FactCheck point about “assault weapons” in “NRA Targets Obama”

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/nra_targets_obama.html

FactCheck ignores the fact that H.R. 1022 cosponsored by 67 Democratic congresspersons does expand the original AWB that Biden says he wrote.

That is a major issue to many of the 80 million gun-owners who will vote on 4 November.

I have found FactCheck to be pretty honest on most issues, I hope they take a look at HR1022 and S2237 then amend their article.

too late because Biden's bill S.2237 already lists as exclusions as AW some of the semiautomatic firearms about which we gun-owners are concerned, e.g.
`Remington Model 1100 Shotgun
`Remington 11-87 Premier Shotgun
`Remington 11-87 Sporting Clays
`Remington 11-87 Premier Skeet
`Remington 11-87 Premier Trap
`Remington 11-87 Special Purpose Magnum
`Remington 11-87 SPS-T Camo Auto Shotgun
`Remington 11-87 Special Purpose Deer Gun
`Remington 11-87 SPS-BG-Camo Deer/Turkey Shotgun
`Remington 11-87 SPS-Deer Shotgun
`Remington 11-87 Special Purpose Synthetic Camo

That's a start and Biden as sponsor of S.2237 can immediately revise and add to the list or pledge to revise it to include the semiautomatic firearms about which gun-owners are concerned.

I hope they can find someone in Obama's campaign staff to work this issue because apparently the DLC has been driving the platform with its “reinstating the assault weapons ban” that is suspiciously similar to the flawed DLC study Winning the Gun Vote, October 2003; 70% of gun-owners say “I agree with President Bush that we need to renew the ban on assault weapons.”

IMO the way things are shaping up in PA and OH, the AWB issue could make the difference in winning or losing their 41 electoral votes and it could be a contributing factor in FL and MI with their 44 electoral votes.

Please, somebody with access to Obama's ear shout real loud:
"AWB matters to 80 million gun-owners."

"AWB matters to 80 million gun-owners."

... there is just not the slightest iota of a shred of evidence that this statement is true.

No matter how big and red you make it, jody.

"too late because Biden's bill S.2237 already lists as exclusions as AW some of the semiautomatic firearms about which we gun-owners are concerned, e.g.
`Remington Model 1100 Shotgun
`Remington 11-87 Premier Shotgun
`Remington 11-87 Sporting Clays
`Remington 11-87 Premier Skeet
`Remington 11-87 Premier Trap
`Remington 11-87 Special Purpose Magnum
`Remington 11-87 SPS-T Camo Auto Shotgun
`Remington 11-87 Special Purpose Deer Gun
`Remington 11-87 SPS-BG-Camo Deer/Turkey Shotgun
`Remington 11-87 SPS-Deer Shotgun
`Remington 11-87 Special Purpose Synthetic Camo"


Wouldn't it have been far easier to just list it like this-
Remington Model 1100 Shotgun
Remington 11-87 Shotgun

Or even better, like this-
Self-loading shotguns

Biden says he wrote the original AWB so he clearly doesn’t know the difference between a “Browning BT-99 Plus Micro” and a “Remington Model 1100 Classic Trap".

generally considered firearms under Federal law, yet the `Model 1885 High Wall Rifle, and the `Sharps 1874 Old Reliable are listed. Makes you wonder if Delaware had a problem with folks using buffalo guns to hold up liquor stores.

Importers/wholesalers changed the several points that the government said were the "characteristics" of "assault weapons" - a detatchable magazine, a pistol grip, a bayonet lug, etc. There was allowance made for deveral of these features to be allowed if others were missing - remove the bayonet lug, keep the removable magazine for example.

These trade offs allowed some odd combinations of arms to be imported - my FAL, for example , is made of imported parts (Austrailan or CANADIAN!!!) of British L1A1 military rifles, combined with a US made barrel, muzzle brake and plastic stock. This rifle was made as a semi auto from the beginning, so parts are legal to import. Assembeled in the US, and marked "sporter", there were many thousands sold.
If it had no provision to mount a bayonet and had enough correct parts, it was no longer evil.

FWIW, there really is no such thing as an "assault weapon", but , as a police offical in a suburban Philadelphia town recently stated, "we will include anything we want" in that definition. It's evil because we say it is and you can't have it.

mark

Back in 1993,the Steetsweeper and the USAS-12 shotguns couldn't be imported for civilians and were being manufactured in the USA. Lloyd Bentsen jumped in and stopped all that by simply declaring them Destructive Devices. It took no hearings; no Notice of Proposed Rule Making in the Federal Register; no public comment period; just his simple declaration.

Project Forward Trace obtained manufacturer's records, FFL distributor's names and subsequent owner's I.D.s to force registration or confiscation. At one point, they even dropped the CLEO sign-off requirement to go with the $200 TAX exemption during the amnesty that has long ago expired.

