The Obama administration is seeking to limit the importation of some shotguns via rulings made by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF.) ATF has issued a “Study on the Importability of Certain Shotguns” which provides the logical underpinnings for a ban of some weapons. In Part 1 we looked at how the ATF defined “sporting purpose” to exclude the popular action and practical shooting sports. In Part 2 we saw how several features that would cause an imported shotgun to be banned are useful in home defense. In Part 3 we looked at how the unconstitutional Gun Control Act of 1968, which introduced the “sporting purpose” test for importation, came to be. In this final installation we’ll look at the implications of the current study on pistols, rifles, and domestic shotguns.

The Supreme court decisions in District of Columbia v Heller and McDonald v Chicago moved the earth under the feet of the ATF. The decisions clearly established that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, it can be exercised for any lawful purpose, and that it applies to the states.  This negates many of the firearms related parts of the ATF’s job. But like any good bureaucracy, ATF has its’ fingers in its’ ears and is shouting “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” while planning how to overcome this setback. Apparently the ATF’s plan is to say “The Supremes told DC, and told the states, but they didn’t tell ME! Besides, the ruling says that there is space for some regulation!” The current study certainly foreshadows some regulation.

Before the Heller and McDonald cases were decided it could plausibly (if incorrectly) be argued that the “sporting purpose” test that is applied to imports, and was part of the justification for the 1994 Clinton Gun Ban, was regulating a privilege and thus legal. That is no longer the case. The ATF is laying the groundwork to restrict what is undeniably a right. This goes beyond simple government overreach to the realm of violating the oaths of office for those involved.

But it’s not just imports that are in the crosshairs, as Jeff Knox points out in The Knox Update:

One of the most important things about this ATF “study” and proposed shotgun importation ban is that it lays the groundwork for much broader, general shotgun restrictions.  Importation is not the only place where federal gun laws apply this unconstitutional “sporting purpose test,” it is also found in the National Firearms Act (NFA), the laws dealing with machineguns and destructive devices.  Under the NFA, any firearm with a bore greater than .5 inch is a “destructive device” – in the same category as mortars and Howitzers.  The only exception is for “shotguns which the secretary finds are generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes.”  If the secretary (in this case Attorney General Eric Holder) finds that certain shotguns are not importable because they are unsuitable for sporting purposes he must then explain why virtually identical guns, with the same features, are considered suitable for sporting purposes with regard to the NFA.  How can he declare them non-sporting on the one hand and not declare identical guns as non-sporting on the other?

One factor that jumps out from the current ATF study is that it differs from the Clinton gun ban in a critical way. The Clinton ban looked at guns and said if it could accept a high capacity magazine and had any 2 other characteristics then it was banned. Thus you could have a magazine and a pistol grip, or a magazine and night sights, and still be legal. Few people missed having a bayonet lug, and grenade launchers and grenades had essentially been banned from civilian hands since the NFA became law in 1934.  The current study says that any ONE item on a list, including a magazine that holds more than five rounds or a place to attach a flashlight so you can see the burglar in your home, and the gun is banned.

So the problem doesn’t end with shotguns. The current study refers to the conclusions drawn in prior ATF studies of rifles in 1989 and 1998, and handguns in 1968. It also draws on the NFA and the GCA (Gun Control Act of 1968) to justify the “sporting purpose” test, and the narrow interpretation that the ATF places on the test. The justifications are all linked together, like a knitted sweater. Pull on the piece of yarn called “imported shotguns” and you find when it’s unraveled enough that you’re tugging on the “domestic shotguns” yarn. Only now the “imported rifle” bit of yarn is hanging loose, just begging for someone to tug on it. Unravel that a bit and you reach “domestic rifles.” A similar bit of unraveling is likely to happen with the piece of yarn labelled “handgun.”

