Some enterprising individual has listed a 80% AR-15 lower receivers through Jeff Bezos honeypot Amazon.com, a company that absolutely prohibits firearms and related listings to be posted through its site. An object’s true purpose is up to the person using it, though, and PC Industrial Supply looks to be taking that to the bank:

Amazon’s rules for prohibited listings are clear that no “assault weapon” parts or components may be sold through the site:

Examples of prohibited listings

• Airsoft guns
• Ammunition, such as:
  • Black powder
  • Blanks
  • Bullets
  • Bullet tips
  • Gun powder
  • Primers
  • Shotgun Shells
• Assault weapon parts or accessories or products marketed as assault weapon parts or accessories, including reference to various assault weapon models

• Body armor and vests designed for the insertion of body armor or body armor plates
• Certain martial arts items, such as:
  • Brass, plastic, or metal knuckles
  • Leaded cane/staff/crutch/stick
  • Nunchaku (also known as num chucks)
  • Sandclubs, sandbags, or slungshots (also known as saps or blackjacks)
  • Zoobox (also known as clackers or kung fu sticks)
  • Throwing stars (also known as surikens)
  • Tonfas
  • Kunsari-fundo (also known as manrikis)

• Clubs and blunt force striking instruments, such as:
  • Billy clubs
  • Escrima sticks
  • Bo staffs and jo staffs
  • Truncheons, nightsticks, and batons
  • Sjamboks
  • Weighted clubs
• Explosives, such as:
  • Fireworks
  • Flares, flare launchers, flare guns, flare gun receivers
  • Grenades, such as:
    • Grenade launchers
    • Military practice grenades
    • Mines
    • Rifle grenades
    • Smoke grenades
  • Projectile and concussive products that employ gunpowder or explosives
• Firearms, such as:
  • Antique and collectible guns
  • Assault weapons
  • Automatic guns
  • Muzzleloaders and black powder guns
  • Rifles, shotguns, and pistols
  • Sport and hunting guns
  • Starter guns
  • Zip guns
• Gun parts and accessories, even when designed or marketed for use with paintball or airsoft guns, such as:
  • Assault weapon conversion kits
  • Assault weapon grips, forend grips, front grips, and foregrips,
  • Assault weapon and AR-specific tools, including vise blocks and bullet button tools
  • Barrels, barrel shrouds, heat guards, hand guards, and vent cooling slots
  • Battery assist levers
  • Camouflaging gun containers
  • Charging handles, latches, and assemblies
  • Chokes and choke tubes
  • Converters that can give a firearm automatic capability
  • Detachable carry handles and assault rifle carry handles
  • Ejection port, ejection port covers, and dust covers
  • Frames
  • Gas blocks, gas tubes, and gas pistons
  • Certain grips and grip accessories, such as:
    • Pistol grips designed for attachment to an assault weapon or shotgun
    • Folding, vertical, and tactical grips
    • Angled foregrips and ambidextrous foregrips
    • Grip pods, funnels, and extensions
  • Kits that can be used to create gun magazines
  • Magazines and related items, such as:
    • Magazine components or extensions
    • Magazine cinches, couplers, connectors, dual mag holders, and dual mag clamps
  • Multi-burst trigger activators
  • Multi-rail systems, including quad rails and rail covers, free-floating and drop-in handguards
  • Muzzle tamers
  • Recoil compensators
  • Receivers, including lower and upper receivers
  • Receiver extensions and pins
  • Selector levers, detents, and switches
  • Silencers
  • Single point, 3-point, tactical, and quick detach slings
  • Sling plates and end plates
  • Slide fire stock and weapons kits
  • Solvent trap oil filter adapters
  • Any non-fixed stock, including telescoping, folding or collapsible stocks
  • Suppressors
  • Takedown pins, pivot pins, cam pins, and roll pins
  • Threaded barrel adapters
  • All internal/moving gun parts, such as:
    • Bolt catch releases, assemblies, actuators, and battery assist levers
    • Bolt carriers, bolt pins, and buffer pins
    • Buffer tubes and related parts and extension tubes
    • Firing pins, springs, and stops
    • Trigger, trigger assemblies, or fire control groups
    • Upgrade parts and replacement parts
    • Anti-walk pins
• Knives, other than the above permitted knives, such as:
  • Automatic knives
  • Balisong knives
  • Claws, such as:
    • Karambit knives
  • Concealed swords, including:
    • Cane-swords
    • Swordsticks
  • Knives disguised to look like harmless items, such as:
    • Air gauge knives
    • Belt buckle knives
    • Lipstick case knives
    • Writing pen knives
  • Knuckle knives, including:
    • Fixed or folding blade knives with split knuckle duster handles
  • Metal throwing stars, including:
    • Ninja stars
    • Throwing cards
    • Batman symbols
    • Cyclone knives
  • Push daggers, including:
    • Punch daggers
    • Punch knives
    • Push dirks
    • T-handled knives
  • Shobi-zue
  • “Slasher” knives or other devices used in cockfighting
  • Stiletto knives
  • Switchblade knives, such as:
    • Butterfly knives
    • Gravity-assisted knives
    • Spring-loaded knives
• Parts or combination of parts designed or intended to convert a firearm into an assault weapon

• Replica firearms of originals which were manufactured after 1898.
• Stun guns and Tasers

• Toy guns that substantially duplicate or can reasonably be perceived to be an actual gun. See the Additional Resources section below for examples of toy gun laws.

• Weapons designed to be concealed
• Weapons or other items intended solely for law enforcement or military use

[Shown above: Absolutely haram]

It may seem as though selling lower receivers via Amazon is dishonest, but considering that the above list contains such innocuous items as “springs”, “assemblies”, and “bullet button tools” (i.e., anything long and skinny enough to reach a bullet button), not to mention firearms components that so far as I know don’t actually exist (multi-burst trigger activators?), and that an 80% AR-15 receiver is, under the eyes of the law, just an inert piece of metal, it doesn’t seem to me like PC Industrial Supply is really doing anything out of the realm of reason. Frankly, Amazon’s rules are so impossibly broad that good-faith compliance seems to me to be virtually impossible for many vendors, and so if this seller wants to sell things that are legally not firearms as “art pieces”, well then, I guess he can. Until Jeff Bezos tells him to stop, that is.

Finally, Amazon customer questions were pretty unsurprising: