The thing is, Ed, they will latch onto ANYTHING they find if there is nothing else.
Say a neighbor who doesn't like you tells ATF he has seen you coming and going with all sorts of what appear to be illegal weapons, or say he told DEA that you have a hydroponics lab in the basement. They could even raid your house when they meant to go to the place next door. You have a fire and the firemen come across a bunch of stuff they feel they should report. It could even be a traffic stop with both items in your trunk.
They come, they find nothing, but, oh, wait a minute! What's this? a pistol,.......and a stock!!!
Whoever the LE force involved is, will then contact ATF who will swarm all over your pistol stock combo as if it were a live thermonuclear warhead.
Why take the risk??
I am aware of one poor slob up near Tampa who was given a goose gun with a dent in the barrel. He sawed the barrel of just below the dent and was confident he still had a legal, 18" barrel. Well he attracted the interest of ATF somehow and the barrel turned out to be something ludicrous like 1/16" too short. He was prosecuted, fined and did jail time. No previous record, no reason to attract attention other than ATF becoming aware of the gun.
The point is that ATF is basically a rogue agency that can mess your life up something awful should they choose to. They have admittedly gotten much better but I sleep better at night knowing I have NO violations to be thinking about...
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