In other words, this report lays the groundwork to impose by regulatory fiat an entirely unconstitutional gun ban more draconian than the Clinton gun ban that expired in 2004, and bypasses Congress and the Constitution to do so. It needs to be stopped now. The ATF is accepting comments on the report until the end of April, 2011. I urge you to comment, and to send a copy of your comments to your congressional representatives.

• Comments may be submitted by e-mail to shotgunstudy@atf.gov
• By fax to (202)648-9601.Faxed comments may not exceed 5 pages.
• All comments must include name and mailing address.

This is not just an issue for gun owners. This is an issue of the Obama administration overreaching, and violating the Constitution in the process. Restricting our rights by regulatory fiat should concern every American.

Cross Posted from Beregond’s Bar.

Since it is unlikely that any gun control legislation could get through the existing congress the Obama administration is seeking to restrict the import of certain shotguns by having the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to change the rules. As we saw in Part 1, the tool is a study entitled “ATF Study on the Importability of Certain Shotguns.” The study cites the history of gun control laws and resulting regulation. In short, firearms must meet one of four tests to be imported, and the most common of those is the rule is the sporting purpose test.

the Attorney General shall approve applications for importationwhen the firearms are generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes (the “sporting purposes test”).

The study then spends a lot of time showing that hunting, trap and skeet, and target shooting are sports, but plinking and practical shooting sports are not REALLY sports, and therefore guns that are particularly suitable for, or readily adaptable to those sports shouldn’t be allowed into the country.

In Part 2 we looked at the characteristics that the ATF study determined were not sporting. We also looked at how a number of those features made the shotguns under consideration for regulatory ban made those shotguns particularly suitable for home defense.

But there is a far more basic objection that must be raised to this new attempt at regulatory gun ban- Nowhere in the constitution of the United States is there anything about a “sporting purpose.” The second amendment says:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Like all rights of Americans, the rights exist because you are a person. The Constitution is a contract we have with the central government to protect those rights against all enemies, foreign and domestic. One of the enumerated rights is the right to keep and bear arms. Nary a “sporting purpose” in sight in the entire document. So where did it come from?

The Gun Control Act of 1968 was a simplistic answer to complex times. In a span of five years we had experienced the assassination of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, and Bobby Kennedy. There were riots in over 100 American cities that year, some race riots, others protesting the war in Viet Nam. (While the term “Chicago Riots” usually conjures up the image of the riots during the Democratic National Convention in August of that year, there had been a Chicago race riot in April of that year that left a number of people dead.)

Moreover, just as Viet Nam was the first televised war, the domestic unrest of the 60s was our first experience with mass media riots.  We can see a few grainy black and white photos of the Chicago race riots of 1919, but in the 1960s the violence first came into our living rooms, and joined us at the dinner table. It wasn’t the instant communication we have now, but it was a radical change made possible by civilian active communications satellites, which had first been launched when JFK was in office. Day after day, protests, riots and crime stories made us wonder if America was coming apart, and what could be done.

Enter the Gun Control Act of 1968. In addition to reasonable restrictions like banning drug addicts and criminals from owning firearms a wide variety of weapons were banned with the collusion of US gun makers, who used a push to “control crime” as a way to eliminate competition. Most military surplus weapons from overseas were banned, and we began to hear about the infamous “Saturday Night Special,” a term applied mostly to cheap, poorly-made handguns from overseas, which was often the only gun a poor person could afford for self defense. The Act included a point system for importability, small size, small caliber, and fixed sights were some of the things that counted against a gun.

On the flip side, high quality expensive guns that were ruled suitable for “sporting purposes” could still be imported. There were characteristics that were considered “good” for sporting purposes such as adjustable target sights and target grips. Ever wonder why every Glock has finger grooves on the grip? That makes it a target grip, which is worth 5 points. Indeed, at one point Glocks were imported into the US with click adjustable sights, suitable for target work, in order to meet the point count. Once the guns were in the country the target sights were replaced by the fixed sight that Glock owners know and love (or hate) today.

