A while back, I picked up an AR-15 at a pawnshop. I didn’t get a chance to shoot it for a while, and when I did, it wouldn’t chamber a round. Apparently, the previous owner had used a couple of incompatible parts in the upper receiver. As it had been a while, I didn’t take it back to the pawnshop. Instead, I decided to buy a new upper. That way, the AR-15 was ready to roll, and I could swap out the incompatible part later and use that upper on another rifle.

However, it seems Sen. Chuck Schumer has a problem with that approach.

Now, Sen. Chuck Schumer wants the federal government to step in and prevent ghost guns from getting into the hands of criminals.

…

Because each piece doesn’t have a serial number, the guns aren’t traceable, and it gives felons access to weapons they can get legally.

Schumer wants the Justice Department to change the 1968 definition of a firearm to include the individual pieces, which would make them harder to sell.

Of course, this is prefaced with how this is a “growing problem” for police without the first statistic or point of comparison to let us determine for ourselves whether it’s really a problem or not.

Regardless, Schumer’s call is nothing more than a political power grab.

The truth is, law-abiding citizens can’t just build firearms but also swap out parts for various firearms without going to a gunsmith to do the work. They can modify their firearms as they see fit and without having to get government permission to complete the transaction.

Schumer and people like him can’t tolerate that.

As a result, they argue that it’s a “growing problem” and desperately needs to be addressed, but they have yet to provide any real evidence that it’s a problem at all, much less a growing problem. Are criminals getting guns made this way? Yes, from time to time, they are. Are criminals going to be suddenly disarmed if they can’t get guns this way? Hardly.

But the law-abiding gun owner looking to swap out an upper receiver on his AR-15 would be the one feeling this. Maybe they want a 224 Valkyrie upper to go along with their AR-15 lower, something that requires nothing more than a quick swap. They’ll be left having to treat this like a whole new gun purchase.

For non-gun people, this doesn’t look like much, but let me compare it to another popular hobby: Brewing.

Brewing beer at home is legal, but you can’t sell it, much like building a firearm at home.

Now, what Schumer is saying is that since some people are selling their homebrew, even though it’s not particularly common, he wants to make everyone buy materials from a licensed liquor store rather the parts shipped to their home.

That’s what Schumer is talking about, only with guns.

The dumbest part of this? It would only be a matter of time before people started manufacturing those parts for themselves like they do lower receivers. This would make life more difficult for people and wouldn’t stop a damn thing.