegal, such as for AR pistols. This is exactly why KaliKey has a market.

    Really, all this NFA nonsense just needs to go away.

    • Agreed, all the “possession” laws are just attempts at precrime and control. What does it really matter what someone owns? Murder is still murder, whether by hand, bat, hunting rifle, glock, Uzi, or flamethrower. But someone possessing any of those objects isn’t necessarily commiting a crime unless they actually do something like use them to kill someone with murderous intent.

      Except the laws are made to prohibit this but not that.

    • Living in NY, I feel the same way when I visit other states and see standard capacity magazines right out in the open. Those yay-hoo out of state gun store owners don’t seem to understand that those things are dangerous!

    • I’ve been pressuring my representatives about this for years.

      Why in PA am I an honest citizen walking around with a pistol all day long but dip into Maryland or Jersey and I become Stalin.

      BULL CRAP!

      • Because all injustice is local. I’m glad you get it; willful ignorance of that fact is one of our side’s primary limitations.

        • …..I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “all injustice is local.” Unless I’m misunderstanding what you mean, that statement makes zero sense. I find the opposite to be more likely to be true. Most Injustice comes from ambiguous federal authority under the guise of keeping us safe. Most unassailable injustice is top down. Local injustice tends to be quantifiable and able to be overcome and defeated. Something like the injustice wrought by the liberal fed gov/media/ big tech cos. Is daunting and unable to be quantified, and thus, unable to be combated in a cohesive manner. It’s ambiguous injustice. Who’s actually doing what? “All injustice is local.” …….I don’t get that. How are tyrannical federal laws local?

    • In PA things like collapsible batons are illegal under 18 PCS 908, with some exceptions and vagaries. And yet you can find tables full of them at any flea market, along with switch blades, brass knuckles and other illegal items.

      If you commit no other crime than possessing it then they will charge you with a 908 violation and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. If you use it in the commission of a crime it will plead away as part of your plea deal.

      Government is evil and corrupt and it needs to be eliminated.

      • The government does not need to be eliminated, just put back in control of the people, like it was always intended.

        • I think you mean controlled BY the people. Its current problem is that it believes it’s in control OF the people.

      • 908 is a dumping ground for anything the AG doesn’t like….these days you can’t even get some non-firing replica guns shipped to you in PA!….

    • LEO, to driver of Bugatti Veyron, he has just pulled over: Sir, pleas exit the vehicle, face the vehicle and put your hands behind your back.
      Driver: My officer? I was doing 7mph backing out of my driver.
      LEO: Im arresting you for felony reckless driving and criminal endangerment.
      Driver: I was doing 7mph, I checked my mirrors, no cars were coming, you were parked 300 yards up the street on the far side completely out of my way.
      LEO: Yes but this is a Bugatti Veyron, it can do over 200mph.

      • Without a license! We can use those to fight our way to the car, where we can have stowed a loaded .45 (!!!!) auto, also without a license. Think what you could do *WITH* a license!

      • Never required a license nor a law change to legalize those in IN. When Texas grows up it wants to be IN or AZ.

    • I would be interested to know if it’s not just “mere possession” that they consider a crime… there’s all the constructive-possession BS too. If you own a 3d printer (I do) and if you have downloaded the auto-sear file (I have not), is that alone a crime? Or the auto-sear plans and a milling machine?

      A crime has a victim. Everything else is simply bureaucrats or politicians controlling us for no valid reason.

    • The radical leftist are election stealing their way to total domination of the Federal Bureaucracy, nothing is “going away”, the liberals will make felons out of the opposition and never flinch. The 2nd amendment will be their first victim. The latest ATF shenanigans with moving the goalposts on AR pistols is just a warm up of what will come under a Kamalatoe Harris regime.

      • “The latest ATF shenanigans”

        Let me help you with that.

        “The latest Trump Administration ATF shenanigans”

        The historical fact is that the Obama/Biden administration approved both pistol braces and bump stocks, and now we have half of that team in the White House so I think will be good for a bit.

        Right up until some mouth breathers vote in a Republican…

        • That’s good to know that the Dems are actually the friend of gun rights. Can you call Sleepy Joe and Calamity Harris and let them know so they can remove it from their official website, tweets, and Facebook posts? Cause, gosh, someone might read what they wrote and misconstrue their stance.

        • Under Obama they rolled out the 41F responsible party rules so everyone on your trust gets to supply fingerprints and photos when you buy something, as do individuals. Only plus was individuals didn’t have to get Cleo approval. They tried to ban green tip as “pistol ammo” because AR pistols can use it… Obama was no friend. Banned return of garands from overseas, probably wouldn’t have let CMP 1911 happen, moved to require ITAR for simple gun smithing, etc. Trump had bump stock ban, Bush St, Clinton, Reagan all enacted gun control, so I guess you can say we haven’t had a true, uncompromising pro gun rights president in recent times.