In the end, the Gun Control Act of 1968, supposedly passed to deal with issues raised by the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK didn’t deal with any of the weapons used to kill Martin Luther King or Bobby Kennedy. Instead it protected the domestic market for US gun makers and controlled the guns most likely to be used by poor blacks to defend themselves.  Corporate welfare takes many forms, and protectionism is one of them. Public hysteria, corporate greed, and the need of politicians to appear to be doing something combined as they so often have to curtail our liberties.

The US Supreme Court decided in District of Columbia v Heller:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

Many jurisdictions pointed out that the District of Columbia is a special case, and that the ruling did not apply to the states. In McDonald v Chicago the Supreme Court said that the Second Amendment did apply to the states. This leads us to our current situation. We have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The ATF, despite their stated mission to protect us from “the illegal use and trafficking of firearms” actually determines what the legal use and legal way to buy, sell, import and export are. That is, the ATF exists to limit our rights, and is being used by the current administration to remove rights from us.

In the final installation of this series we’ll look at how a ban on importing certain shotguns that look mean and nasty can be used to work backwards to restrict access not just to the weapons that you can no longer bring into the country, but weapons you may already own. This is not limited to shotguns. The current attempt to regular shotgun imports has implications for all sorts of firearms.

Cross Posted from Beregond’s Bar.

As we saw in Part 1, the Obama administration is seeking to ban the importation of some popular shotgun models that are made overseas. The method being used is borrowed from Humpty Dumpty:

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’

Unable to get legislation passed, the administration seeks to master us with their mastery of words. In this case the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is seeking to master the definition of the term “sporting use” to “traditional” sports, things similar to what might have been found in 1934 when the Treasury Department first began regulating firearms. The ATF “Study on the Importability of Certain Shotguns” (PDF) limits “sporting purpose.”

However, consistent with past court decisions and Congressional intent, the working group recognized hunting and other more generally recognized or formalized competitive events similar to the traditional shooting sports of trap, skeet, and clays.

In order to decide what shotguns fit the “sporting purpose” definition the study comes up with a list of characteristics that aren’t sporting. Nobody has yet taken to bayoneting deer or skeet as far as I know, so I’m not going to raise a big stink about bayonet lugs being on the list of features that aren’t particularly suited for sporting purposes. (Please stop shouting that the Constitution of the United States says nothing about “sporting purpose.” We’ll look at why the “sporting purpose” rule violates the constitution in Part 3.)

One major problem (aside from the constitution) is that many of the features the ATF study group settled on make a shotgun particularly useful for self defense, especially home defense. Here are the characteristics that the study has decided are unsuitable for sporting use:

(1) Folding, telescoping, or collapsible stocks;

(2) bayonet lugs;

(3) flash suppressors;

(4) magazines over 5 rounds, or a drum magazine;

(5) grenade-launcher mounts;

(6) integrated rail systems (other than on top of the receiver or barrel);

(7) light enhancing devices;

(8) excessive weight (greater than 10 pounds for 12 gauge or smaller);

(9) excessive bulk (greater than 3 inches in width and/or greater than 4 inches in depth);

(10) forward pistol grips or other protruding parts designed or used for gripping the shotgun with the shooter’s extended hand.

Some of these features, such as folding stocks and larger capacity magazines clearly are useful in sports if you include practical shooting sports. But as we’ve seen, Humpty Dumpty said that “sporting purposes” means what HE means it to mean, and practical shooting sports are Right Out. But some of the features are important to people who don’t want to hop over obstacles, shoot through simulated windows, or have their shooting timed and scored. Several of the features on the list are important to people who want to defend their home.

A house often has narrow doorways or hallways, and furniture can interfere with the movement of a long gun. By federal law, a shotgun barrel must be at least 18 inches long. So the place we can easily shorten a shotgun to make it easier to navigate confined spaces is at the stock end. A folding or collapsible stock lets you maneuver in confined spaces but still be able to shoulder the weapon for better accuracy when you have time and space. So this feature that the ATF wants to ban from import by regulation is applicable to home defense.

