Article: U.S. laws governing automatic weapons are a farce

[vinnyg101]

U.S. laws governing automatic weapons are a farce


baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-rr-automatic-20171004-story.html
10/4/2017

The U.S. gun laws are the oddest sausage to ever emerge from a legislative grinder. Under the watchful eyes of the National Rifle Association (they actually wrote the bill), Congress outlawed automatic weapons and President Ronald Reagan signed into law a bill which made it illegal to sell guns that fire multiple times while the trigger is pressed. The first draft of the bill made possession of such weapons illegal. That language did not last long. The law "grandfathered in" all automatic weapons that were already owned.

Years later, a device known as a “bump stock” was invented that could effectively convert the legal single fire AR-15s and AK-47s that can be purchased at any gun stores to automatic fire status in matter of minutes by anyone who can read simple directions. This means they can fire at the same 900 round per minute rate as the military version of the weapons. These devices are perfectly legal.

When I a training officer for an infantry company, my range officers often told me that very few of the soldiers we were training were ever going to actually fire our M-16s (the military version of the AR-15) on full fire. When you fire on fully automatic, you are sacrificing targeting for fire power. It is indiscriminate, and it has no reason to ever exist in the civilian world. The U.S. laws governing automatic weapons are a farce, and those legislators who support them should find themselves in serious trouble at the polls next year.

Roland Nicholson Jr., Washington, D.C.

Send letters to the editor to talkback@baltimoresun.com. Please include your name and contact information.

[jakebrake]

^^^ roland Nicholson doesn't seem to be rather informed.

who is shocked by this fact?

[Ecclectic Collector]

No surprise there. He is (was?) an infantry officer. So he knows about shooting and the tactical doctrine of the US military. Sadly this does not translate into expertise into the issue which he has written.

He obviously doesn't know squat about the class 3 weapon laws. The whole bump fire concept is obviously a work around the class 3 rules. The fact that ATFE never seriously pushed to stop the product being sold is a perplexing issue to me. I've always wanted to own a class 3, but can't afford one. However I never had any use for a bump fire stock either.

Sad, but this article is just another example of boilerplate on an issue to inflame the uninformed without offering any meaningful insight.

[Wildbill990]

No surprise there. He is (was?) an infantry officer. So he knows about shooting and the tactical doctrine of the US military. Sadly this does not translate into expertise into the issue which he has written.

He obviously doesn't know squat about the class 3 weapon laws. The whole bump fire concept is obviously a work around the class 3 rules. The fact that ATFE never seriously pushed to stop the product being sold is a perplexing issue to me. I've always wanted to own a class 3, but can't afford one. However I never had any use for a bump fire stock either.

Sad, but this article is just another example of boilerplate on an issue to inflame the uninformed without offering any meaningful insight.

Well said.

99.999999% of legal full autos are range toys used by responsible people. He knows jack and shit though.

[tacticalreload]

No surprise there. He is (was?) an infantry officer. So he knows about shooting...

With all due respect, I've know a number of soldiers who know jack shit about shooting and guns.

[Mitch10mm]

This guy seems a tad confused

[God's Country]

This guy seems a tad confused

There is never any shortage of "confusion" when intentionally perpetuating false gun information.
Sadly there is hardly ever any solid counter argument ever given where it will reach the misinformed public.

[GeneCC]

U.S. laws governing automatic weapons are a farce


baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-rr-automatic-20171004-story.html
10/4/2017

The U.S. gun laws are the oddest sausage to ever emerge from a legislative grinder. Under the watchful eyes of the National Rifle Association (they actually wrote the bill), Congress outlawed automatic weapons and President Ronald Reagan signed into law a bill which made it illegal to sell guns that fire multiple times while the trigger is pressed. The first draft of the bill made possession of such weapons illegal. That language did not last long. The law "grandfathered in" all automatic weapons that were already owned.

Years later, a device known as a “bump stock” was invented that could effectively convert the legal single fire AR-15s and AK-47s that can be purchased at any gun stores to automatic fire status in matter of minutes by anyone who can read simple directions. This means they can fire at the same 900 round per minute rate as the military version of the weapons. These devices are perfectly legal.

When I a training officer for an infantry company, my range officers often told me that very few of the soldiers we were training were ever going to actually fire our M-16s (the military version of the AR-15) on full fire. When you fire on fully automatic, you are sacrificing targeting for fire power. It is indiscriminate, and it has no reason to ever exist in the civilian world. The U.S. laws governing automatic weapons are a farce, and those legislators who support them should find themselves in serious trouble at the polls next year.

Roland Nicholson Jr., Washington, D.C.

Send letters to the editor to talkback@baltimoresun.com. Please include your name and contact information.

General McChrystal says about the same thing..... that the AR15 you can buy at your local gun store is "the same rifle as the M4 I carried in Afghanistan". He's one of Gabby Gifford's toy soldiers, working for her in her astroturf group "Veterans for Responsible Solutions". I guess if I had no principles I could be persuaded to tell a "little white lie" for the cause for six figures a year too.

The FOPA of 1986 froze the NFA registry. There were no more additions to the registry from that time on. That's it. The song and dance required to get one of those firearms is well understood by most here. Form 3, fingerprints, tax and then a long wait. The prices of these firearms would also fetch you a replacement automobile too, in some cases a new luxury car - about ten to twenty times what a commercial AR15 costs.


The Gun Control Lobby couldn't do much if all they said was, "Less guns, less violence". The people who buy firearms wouldn't believe it. The people who live around armed people and never have a problem wouldn't believe it. The poor wretches in places which ban firearms but get them anyhow wouldn't believe it. The average American who does not give a rat's patootie about guns because they don't own them and mind their own business don't care either.

Only the few who have mental illnesses that make them want to control people, the few who have had a loved one lost to "gun violence" and chose to blame a firearm, and the even smaller number like Mike Bloomberg or other Elitists care about firearms. Mike Bloomberg imagines that G-d is going to admit him to heaven for his "work", which gives you a strong clue to his emotional state.

So the gun control lobby has to get creative with the facts. "Shape the perception" as it were. To get enough votes to hammer down the gun culture. So they lie. Early and often.


Riddle me this, friends. The BATF&E has the responsibility of saying what is and is not a "machine gun" or an "automatic weapon". It's been their job since 1968 because they collect the Special Tax to register said firearms. They damn sure are going to be sure not to let people get away with not paying that tax but don't want to be accused of lying in their definitions either. The Agency cannot endure being punished by voters through the Congress. They have a really nice compact definition, "More than one shot per pull of the trigger".

If FFL licensed and BATF&E regulated gun dealers are selling "automatic weapons" across the counter without the NFA registry then the BATF&E isn't doing their job. They are not getting their tax. If so, why trust them to regulate guns at all? Why would the gun control lobby want to give the BATF&E more to do if they can't do what they're doing now? I could give the gun control lobby credit for at least that much logic.

This logical contradiction suggests that the gun control lobby is lying about military pattern semi-automatic firearms.

[GeneCC]

This guy seems a tad confused

He sounds like a lying sack of the stuff you put on your garden to make the flowers blossom.