It is legal for you to build your own firearm from scratch (assuming you live in a civilized region that recognizes your basic human rights). Where things get tricky is if you try to *sell* your home-made firearm. If you don’t have proper Federal licensing… you can get in a *lot* of trouble.

But there seems to be a loophole: government “buy back” events. They will buy any piece of junk gun for a relative pittance, no questions asked. They will then (probably) check the firearm to see if it was used in a crime, and if not, they will then (probably) destroy that firearm, no matter how rare, valuable or historically significant it is (unless, gasp, someone in the chain recognizes its value and absconds with it).

“Buy backs” are of course dubious for any of a number of reasons. The guns they get are typically either junk that couldn’t function to be used in a  crime, or grand-dad’s old war relic that hasn’t seen the light of day in years and isn’t likely to be used in a crime either. And of course there’s the existential issue with buy-backs: how do you buy back something you didn’t own in the first place?

Here’s the fun part: you can make a functional crappy zip gun or slam-fire shotgun for a few bucks in scrap and labor. And these buy-back morons will buy them for substantially more than they cost you to make. And it’s all legal, apparently. Gentlemen, behold – the 1776 Boomstick, the profit-making venture of the future:

Florida Man Sells Homemade ‘1776 Boom Sticks’ At Gun Buyback, City Runs Out Of Cash In 30 Minutes

The gentleman selling the “Boom Stick 1776” shotguns told me he called the City rep before the event, and asked if they would purchase a single-shot shotgun – because the flier said they were buying semi-automatic firearms. Allegedly, he was told they would pay $125 for single-shot shotguns. So he attended the event.

At the checkpoint, he did have to demonstrate that they were functional (they were), and he was sent to the payment line, guns in hand.

Maybe ten bucks worth of junk, twenty bucks worth of labor, for $375 in sales. SPECTACULAR.

Would it be illegal or unethical to petition your local city or county to hold a buyback, while you have prepared a stock of slamfire shotguns for the specific purpose of selling at ten times their cost? I dunno, maybe… but it would be *appropriate,* and got-dam hilarious if you pulled it off.

Side note: take a look on that cops face. It is the weary look of a man who knows that he’s getting played, and knows that there’s nothing he can do about it, and who knows that there are *far* better things for him to be doing with his time.