ATF Issues Cease and Desist Order to Non-Firearms Manufacturer

On Thursday, the ATF hand delivered a Cease and Desist order to KT Ordnance of Dillon, MT. They are a company that machines 60% unfinished 1911 frames and AR-15 lowers. The products requires additional machining to make them usable. For example, on the 1911 unfinished frames, you still must cut the the slide rails and the barrel seat cut as well as drilling the hammer and sear holes. I know I’m not enough of a metal worker to do this!

As you can see in the picture below, it is hunk of metal that can’t readily be made into a firearm without much additional work.

 

David Codrea in his National Gun Rights Examiner has an extensive report on this. He also has copies of the letter delivered to KT Ordnance as well as their attorney’s response to the ATF. The way the ATF is going about it is fairly strange as Codrea notes:

Here’s the thing: IF Celata is doing what the government accuses him of, since when do they give out warnings and advise people to get a license? Can you imagine the DEA finding you formulating and selling Oxycontin and responding by hand-delivering a letter telling you to stop and not resume activities until you become a legally-authorized pharmacist?

And since when does ATF do things that way? This looks like nothing so much as a clumsy attempt at entrapment–if they can get him to acknowledge in writing that what he is doing constitutes manufacturing firearms, they’ll be able to use that to obtain a warrant, do a raid and then characterize it to a jury as Celata’s “admission/confession.”

This bears watching.