 Once in the U.S., the FALs were "de-militarized" (upper receiver destroyed) to eliminate the rifles' character as an automatic rifle, as stipulated by the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA 68 currently prohibits the importation of foreign-made full-automatic rifles prior to the enactment of the Gun Control Act; semiautomatic versions of the same firearm were legal to import until the Semiautomatic Assault Rifle Ban of 1989).Thousands of the resulting "parts kits" were sold at generally low prices ($90 – $250) to hobbyists.The hobbyists rebuilt the parts kits to legal and functional semi-automatic rifles on new semi-automatic upper receivers.