      • You know if Biden wins and they try to get extreme on gun control, that would create an excellent opportunity to get an infringement case up to the new SCOTUS to cancel all gun regs as being infringing on the 2nd amendment. Also, no more fees for CC permits as it was ruled illegal many years ago to charge for voting rights. That is just a Jin Crow law that was lost in the forest. Also, no fees for FFL licenses or NFA licenses.

        • all stupid all of you

          criminals get what they want get caught cop keeps gun criminal gets violation back out in 24 prosecuters dont earn anything catching minnows gotta hand up a lawful guy stupid enough to be on here .

    • more than that, all state restrictions on firearms, ammo, and parts needs to go away. The BORs is federal and the states should have to follow the law.

    • Unfortunately, AR pistols will soon be on the no no list nationwide following this election. These left wing nuts are going to make life difficult for the next 4 years. Hopefully, there’s enough red left in Senate to temper the crazy until 2024. That’s assuming the dems don’t force us into a civil war before then.

  5. No Hughes amendment and you could buy these on form 4s all day, or form 1 your own. No NFA and they wouldn’t be illegal. The government would rather punish owning “scary” seeming things rather than doing actual awful, terrible crimes. Is possession the threat, or doing actual criminal acts?

    Put this guy away for years and years for making machine gun parts, let chicago guys out after committing violent crimes.

  6. Until that “hook” is modified and placed in a receiver, in no way shape or form should it be illegal to own, make, etc…

    Time for the crap to stop.
    This “everything is NFA” is crap.

    Stop making criminals where no crimes exist. No victims, no harm, nothing.

    You wanna spray a full auto weapon on your home or gun range or wherever you practice, why should it matter? unless its used in a crime its meaningless.

    If we were to lock up everyone for having “potential” to commit a crime we would all be in jail.

    • If we were to lock up everyone for having “potential” to commit a crime we would all be in jail.

      To the totalitarians, that’s a feature, not a bug. Look up “anarcho-tyranny.”

      • That’s just tyranny. Ignoring laws that affect some people and enforcing laws on others is just tyranny. There is anarcho about it.

        Anarchy would be no rulers. Then human nature would quickly assert itself and people would begin to treat others as they wish to be treated. Those incapable of that would be eliminated by their potential victims.

        • Anarcho-tyranny is the term for a new development in leftist rule.
          The Antifa/BLM are allowed to burn, loot, riot and congregate in their mobs.
          Because they are all democrat voters.
          Citizens who defend their property or congregate at church are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
          So leftist anarchy is promoted, while law abiding citizens are oppressed.
          It’s not straight tyranny where everyone is oppressed.
          So a new term is needed.
          Anarchists tyranny is a perfect description

        • I thought it was just the distributed tyranny that naturally results from complete anarchy, where nobody can be secure in what they own because without a functioning system of law to set fair ground rules, you can never be sure someone stronger/sneakier/more violent won’t just take it on a whim.

          But it also makes perfect sense that encouraging violent anarchy among fellow travelers while enforcing laws only against their enemies is a natural move for the ruthless authoritarians of the Left.

      • “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”. Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s Chief of Secret Police.

    • Well, looks like we may well have us a genuine “everything is NFA” president, it’s looking like I may die in jail.

    • “is this thing plugged in?”

      Speak clearly into the microphone, Trumper… 🙂

  10. I mean, it’s a genius marketing ploy. I love creative marketing, and I love someone trying to push boundaries of legal/illegal. Sucks he got locked up over a coat hanger. The irony of the coat hanger is the funniest part here, considering you can use one for other reasons and it’s perfectly legal.

  11. Reminds me of an Australian person I used to know. She remarked on how they decided to add a bolt action .22LR for the rabbit problem on their farm. She went to a store, and picked one sold in vacuum sealed plastic with accessories. One of which was a suppressor. Sold on display like it was a toy in a Walmart. The point was everyone knew there was a rabbit infestation problem and having a quieter gun to not frighten the herd made it easier to pick off the bunnies.

    Later I heard there were efforts to ban or regulate suppressors. So it is maybe not so routine a thing to see in the store down under anymore.

    This was to the northwest of Brisbane, few years back.

    • We need to employ the same methods to eradicate our Socialist problem here. Silenced .22LR to the eye socket or ear hole. Quiet, cheap and more humane then they deserve.

      • Fantasizing about murdering people with a suppressor is exactly the sort of comment that those seeking to ban them like to see. Props up the narrative tug hat they’re too dangerous to let the general public have them.

    • More than a few years. Probably several decades. Although Queensland did have some lax firearms laws compared to the other states, except for Tasmania.