If you’re operating in a confined space with the stock folded then you need to really grip the front end. This helps with both aiming and controlling the recoil if you have to shoot. A vertical or pistol grip can also help you swing the front of the gun faster when you identify an intruder. Again, a forward pistol or vertical grip can be an effective part of a home defense shotgun.

It’s 3 am. The wake up call you got wasn’t on the phone, it was the sound of a window breaking, or the sound of someone moving around downstairs. Odds are that if you pause to get dressed at all it’s just to grab a pair of pants. More likely you’re wearing whatever you were sleeping in, and don’t have any place to carry extra ammunition. Whatever ammunition you have in or mounted on the gun is all you’ve got. Probably there’s only one or two intruders, and maybe you’ll hit each one with the first shot, but do you really want to bet your family’s life on it? I hope you never need to defend your family at 3 am, but if you do wouldn’t you rather have a few rounds left over rather than run out? Having more than five rounds will enhance the safety of your family.

Since it’s 3 am, you’ve probably turned the lights off in most of the house. One hand is on the rear pistol grip of the shotgun, the other is on the forward grip (vertical or not.) Your third hand then holds the flashlight.

No third hand? There’s are a couple of simple solutions. One is a light enhancing device, that is, a night sight. Those are rather expensive for a shotgun that only gets fired in practice, so another form of light enhancement is more common in the form of a flashlight. But there’s still that third hand problem. The solution is an accessory rail mounted to the side or beneath the barrel. Flashlights just clamp on there, and the flashlight shows you exactly what you are aiming at. Seeing what you are about to shoot seems like a reasonable precaution when investigating an odd noise in your house, but that’s not sporting, so the Obama administration doesn’t want you to do that.

The ATF is taking comments on their report until the end of April 2011. You can submit comments by sending a fax of not more than 5 pages to (202)648-9601 or sending e-mail to shotgunstudy@atf.gov. All comments must include your name and mailing address.

In Part 3 of this report we’ll look at some of the constitutional objections to the “sporting purposes” test and some of the other gun control implications of the administration’s effort to do gun control by regulation that it’s unlikely they could currently get through congress.

Cross Posted from Beregond’s Bar.

The Obama administration is seeking once again to do via regulation what they would never be able to do via legislation. This time shotguns are in the crosshairs, specifically certain popular imported weapons. Even waving the bloody shirt after congresswoman Giffords was shot only moved a few members of congress, not nearly enough to enact new restrictions. Rather than face a losing fight in congress the administration decided to just emulate Humpty Dumpty from Lewis Caroll’s “Through the Looking Glass.”

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’

Humpty Dumpty in this case is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF,) and the term that is being redefined is “Sporting Use.”  Sporting use is one of the three main thrusts of gun control efforts in America. The other two are racism and  those who openly advocate complete bans except for military and police. (The complete ban advocates often hide under cover of sporting use, but that and the racist history of gun control are topics for another day.

Sporting use was how the original distinction was made about what weapons would be subject to a special tax in the National Firearms Act (NFA) in 1934, and again in Title II of the Gun Control Act of 1968.  The congressional power to tax was used selectively to make ownership of weapons the government didn’t like burdensome and expensive. This was gun control via the back door, as even the ATF admits. As would become the pattern, politicians found that actually dealing with crime and criminals was difficult and expensive. Blaming guns and passing a law to look like they were doing something about it was much simpler.

In 1968 the idea of “sporting purpose” was made explicit when the import of weapons from overseas was banned unless the US Attorney General certified that it met one of four narrow criteria. One of these was that it was “generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes.” This led to a series of studies about what constituted a sporting purpose in 1968, 1989, 1998, and the latest released in January of 2011. (Notice that 3 of the 4 studies were done under Democrat presidents. The fourth was under Bush 41, who ran as a continuation of Reagan but broke his tax pledge and resigned from the NRA.)

