This time, Maxim Lott brings them up on Fox News. No new information here, it appears to be a rehash of the Korean Times article; except that Dennis Henigan brings some PSH to the discussion, and Chris Cox counters. Still no one directly involved willing to be quoted on the record.
A couple of things jump out at me based on this whole fiasco. First, The Obama administration denying Korea’s request to sell could be a PRO-gun move in that they could be saying “nope, you can’t sell them, you have to give them back.” (Could be. Not saying it is, or even that it’s likely. Bear with me). Secondly, there is no good that can come out of the administration’s official silence and buck-passing on this. It’s fired up the pro-gun side less than 90 days out from a make-or-break election for the White House; and if they do come in under the terms of the Lend-Lease (given back to the US, rather than sold directly), they have another stark choice; send them to Captain Crunch to appease the Bradies and PO the NRA, or give them to CMP (which will have the opposite result). Pick a side of the fence and stick with it, guys – straddling it just ends painfully when you slip… At any rate, this stealth gun-hating has consequences.
Seen at the Volokh Conspiracy – where Dave Kopel’s post gets a new world record by going from 0 to Godwin by the first comment. Which leads to the funniest thing I’ve seen all week on gun control “However, it is almost certain that Hitler wished that Americans didn’t have so many M1 Garands and Carbines. :)” (David Kopel)
Has anyone gotten the CMP on-record about these rifles?
(As a side note – I can’t own the Carbine – it be banned by name as an assault weapon in the state of New Jersey)
If you read through the other comments at Volokh, someone in their comment stream had discussed this with people at CMP. The big issue is that Korea appears to have bought M1s both as foreign military sales and also received them under lend-lease. They have since sold a significant number of Garands on the open market as if they were FMS. Their current sales scheme is treating the their current stock is all FMS as well. Someone in the Fed.gov has since wondered where all the lend-lease rifles (that are actually US property and not allowed to be sold like this) disappeared to.
Yeah – I saw that, but various people were contradicting each other.
Sorry about the M1 Carbine. You’re welcome to come and shoot mine anytime! :) I even have evil, high-capacity (for the M1, 15 is its standard) magazines for it. We can fit the bayonet too on the terrifying, drive-by bayonetting lug and go for the New Jersey Hatrick of Ultimate Evil.
And I also hear the CMP has run out of M1 garands. Totally. So this would be good timing to bring them in.
>And I also hear the CMP has run out of M1 garands. Totally.
Replace ‘Garand’ with ‘carbine’ and that is correct.
>Has anyone gotten the CMP on-record about these rifles?
AFAIK, the only official word from the CMP on this was a post by CMP Chief Operating Officer Orest Michaels on the CMP Forum:
“The only way any rifle or carbine from any country can find its way to the CMP is if the country returns loaned rifles back to the US Army. When that happens, the CMP “may†possibly receive some of those rifles. According to the recent articles, Korea will not be returning anything to the US Army, but will be “selling†these rifles to an importer. If, in fact, these rifles are sold to an importer, the CMP will not see even one of them. We do not have any additional information on this subject. Thanks for understanding.â€
I’ve seen your carbine before; and if we ever get together again I may take you up on that offer :)
The 15-round magazine is fine in NJ, our magazine limit is 15, not 10. (Predates the federal AWB). This doesn’t help much since everyone’s “compliant”magazines are 10-rounders due to MA and CA. I suppose I could try and find a regular mag for my G17 and get it pinned, but I suspect its just cheaper to buy a couple of 10-rounders; and legally safer.
I plan to have a post up shortly as a Cliffs Notes of NJ gun law from a non-lawyers POV (for a lawyer’s POV, see if you can find Nappen’s books).
Ian,
If you own an M1A you can get 15 round mags for it from Brownell’s.
I wonder when the NRA or anyone else is going to challenge some of NJ’s gun laws.
Well, at least NJ proves that if you throw enough stones you’ll eventually hit something, as the M1 carbine really is a “military style, semi auto ‘assault’ weapon”…
I don’t own an M1; and to be honest it’s not on my short list.
NJ hasn’t picked up a challenge yet because there aren’t any really “outstandingly” bad gun laws. Everything in NJ is “not quite as bad” as another state’s. The couple of places wheere it is are minor; the restrictions on hollow-pooints are mostly irrelevant considering the may-not-issue regime, and treating BB guns as firearms is neither totally unique nor a high-profile issue.
If the “smartgun” law is ever put into effect, look for a lawsuit out of that, but again, I don’t believe it is unique. ISTR Cali has a similar law. (Smartguns are made by Ingram, dammit!)