We’ve discussed pretty thoroughly the letter from Congressman Engel here, here, and here. It turns out it’s not just so called “assault weapons” that we need to worry about, it’s also pistols. I was talking to SayUncle the other night, and he brought up this old post of his which outlines the ATF point system for pistols. The interesting thing about this, is if this is the system ATF uses, it’s just an ATF policy. The regulation actually says on the importation Form 6, the importer must include:
(F) If a firearm barrel for a handgun, an explanation why the handgun is generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes.
This, folks, means the Glock you’re carrying on your hip could be banned just by a mere policy change, which could be done by executive order with no rulemaking process at all. ATF can just change it’s policy to exclude Glocks, because they aren’t suitable for sporting purposes.
Would this not require changing the import point system? I am under the impression that if a product has enough points is is considered as being used for a sporting purpose?
Yes, but that seems to be an ATF policy, and not a regulation. Policy can just be changed. No rulemaking necessary.
About 20 years ago, when George Bush 41 signed an executive order which banned the importation of certain milsurp rifles, he also made some sort of patently false statement about how these rifles could easily be converted into full-automatics just by filing away at their internal parts. In reality of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
After all these years, have any Second Amendment activists taken any actions to show that the rationale Bush 41 used for his executive order was based upon a complete fabrication?
Yes. The problem is that the statutory language in the Gun Control Act gives the executive branch very broad authority to ban importation under the sporting purposes clause.
Didn’t the SC just rule that self defense was what the second amendment was all about? Wasn’t there no language in the Heller ruling about “sporting purposes”.
I think it’s high time this whole “sporting purposes” farce gets challenged in some sort of SCOTUS case. There is nothing in the Second Amendment which justifies it.
don’t scare the white people!
Umm, doesn’t Glock also build pistols here in the US? Or am I thinking of someone else…?