Tweet from @AR15COM at 14:46 1/11/21 ARFCOM Is Down. We've been booted from GoDaddy and are looking for an alternative solution. The site will return at https://www.ar15-backup.com Standby for more information https://twitter.com/ar15com/status/1348718045049610241?s=21 —— Phone calls have been made, it appears. The levers of power are turning.
GoDaddy deleted their DNS record. That may take up to 24 hours to propagate through the global DNS system. ELI5: For those who don't understand Internet TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms), DNS is the Domain Name Service. DNS resolves human-friendly names like "AR-15.com" to an IP (Internet Protocol) address so data packets get routed to the correct destination. Think of it is the "phone book" for the internet. DNS is one of many services that a modern internet site requires to operate.
Did they get set up on another hosting service already? It's been longer than 24hrs. and the ar15.com site still shows up for me. I'm assuming y'all are saying that Godaddy stopped hosting them. DNS servers themselves are usually controlled by your ISP (though you can change that). DNS servers are not likely to pick and choose what DNS records they allow. Hosting sites are another story though. Once you sign with a hosting site you get a IP and they submit that IP to the DNS servers so that the name.com (or .org, .biz, .tv, etc.) can translate to the IP address they've assigned your website.
DNS entries are often cached by local ISPs far longer than the original record requests. All DNS records contain a TTL (Time to Live) field that says how long to cache the entry. Most local ISPs ignore that and cache for far longer to reduce traffic and costs. Your computer may also have that entry cached and not bother refreshing as long as it still connects somewhere valid. They have a backup DNS provider (AR15-backup.com) that is directing traffic to the original site. Now they have to wrest control of their name back from GoDaddy.
Normally to move a domain from one registrar to another is filling out a web form and paying some fees. For this, I expect maximum obstruction. Probably going to take lawyers and time. Lots of both.
The owner of the domain name can take their business to any registrar at any time. they just have to find a new registrar to host the name. Once the new registrar has the name they just need to set the DNS pointers to their web host.