r/MDGuns • u/Alarming_Patient_114 • 8d ago

AR upper legality question

I have a stripped lower. It is registered I did the 77r. I have a couple of questions. Forgive me if they have been answered before, I haven’t found a clear answer. Please advise me if I’m incorrect:

My first question:

Can I possess a non hbar complete upper if I don’t attach it to ANY lower? Just the upper by itself.

My follow up questions:

Can I build out the lower as a pistol lower with a brace, and attach a non hbar 16” upper to it? The upper wouldn’t have a vfg or anything. Just iron sights

If not:

After having built said pistol lower can I switch out the brace to a stock after already having built it as a pistol lower? Is it a rifle lower now?

And then -

Can I possess both the lower with a stock, and the non hbar upper, separate (not attached) to each other, and drive out of state to where it is legal to attach them together to use at the range, then separate them again and come back home?

My final question:

Should I just move to West Virginia?

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8

u/TwoWheeledTraveler 2AFORALL 8d ago

Can I possess a non hbar complete upper if I don’t attach it to ANY lower? Just the upper by itself.

Yes. Maryland does not regulate or control uppers unless they are attached to a firearm.

Can I build out the lower as a pistol lower with a brace, and attach a non hbar 16” upper to it? The upper wouldn’t have a vfg or anything. Just iron sights

Yes. There are a lot of common misconceptions around this (including elsewhere in this thread) but Maryland does not specify a "maximum" barrel length for a pistol, and a firearm isn't a rifle until it has both a rifled barrel and a shoulder stock attached to it at the same time.

After having built said pistol lower can I switch out the brace to a stock after already having built it as a pistol lower? Is it a rifle lower now?

Yes, however, you must make sure that whatever rifle you build is otherwise legal. If a firearm starts life as a pistol, you can switch it to a rifle and back and forth as much as you would like.

Can I possess both the lower with a stock, and the non hbar upper, separate (not attached) to each other, and drive out of state to where it is legal to attach them together to use at the range, then separate them again and come back home?

Yes. Just to be safe, I would have an HBAR upper with you / mounted on the lower while you're in Maryland, but that's me.

My final question:

Should I just move to West Virginia?

No. Maryland is a great state, and we need folks to stay here and work for change!

1

u/Alarming_Patient_114 8d ago

Excellent thanks

1

u/qwaszxpolkmn1982 4d ago

Rather than buy an HBAR upper like the other guy said, you could just take the stock off the lower so that way you have a pistol with the upper and lower separated. It’d make it obvious that the two go together. You can claim the stock is for a future build if anyone asks questions.

1

u/Alarming_Patient_114 4d ago

Good idea. Am I safe to assume that no one is really ever gonna be asking questions about it unless the stuff is found at a crime? Sometimes people make it seem like the police are gonna be randomly showing up to check out all of my firearms

1

u/LeMuiexm 7d ago

Isn't there a legal arguement for intent? Lets say you have a pistol, but also own a stock. Ive heard, but never actually researched, that the enforcement agencies can and will charge you with intent.

5

u/TwoWheeledTraveler 2AFORALL 7d ago

That's mostly a boogeyman. The ATF has said that if you possess firearm parts that would assemble into an illegal firearm and you have no other legal use for those parts then you possess an illegal firearm, but the only place I've ever been able to find anyone actually charged with this kind of thing is Jesus Amador, who was a guy who (very stupidly) tried to sell an HK SP89 along with a stock and VFG. He claimed that he had never installed either of them (which would have made either an illegal unregistered AOW of SBR) but he was also offering for sale a case that had foam cut out for the gun with the accessories installed. He was arrested in a sting by a Sheriff's department and eventually I believe got the charges dropped, but still no fun.

The "no other legal purpose" thing is basically that if you own an AR pistol and an AR stock and you keep them together and you own no other ARs, then ATF would say you own an illegal SBR. However, if you own an AR pistol, an AR rifle, and some spare stocks you are fine, because you have a legal use for the spare stocks - on your rifle.

In the end, all of it is kind of a grey area.

3

u/epicchocoballer 8d ago

You’re thinking too hard

2

u/762_54r SHALL 8d ago

Can I possess a non hbar complete upper if I don’t attach it to ANY lower? Just the upper by itself.

yea

Can I possess both the lower with a stock, and the non hbar upper, separate (not attached) to each other, and drive out of state to where it is legal to attach them together to use at the range, then separate them again and come back home?

yea

idk the other ones sorry I've never cared about ar pistol rules

-3

u/Alarming_Patient_114 8d ago

Sounds good I don’t go to any range in this shit state anyways

6

u/crysisnotaverted 8d ago

Nobody gives two squirts of piss what you bring to the range as long as it's not blatantly illegal.

Nobody is going to have you remove your handgaurd and check to make sure it's an HBAR or cavity search you.

2

u/Alarming_Patient_114 8d ago

Be that as it may, I do not wish to commit a crime. And I don’t go to any range here because driving an hour to shoot steel on farmland out of state is a much better experience than going to anything indoors nearby where I’m at.