ANY 12 gauge shotgun has the potential to be reclassified as a Destructive Device because it has a bore diameter of 1/2" or more and could be declared at some point to be NON-SPORTING! Back then it was the Secretary of the Treasury who could do that since the ATF was under Treasury. Now the power to declare a shotgun a Destructive Device and subject to the NFA rests with the Attorney General and any 12 gauge shotgun COULD become fair game on a whim!

H.R. 1022 goes further by making the catch-all PRESUMPTION that any weapon ever procured by the military or police is by DEFINITION an assault weapon. Unlike S. 2237 it does not recycle the Feinstein Appendix A of 600 guns that are "not assault" weapons. While the list does include a few semi-auto firearms, most are lever action, pump and bolt action repeaters with a few single-shots and double guns mixed in for good measure. Many of the guns listed have been out of production for half a century or more.

One of S. 2237's defects is that it is unclear as to the status of all "LEO or export only" weapons and magazines that were so marked during the duration of the ban. With the ban now expired possession of those items is no longer unlawful. Since S2237 requires the same markings to be placed on proscribed weapons and magazines will the old ones again be come illegal to possess?

One of the other shortcomings of the original ban was in the ATF's position that reliance on the lack of required "LEO only" or "Export only" markings to determine pre-ban status wasn't sufficient. If, after the effective date of the ban, an unscrupulous person assembled from "pre-ban parts" a weapon in the "pre-ban" configuration, and misrepresented it to a good faith buyer that, even completely ignorant of when the weapon was assembled, the buyer was, regardless, in unlawful possession of a banned firearm, and thus subject to prosecution.

It was used to prevent the drafting of people into the armed forces; to wit, if the draftee were in a group "listed" by the Attorney General of the U.S., he would not be drafted (a boon to many!). Now, many gun-controllers want to give the Attorney General (Right wing GOPer or "liberal" Democrat) the same authority to define terms: if the gun is on that list, it is banned. In both cases, the 5th Amendment's due-process clause is violated. The same can be said of the "No fly, no buy" legislation: on the "no fly" list? You are hereby on the "no buy" list when it comes to guns.

Why do "liberal" Democrats rely time and again on this unconstitutional route? Seems like the 5th ain't got no friends anywhere on the spectrum.

grossly ignorant of such facts.

Factcheck:
"Partly true: The NRA refers here to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which was put in place during former President Bill Clinton's administration. Title XI of the legislation spoke directly to regulations on assault weapons. The law outlawed the semi-automatic versions of 19 kinds of military-style assault weapons, but it expired in 2004. The "assault weapon ban" was always a misnomer, however. Fully automatic assault weapons – the sort carried on battlefields – had always been illegal to own without a very hard-to-obtain federal license, under legislation going back to the days of Al Capone. They remain so today."

Part in Bold... false.

It does take a very in depth background check along with a $200 tax stamp per transfer of the weapon as well as placing you on a fairly short list of NFA item owners that the ATF can come check up on any time they like.

A Corporation or Trust Fund can apply for NFA item ownership - thereby the person in charge of that entity controls the item. This route is often taken when local sheriffs and chiefs will not sign the Form 4 for 'local permission'. When this route is taken there is no "background check - only a check to verify the organization or entity does in fact exist. Corporations and Trusts do not have "fingerprints" or "photos" and odds are (if created for the sole purpose of NFA item ownership) the entity has no history to check upon. Furthermore, the ATF only has the right come check on the legal ownership tax documents. They cannot come and demand to inspect the actual weapons unless a specific complaint is filed about your weapons. In all my time and my research of NFA stuff, I have never heard of this so called "knock in the middle of the night" from the ATF actually happening - and I was paranoid about that instance happening.

Ask me how I know. Better yet, lets share a trip to the range. ;)

Also, it's still not a "license" so Factcheck is wrong which was the point of my original post.

PS: The list isn't "short"... there's about a 3 month backlog to fill all the NFA transfer requests.

Yippie... :-(


Thanks for the info.

Blackwater got raided by the ATFE a while back over some questionable items in their armory. They were using a local law enforcement agency as a straw buyer or some such nonsense. It seems that the '86 ban on new production is a problem for them, too. The day Federal law gets changed to allow private corporations to qualify as Law Enforcement Agencies is the day we'd better call for Tin Foil Hats all across this great nation to unite.

They also seem to have a few issues with export rules regarding weapons heading for war zones. Since the Iraqis have no love for them I'm betting they can't get a straw buyer from the Iraqi Government.

I believe private contractors working for the Department of Energy on certain projects are exempt from the 1986 ban on new production. I know a guy who had one of those gigs and they were pretty much above the law as long as they were transporting a load. The term was "National Security Zone" or some such thing. Don't mess with a long haul trucker with a load of plutonium.

In all of our best interests, they should all have a short barreled Saiga-12 with drums of alternating slugs and 00 buck.

DOE contractors do not play games. The last time I heard they were big HK and Colt customers. I think the only time I ever heard of them using a shotgun was in areas where they were concerned with over-penetration and damage to steam and water lines.

