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Gunsmiths in danger

Michael Bane is reporting a major danger to gunsmiths.

Essentially -- for GCA purposes, "manufacturing" a gun means making the receiver.

But there's also an 11% excise tax on manufacturing a firearms -- payable to Pittman-Robertson funds, which are used to support wildlife management. For purposes of this statute, what is "manufacturing"? Historically, it's been viewed as more than making the receiver, something along the lines of "putting the gun together." Last year Congress exempted makers of fewer than fifty firearms a year (I'm none too comfortable with that, simply because the exemption largely covers expensive custom guns, whose buyers can better afford the tax than most of us).

ATFE, Bane reports, is now construing it as including making any substantial changes to a firearm, and is hitting up gunsmiths for changing hammers and rebarreling firearms, and demanding back taxes and penalties.

(Via Resistance is Futile.