DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS WASHINGTON, DC 20226 MAR 3 1999 903050:EMO 3311 Dear : This is in reply to your letter dated January 30, 1999, in which you ask if the frame or receiver for a semiautomatic assault rifle is a semiautomatic assault rifle. Title 18 U.S.C., section 921(a)(7) defines the term rifle as a weapon designed, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of the explosive in a fixed metallic cartridge to fire only a single projectile through a rifled bore for each single pull of the trigger. Section 921(a)(30)(B) defines the term semiautomatic assault rifle as a semiautomatic rifle that has the capability to accept a detachable magazine and that has at least 2 specified features. The frame or receiver from a semiautomatic assault rifle does not meet the definition of a rifle. Therefore, the frame or receiver from a semiautomatic assault rifle, in and of itself, is not a semiautomatic assault rifle. You also asked about such a receiver marked as being for law enforcement or government use only. ATF has previously held that a dealer obtaining semiautomatic assault weapons by falsely representing that the weapons are for resale to law enforcement, but who actually intends to reconfigure the weapons so that they no longer meet the definition of semiautomatic assault weapon, would possess the weapons in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 922(v). A dealer who made a false statement concerning disposition of the weapon(s) in a letter or other document may also have violated 18 U.S.C. section 1001, and if the document was sent through the mail may have violated 18 U.S.C. section 1342. The Federal firearms license of such dealers would also be subject to revocations. We trust that the foregoing has been responsive to your inquiry. If we may be of any further assistance, please contact us. Sincerely yours, [signed] Edward M. Owen, Jr. Chief, Firearms Technology Branch