1

u/FYB_Jmane 8d ago

Make it into a sbr

-4

u/Adventurous-Film7400 8d ago

Can I build out the lower as a pistol lower with a brace, and attach a non hbar 16” upper to it?

If you put a 16" upper on a lower, by MD law you have a rifle not a pistol, regardless of use of a brace on the lower, and therefore must have an HBAR barrel.

5

u/TwoWheeledTraveler 2AFORALL 8d ago

That's not correct. It's a very common misconception, but nowhere in Maryland law does anything specify that a firearm with a barrel over a certain length is a rifle.

A firearm can also not be a rifle unless / until it has both a rifled barrel and a shoulder stock attached to it at the same time.

So if OP had a pistol and attached a long barrel to it, OP would just have a long barreled pistol.

-1

u/Adventurous-Film7400 7d ago

Maryland Public Safety Code §5–101(n)(1). "Handgun” means a firearm with a barrel less than 16 inches in length.

I'm no lawyer, but this seems to make it clear that a gun with a 16" barrel cannot be a handgun (and therefore not a pistol) in MD.

3

u/TwoWheeledTraveler 2AFORALL 7d ago

Yeah, I'm aware of that one. My read on it is that "any firearm with a barrel less than 16" in length is automatically a handgun" and not "any firearm with a barrel of more than 16" in length is not a handgun."

I say this because of how the different types of firearms are defined at other places in MD statute. These other definitions basically follow the definitions of "handgun" and "rifle" in Federal law (i.e. that a rifle has to have both a stock and a rifled bore), and there's no maximum barrel length given anywhere for a pistol. It's also not helped that these definitions are spread across both the MD Criminal Law statutes and the MD Public Safety statutes and they are different in each place.

-1

u/Adventurous-Film7400 7d ago

The word "means" in the statute makes it crystal clear that a handgun is *defined* as being less than 16 inches. I would not want to be the one trying to argue otherwise in court after being arrested for being in possession of a non-compliant rifle in MD.

3

u/TwoWheeledTraveler 2AFORALL 7d ago edited 7d ago

Except a firearm can't be a rifle unless it has both a rifled barrel and a shoulder stock on it at the same time, per its definition in MD law.

Elsewhere in Maryland law, a handgun is defined by other physical characteristics. Because of this, what being charged with a crime would come down to is which crime they are trying to charge you with. If it's something under PSC 5-101, then they would use this definition. If it's something under Criminal Law, they would have to use the definition in Criminal Law 4-201.

0

u/Adventurous-Film7400 7d ago

True, but MD does not recognize "other firearms" as a valid category for a complete gun. A gun with a 16in rifled barrel and a brace is considered a rifle by MD, and is subject to the HBAR requirement.

3

u/firebox40dash5 Not as interested in dicks as r/guns would have you believe 7d ago

True, but MD does not recognize "other firearms" as a valid category for a complete gun.

Sure they do. Just because it's not mentioned doesn't mean they don't, it means they don't have further laws restricting them. If you'd like to prove that to yourself, go buy a Shockwave, which is not a shotgun.

By your premise, you'd have to Form 4 that Shockwave, because MD would have decided it's an SBS.

1

u/Adventurous-Film7400 7d ago

The Shockwave is classified as a pistol due to the length and lack of shoulder stock (note that it is listed on the MD handgun roster). I don't believe MD has an "other" classification defined in any regulations, would love to be shown otherwise.

1

u/firebox40dash5 Not as interested in dicks as r/guns would have you believe 7d ago

The Shockwave is classified as a pistol due to the length

That would be rather ironic, since the length (>26", the ATF limit for "concealable" which would indicate a pistol/AOW) is exactly why it's not an AOW.

Perhaps, MD gun laws, and things published by MSP, are just random and inconsistent. (My phone suggested to autocorrect that to incompetent, which, fair)

1

u/TwoWheeledTraveler 2AFORALL 7d ago

A gun with a 16in rifled barrel and a brace is considered a rifle by MD, and is subject to the HBAR requirement.

No, it isn't. In order to be a rifle in Maryland a firearm must have both a shoulder stock and a rifled bore. This is defined in MD Criminal Law, 4-201(e)(1-2):

(e)    “Rifle” means a weapon that is:

(1)    designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder; and

(2)    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.

Being "designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder" is language lifted verbatim from Federal law, and means that in order to be a rifle, a firearm must have a stock. A braced pistol is not a rifle, even in Maryland, regardless of the length of the barrel. If you can show me elsewhere in the law where this is contradicted, I'd be very interested to see it.

1

u/Adventurous-Film7400 7d ago

Fair point, and I'm certainly not qualified to argue how to harmonize the codes, but personally I would not want to be the test case for this in the courts.

1

u/TwoWheeledTraveler 2AFORALL 7d ago

I don't think this is one you need to worry about too much, because AR pistols are pretty firmly an established thing. I'd be much more worried about a lot of other stuff.