    • And every year you can get a big old plate of fried ramps, sautéed in butter, garlic, salt and pepper, Yum!

  13. And this guy should be arrested and charged. As a life long gun owner and nra member the only this stopping me from going nuts and killing millions with my ar15 is the fact that it’s only semi auto I dont know who could stop me it I had a piece of plastic that allowed me to fire 3000 rounds a second.

    • For what? Selling a coat hanger? ATF would have to *gulp* radically alter the design to get it to work as something they’re not advertised as.

  15. Pfft! Everyone knows all you have to do is file down the firing pin to make one of them thar machine gun thingies.

    /fuddlore

    • “So these coat hooks will make your booger hook more powerful?”

      Not more powerful, just more boogers to flick. About 600 boogers per minute (BPM) faster… 😉

      • “I wonder where ACB is on this stuff? ”

        First thing first –

        Give her a 2A rights case to vote for granting certiorari in her in-basket…

  18. I have zero interest in converting a rifle to full auto- but just the same I always thought that you had to have a full auto bolt as well? I think many of the cheap AR rifles would just run away in full auto fire and burn up and wreck themselves with a few rounds. Just saying

    • Most of the halfway decent commercially made standard bolts could handle it in the short term just fine. And somehow I’m guessing anyone using a plastic drop in auto sear isn’t super worried about long term durability 🤦‍♂️

    • Bolt carrier, fire selector, hammer, trigger, disconnector, and sear are the full kit. This may replace the sear and disconnector. You’d still need the selector.

  19. Can we all just appreciate how damn funny it is hearing the media traitors try to make a word as silly as boogaloo sound sinister.

  21. “Remove an extraneous bracket from the “wall hooks,” and the remaining small plastic piece functions perfectly as a “drop-in auto sear…”

    So… you have to alter the object to make it illegal? Sounds like the ATF manufacturing an autosear, not this guy.

    • Bingo. My guess is that the guy who was arrested already knows this. Not illegal if you don’t dismantle and radically alter it.

  22. I used to have an AR that, on occasion, would double and sometimes triple tap on it’s own. It would really surprise you when you weren’t expecting it which was every time that it did it.

  23. I heard a rumor that someone was 3D printing something called a “Bidensight”, used only for shooting shotguns through closed doors, in the air from your balcony, or at attackers’ legs. I think the website for those was “WWW.THEBIGGUYALOO.COM”.

  24. Can’t believe that TTAG staff failed to catch the Red Coat Hanging Hook pun. You guys are making the ghost of RF cry.

    • Someone commented the hook was letting those red coats lay on the floor…

  25. You can look at those and tell you’d need to heavily modify them to get them to work. Dude will get off. He probably already knows this and is doing this to make the atf look even more stupid than they are. Maybe they’ll just lie like the government always does. Like democrats always do. Just like this election.lie lie lie. The GayTF With their army of left over safari land holster wearing shadiqua’s that make 115k a year to harass business owners and don’t know how to spell. Tax payer money will be wasted.ATF will look like the dunces they are-Yet again. Meanwhile Blm and Antifa burn down us cities and attack people in the streets even murder people. But you go to prison for bits of plastic printed on a machine. And the fudds at truth about guns go along with it like the boy scout simps that they are. All so they can think they’re somehow above the rest of us. They duh real gun owners. Not dem boo boys. Lol whatever the fuck those are. Dance truth about guns. Dance. Dance like the fairies that you are.

    • “You can look at those and tell you’d need to heavily modify them to get them to work.”

      Lucky us!

      It’s a good thing that you’re here to provide all the details on how to make them work.

      You are volunteering, right? 🙂

  27. The “gun community” doesn’t support Machine gun ownership in the general population. They only support it for the rich. Law abiding or criminal. They can always afford to buy a machine gun. The government can’t ever make them to expensive. For the rich to buy.

    • There will always be guns on the black market even if they’re illegalize all of them just like drugs it can’t be stopped so everybody that’s against guns get your head out of your asses before it’s too late and you won’t be able to protect yourself or your loved ones they’re 8 billion people on the planet 8 billion!! The government let oxycodone be spread out like candy so they could arrest young people and give them a record to take their rights away and now the people that really need it for pain can’t hardly get it get out of the fog and start using your brains second amendment all the way if everybody was armed there wouldn’t be any violence

    • I own multiple FA and would be delighted if the registry re-opened. I know where a deactivated MP-18 is. I want to re-activate it.

  29. “The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of Men who wanted to be left Alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know, that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them, are over. The moment the Men who wanted to be left alone are forced to fight back, it is a form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be. Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these Men who wanted to be left alone, fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror. TRUE TERROR will arrive at these people’s door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy… but it will fall upon the deaf ears of the Men who just wanted to be left alone.” – Author Unkown

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