Submitted by The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN).,

The ATF seems to have made a change related to the legal building of homemade suppressors and it has the potential to turn millions of gun owners into felons overnight.

Earlier this year, we reported on a situation involving everyone’s favorite government agency, the ATF, and a company called Diversified Machine.

What happened was that the ATF raided Diversified Machine because the ATF determined that Diversified Machine was manufacturing what the ATF felt constituted a suppressor and selling them to individuals. ATF also felt obligated to seize their website. 

Here’s the problem, though, Diversified Machine doesn’t sell suppressors. They sell items known as “Solvent Traps.”  

Solvent Traps are devices that can be used when cleaning firearms to catch the cleaning solution if poured down the barrel. The Solvent Trap helps prevent mess, and if in the field can help prevent harmful chemicals from being dumped into the environment. 

The ATF felt that because Diversified Machine’s solvent trap had a dimpled end to it, it could be more easily drilled out and turned into a suppressor. Therefore, the ATF considered it to be a suppressor. Most solvent traps are not sold with dimpled ends.

With proper machining and tools, Solvent Traps can be manufactured into suppressors. That does not mean that they by themselves aresuppressors. Communities have popped up online, namely on Facebook and Reddit, dedicated to a process called “form 1 suppressor building” these communities of individuals build their own suppressors legally by filing a Form 1 with the ATF declaring their intent to do so and submitting themselves to the process established for items regulated by the National Firearms Act.

Before the ATF raided Diversified Machine, there was no guidance from the ATF on solvent traps; they were completely legal to own. Regardless, in Jan. 2022, the ATF sent out a letter to many of those who had purchased these solvent traps accusing them of attempting to acquire suppressor parts.

Now it’s being reported by the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition or FRAC that the ATF is mass denying those who want to build a homemade suppressor giving them this message:

Here’s the important takeaway: “The part from which you intend to make a silencer already meets the NFA’s definition of a silencer. The part was not registered nor transferred in compliance with the NFA.” This is followed by: “NFA Division notes that it is unlawful for you to possess a silencer made or transferred in violation of the NFA.”

This is a shocking admission and might seem like an error for many. But if you look across the many forums on the internet, you’ll see hundreds of people reporting the same thing. Some of those people do not even have solvent traps!

Take a look at what people are saying across the internet:

There have been rumors that the ATF is planning to announce new rules related to solvent traps and suppressor home builds. Including proposing a rule change to make the hollow tube itself a silencer. This change would completely outlaw solvent traps and put companies selling them out of business.

But the consequences of that are far more reaching.

Suppose the suppressor applications are being denied because the ATF considers the metal tubing of the solvent trap to be a suppressor. What is stopping them from considering any piece of metal tubing to be a suppressor? It wouldn’t be out of the question. In 2020 a Youtuber going by the name TruckMaster was visited by Homeland Security for buying diesel fuel filters.  

Read the rest at the link below –

Submitted by The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN).,