The owner of a California gun parts store has refused to hand over his list of customers to federal agents.
Dimitrios Karras owns Ares Armor in Oceanside, where people can buy various gun pieces to build their own rifle.
According to Fox 5 San Diego, it is legal to build a rifle from scratch without serial numbers if the base is manufactured to specifications outlined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
A manufacturer for Ares Armor made thousands of 80 percent receivers in plastic with indicators that show customers exactly where to drill. ATF said the receivers are illegal and demanded Mr. Karras hand over the inventory and the names of the 5,000 customers who purchased them.
He agreed to handing over the products, but not the names of his customers.
“They said either give us these 5,000 names or we are coming in and taking pretty much anything — which is a huge privacy concern and something we are not willing to do,” Mr. Karras told the station.
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“They were going to search all of our facilities and confiscate our computer and pretty much shut our business down,” he said. “The government invades our privacy on a daily basis and everyone thinks it’s ok. This is one of those situations where hopefully the governmental institutions will come in and say this is protected and no you’re not taking it from them.”
Mr. Karras has filed a temporary restraining order against the ATF, to which it has a certain amount of time to respond. The two parties will be in court for a preliminary hearing on March 20 if they fail to reach a compromise, Fox 5 reported.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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