According to the judge's ruling, a firearm frame needs to contain the hammer, the bolt or breechblock, and the firing mechanism in order to meet the letter of the law. An AR-15 lower only contains two of those three items, so according to the judge, cannot be a firearm as defined in the law.
By that same reasoning, a 1911 has no frame that can be considered the firearm, either, because the 1911 has no bolt or breechblock in the frame. The breechblock is part of the slide.
And striker fired pistols such as the Glock don't have hammers at all, in addition to the lack of a breechblock in the frame.
And many bolt action rifles are striker fired, so there is no hammer in the frame.
It is a stupid ruling.
The emperor has no clothes. oops. What should we expect from stupid laws that we can't get rid of?
I guess it’s stupid if you’re not on the side of the 2nd Amendment.
Yet it IS the law.
Your conclusion that it is a “stupid ruling” is wrong on its face. The ruling is absolutely correct. The stupidity is that the wrong thing is being serialized and regulated on guns of this type. The things that actually hold, lock the ammunition in place, and ignite it, are the barrel, the breech, and the firing mechanism, regardless of where they are. In the case of semiautomatic weapons, that usually means the barrel and chamber, the chamber locking mechanism, and a firing mechanism, whether a firing pin or some other means of firing the propellant, regardless of whether it is struck with a hammer, ignited with fire, or electrical spark, or other means. The human operated trigger mechanism is essentially irrelevant unless it is legally regulated between semi and full automatic firing and in fact can be located remotely from all of what makes a gun fire a projectile down range. Is those parts that should have the serial number that can be traced.
In the case of the AR-15, that would be the UPPER receiver which holds the bolt, firing mechanism, gas block and tube, barrel, etc., not the lower receiver which only holds the trigger assembly group, magazine, and recoil spring, with shoulder stock and handgrip, all of which are mere incidentals to sending a bullet down range.
Actually, the statutory language cited seems to be: “That part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel.”
An AR15 lower receiver obviously "provides housing for" the hammer, as well as those associated parts commonly referred to as the 'fire control group' (or "firing mechanism"). It can also be argued that the AR15 lower receiver "provides housing for" the 'bolt carrier group' (or "bolt or breechblock") when the BCG is at full recoil, extending through the threaded ring at the rear of the lower receiver, and into the receiver extension ('buffer tube'). The lower receiver is not "threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel," but that is not a requirement. Therefore, the judge very likely should have sided with the government in this case (which would NOT have been true, if the accused were manufacturing FALs, Gwinn Bushmasters, or any number of other firearms with upper and lower receivers of different designs).
My guess is that the Federal attorneys were almost as ignorant of firearms design and operation as was the judge, or they would not have lost this case...