Is it legal..

[Ducati748r]

To posses a short barreled upper receiver for a colt sporter? As I understood you can have one but it cannot be attached to the lower receiver.

[LongBch_SigP226]

First thing first, I hope your Colt is registered with CA DoJ. State of CA doesn't
allow possession of SBR without special permit. Federal laws allow possession of SBR but you have to pay special tax for it.

Option 1 - My advice is get rid of it to out of state. People say it's legal to own. But if your house gets raided and LEOs (ATF, CA DoJ, Police, Sheriff, etc.) find your lower and upper receiver you might be charged with owning illegal weapon.

Option 2 - You can purchase muzzle brake or flash suppressor that will extend the barrel to meet 16" barrel minium requirement. Have it welded on just to be safe.

[Ducati748r]

Originally posted by DingChavez:
First thing first, I hope your Colt is registered with CA DoJ. State of CA doesn't
allow possession of SBR without special permit. Federal laws allow possession of SBR but you have to pay special tax for it.

Well that pretty much answers my question, the possession part that is. And yes my sporter is registered.

[bwiese]

Yes, be VERY careful of possessing both a shorter-than-16" barreled AR upper and an AR or AR lower registered as rifle.

Regardless of CA laws, BATF regards simultaneous possession of these - even at different sites! - as possession of a SBR (short bbl'd rifle). A big no-no unless you can do the NFA paperwork (which you can't in Calif.) If you have a legal AR pistol, that would be mitigating circumstance since those are allowed to have under-16" bbls, of course.

Bill Wiese
San Jose

[-hanko]

Originally posted by bwiese:
Regardless of CA laws, BATF regards simultaneous possession of these - even at different sites! - as possession of a SBR (short bbl'd rifle).
Bill Wiese
San Jose

Italics are mine...Bill, do you have a cite for this??

Thanks

-hanko

[LongBch_SigP226]

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=11th&navby=case&no=953107opa

Read #10 on this page

[-hanko]

Originally posted by Technical Ted:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by DingChavez:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=11th&navby=case&no=953107opa

Read #10 on this page

That's a great link! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

What Ted said, and thanks, Ding, for the link.

-hanko

[ca2a]

I think it is a state AND a federal issue.

At least one of them would probably prosecute you under "constructive possession."

My $0.02 worth.

Roy

[bwiese]

Originally posted by CA2A:
I think it is a state AND a federal issue.
At least one of them would probably prosecute you under "constructive possession."
My $0.02 worth. Roy

Roy's got it.

The Federal issue is constructive possession because NFA '34 is actually tax law, and
somehow constructive possession concept applies there. Or at least BATF holds that it does and you'd have to fight it in court...

CA probably only cares if the SBR were assembled.

Bill W
San Jose

[Guest]

Originally posted by bwiese:
The Federal issue is constructive possession because NFA '34 is actually tax law, and
somehow constructive possession concept applies there. Or at least BATF holds that it does and you'd have to fight it in court...

CA probably only cares if the SBR were assembled.

I'm not sure on that, in fact, I disagree. If the law covered things as such, than "constructive possession" (and intent) would be so broad that simply possessing any regular long gun stock and a fully-functional pistol would be an NFA violation as the two could be combined into an SBR with little difficulty.

I recall reading the TC case (referenced in the above FindLaw cite) a while back when this came up before and I think the original question in this post is better covered there.

U.S. vs. TC Arms

More of the same.

It's worth a look.

***

As for Owens:

On appeal, appellant argues that he was denied due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment because the statute under which he was prosecuted, 26 U.S.C.A. § 5861(d), is ambiguous. [4] <span class="ev_code_red">According to appellant, it is unclear whether § 5861(d) covers the mere possession of unassembled parts without being registered, when those parts can be assembled into either an illegal or legal weapon. In support of his contention, appellant relies upon the plurality opinion authored by Justice Souter in United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Co., 504 U.S. 505 , 112 S.Ct. 2102, 119 L.Ed.2d 308 (1992) (Rehnquist, C.J., O'Connor, J., joining in the opinion). Although Thompson/Center arose in a somewhat different context, appellant contends that it supports his argument that § 5861(d) does not unambiguously prohibit the possession without registration of the unassembled parts involved in this case.</span> We need not address this argument because the jury found that appellant Owens assembled the weapon with the seven-inch barrel, and as assembled it was clearly an unregistered rifle "having a barrel ... of less than 16 inches in length." 26 U.S.C.A. § 5845(a)(3). Thus, Owens possessed the weapon assembled with the seven-inch barrel.

this one was open and shut IMO, as he not only constructed an SBR, he did it in the presence of a federal agent.