The latest study (PDF,) released at the end of January 2011, centers on shotguns and once again pretends that a “sporting purpose” is the only legitimate use for a gun, despite recent Supreme Court rulings that gun ownership is an individual right and that self defense is a legitimate purpose for owning a firearm. The study spends a great deal of time defining just what sporting use is, and carefully excludes the most common sporting use, plinking.

Plinking is just setting up informal targets, often cans or bottles, sometimes paper or steel targets, and doing a bit of informal practice. That you just hung a target or paced off the distance to your informal collection of targets doesn’t mean that you aren’t engaged in a sport, any more than not using a stopwatch to time your last ski run meant that your skiing wasn’t a sport. But insuring that plinking is not considered a sport is central to regulating imports, because you can plink with almost any gun. Therefore the ATF concludes that plinking is “primarily a passtime.”

Dismissing the practical shooting sports takes a good deal more hand waving. The practical shooting sports (which I dabbled in before becoming handicapped) generally involve multiple targets that the shooter must engage, and usually must move in order to reach or see clearly. The targets may also move, swinging, rotating, or popping up for a limited time before vanishing. Usually mixed in with the targets are “no shoot” targets representing innocent bystanders. All of this is done under the relentless pressure of the clock.

Practical shooting sports are a problem for the ATF’s  narrow definition of sporting purpose. They have national organizations with tens of thousands of members, formal rules, and separate competitors by skill level so that there is competition within the brackets. One way that the ATF study gets around this is to ignore the fact that the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) is not the only bastion of practical shooting, but is just the US regional division of IPSC, the International Practical Shooting Association. After all, if one looks at the IPSC one has to admit that the practical shooting sports are an international phenomenon headquartered in Oakville, Ontario, Canada with divisions in over 80 countries, from Argentina to Zimbabwe. Instead we find in the footnotes:

33 Organization websites report these membership numbers: for the United States Practical Shooting Association, approx. 19,000; AmateurTrapshooting Association, over 35,000 active members; National Skeet Shooting Association, nearly 20,000 members; National Sporting ClaysAssociation, over 22,000 members; Single Action Shooting Society, over 75,000 members.

The Single Action Shooting Society at first glance looks like it might be an apples to apples comparison, since it involves pistols, rifles, and shotguns plus movement much as the practical shooting sports do. However there is one huge difference that makes the inclusion of the SASS useful for the ATF- The Single Action Shooting Society is Cowboy Action Shooting. That is, competitors dress as period characters, and use replicas of weapons that were found in the old west. The ATF isn’t (yet) concerned with the importation of inexpensive copies of cowboy weapons from Italy.

But some of the other organizations look like they’re in the same size range as the USPSA, especially if you ignore the novice competitors that don’t join, but show up three or four times a year for a local match. So the study group brings in conservation groups:

34 Organization websites report these membership numbers: Ducks Unlimited, U.S adult 604,902 (Jan. 1, 2010); Pheasants/Quail Forever, over130,000 North American members (2010)

Now the comparison is to conservation organizations. Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever focus on preserving and restoring wildlife habitat. Ducks Unlimited in particular focuses on private acquisition and management of land. These groups are practical environmentalists, some of whom also hunt. (I was a Ducks Unlimited member before I ever owned a gun. The closest I’ve come to taking wild game is a place near my home where the deer like to cross the road at twilight.) Comparing USPSA to Ducks Unlimited is comparing apples to watermelons.

The ATF has invited comments on the study:

All interested persons may submit comments on this study. Comments may be submitted by e-mail to shotgunstudy@atf.gov or by fax to (202)648-9601. Faxed comments may not exceed 5 pages. All comments must include name and mailing address. ATF encourages submission of comments no later than May 1, 2011.

Like Humpty Dumpty the Obama administration is changing the definition of  ”sporting use” in order to ban certain  shotguns. But as we’ll see inPart 2, many of the features that the ATF working group’s study (PDF) says should lead to a shotgun being banned are features that can make a shotgun particularly suitable for home defense.

Cross Posted from Beregond’s Bar.