Americans Are Panic-Buying 80% Lowers over Gun Control Fears

With Coronavirus cases soaring, civil unrest showing no signs of abating, and gun stores all but presenting emptied shelves, Americans are turning to the amateur gunsmithing market – notably, the AR-15’s 80% lower – for alternatives. If you’re unfamiliar, 80% lowers (officially called receiver blanks by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) allow the end-user to fabricate a working firearm receiver that’s compatible with retail firearm parts. The most popular kind allows anyone to build an AR-15 at home, while popular handgun frame blanks have been made for finishing and assembly, too.

These units are completely legal under federal law and have seen a meteoric rise in popularity in recent years. But AmmoLand reports that, in a recent conference call with ATF Acting Director Regina Lombardo and other heads, it was made quite clear the Biden administration is preparing to ban 80% lower receivers and pistol braces. Biden’s transition team notified the ATF to “prepare top priorities” for the coming year’s legislative assemblies. Receiver blanks and gun-making kits have long been targeted by the liberal media and anti-gun advocates like Bloomberg. AmmoLand says, “Democrats claim that these guns are “ghost guns” only possessed by criminals. The use of firearms made from 80% lower receivers by criminals is exceedingly rare. Nine out of ten firearms used in a crime are stolen.”

The data matters not, though, because the ATF has been for years vying to ban 80% lower receivers and pistol braces found in AR pistol kits. Current federal firearm regulations – to include precarious legal cases challenging the ATF’s own definition of what constitutes a firearm – have prevented gun parts from being incorrectly classified as firearms. Yet Biden’s campaign directly spelled out their intention to shut down the online firearm parts and ammunition market through Congress.

And Americans are beginning to catch on: Since October, the monthly online search volume for the term “80% lower” has skyrocketed nearly 25%. Since the beginning of 2020, searches have doubled for gun blanks and other gun-making components. Retailers across the country are finding it hard to stock parts from manufacturers, who are struggling to keep up with the surge in demand from two fronts: Retail firearm stores and online dealers, and parts distributors and other retailers catering to the DIY and build markets. Internet queries on how to build a suppressor and how to make 3D-printed firearms have ballooned, too, as more Americans dive into the world of amateur gun-building.

Black Friday provided an honest indicator of the industry: While an 8% decline in background checks was reported by the FBI on the largest shopping day of the year, it still yielded the year’s fourth-highest single day of checks: 186,645. Checks are not a 1:1 measure of gun sales, because more than one firearm can be purchased with a single inquiry. That means the number of firearms sold is much likely higher than the reported figure, with sales estimated to have passed 200,000. As 2020 closes, the FBI has posted about 35.7 million checks this year alone. Last year’s figure was just shy of 28.3 million.

Fueled by unprecedented sales and Coronavirus’s myriad issues, the Second Amendment’s battle lines are being drawn for the upcoming legislative sessions under a new administration. Gun rights groups like Gun Owners of America, the NRA, and the Second Amendment Foundation have received record donations in 2020. The appointment of ultra-Conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett presents the Biden camp with a question they’ve half-heartedly dodged for months: Whether the incoming President will stack the highest court with liberal Justices. If he does, the battle for the Second Amendment is likely to escalate beyond anything this nation has seen in decades past.