They're an interesting bunch. I figure they account for about ninety percent of the "sightings" that fuel the conspiracy nuts. It's probably one of the best gigs in the private sector for someone in that line of work and it attracts the cream of the crop.

I have a USP and love it, and I really like pretty much their entire line-up, but like Colt, they won't just sell their ordinary rifles in semi-only for civilians, only LE and military gets to have them.


I was thinking the Saiga-12 mostly for in-truck use, not much could dissuade a hijacking quite like a load of 00 at contact distance.

Colt rifles are available to citizens. I despise the term "civilian". You can't get a full-auto M4 thanks to the the 1986 ban but a 6920 is available in the free states. The 6920 is the rifle of choice for most Law Enforcement these days. If a cop has to buy his own weapons, a fairly common thing, he cannot get the M4 and has to get a 6920 like everyone else.

If you insist on the 14.5 inch barrel, then that's NFA but it's also available. Most NFA rifles you see are Short Barreled Rifles. Personally, if I were going to pay the extra tax for a shorter barrel I'd go 11.5. The usual route is to buy a lower and register it as a SBR and then get a short upper from some of the very good specialty suppliers. It's all more hassle than it's worth for a rifle you hope to never use.

HK? I think their hangup is over the hassles with import requirements. They might also have contractual issues with Colt but I'm not sure. Same goes for FN. HK is into making money and they prefer to sell to governments. Since they're German I'm sure their corporate climate is just geared that way.

I too hate using "civilians" when talking about non-LEOs vs LEOs, I just slipped that time, and missed the editing period :banghead:


I was mostly talking about things like the USC/SL8 being designed to permanently disallow use of regular UMP/G36 magazines, instead of just selling separate ten-rounders so that after the 1994-2004 sillyness people could take advantage of things being normal again.

One thing I don't think I will ever understand are the 11.5"/5.5" permanent flash hider uppers, they just don't make sense to me unless the buyer is REALLY concerned about muzzle flash at night. Such a wasteful amount of metal hanging off the end of your rifle. That's why mine is an ordinary 16".

as they are subject to the civil law and not the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In THIS country, the police are not a branch of the military.

For non-government buyers? They seem to be very good to me about at least trying to get some adaptation of their rifles and carbines onto the regular market for us, despite being the manufacturer of 70% of our military small arms. I own one of their pistols, and like it quite a bit. I really want an FS-2000 though, seems like such an interesting and tightly designed package. A great thing to get while it is still around.

"Ask me how I know. Better yet, lets share a trip to the range. "



I wish I knew more about NFA items... Or that I could afford to know more about NFA items anyway...

Feel free to join me tomorrow morning.
I'll either be going to the range in Garrettsville OH (outdoor) or the one in Cuyahoga Falls OH (indoor) depending on weather. My father and I are brushing up on our pistol shooting to qualify for CCW permits next week. If Obama is going to win, we're getting what we can while we still can - Ya never know. I put an AR-10 on order last week and might pick up all sorts of dated hicap mags for a variety of firearms.
Then on the way back home I'm stopping by an early voting station to register/vote.

The outdoor range does not allow F/A (or any NFA items infact) but they never seem to notice when I'm shooting silencers. I really need to get a can for the MG that way they'll have a harder time noticing me shooting F/A if I do :)

But I have drill, and I live in ME.





Sounds fun though, I am a little jealous.

if a new AWB goes into effect that the grandfather clause will be much more restrictive. I doubt transfers of high cap mags and other banned items will be legal this time around...after all allowing grandfathered items to be transferred last time made the ban ineffectual which is why the AWB didn't result in lower gun violence rates. :sarcasm:

I suspect that we will see a case on the second amendment and incorporation come up. If it does, and depending on the outcome, this may be all irreverent.

If the 2nd amendment is incorporated (that is is part of the Constitution that restricts the actions of states as well as the federal government), we would probably see a general relaxation of firearms laws. However, habitual criminals, people involuntarily committed for mental health treatment, people previously found incompetent to stand trial and persons not legal permanent residents would be bared from purchasing firearms. States may impose non-onerous requirements for training or proofing of firearms. Laws related to limiting the capacity of magazines, cosmetic features of firearms, etc would be found unconstitutional.

I think this is likely and will, I hope take the gun issue off the table and put it in the realm of settled law.

What we will see with an Obama win is an upsurge in far right acting out.

Even with the hard-to-obtain federal license, I can't have a full-auto.

Gun Violence.

Annenberg Foundation gave grants to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence once known as The National Council to Control Handguns.

“$100,000 for efforts to reduce gun violence by educating the public and by enacting and enforcing regulations governing the gun industry.”

“$50,000 for efforts to reduce gun violence by educating the public and by enacting and enforcing regulations governing the gun industry.”

Would be outlawed by HR 1022!

Richardson should have been the nominee!