Does Bush have a illegal firearm in his collection?

[WhiteFeather]

Question: Was a machine gun illegally imported into country (violation on the 1934 National Firearm Act and later other federal laws) is now in possession of a former President?

Note on the photo in article with the extra switch to go from semi to full auto machine gun.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/us/06gun.html?ref=us

Hussein’s Gun May Go on Display at Bush Library

Many American presidents have kept prized possessions within reach during their White House years. Franklin D. Roosevelt cherished a 19th century ship model of the U.S.S. Constitution. One of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s favorite gifts was an engraved Steuben glass bowl from his cabinet. And sitting on John F. Kennedy’s desk in the Oval Office was a paperweight made from a coconut shell he had carved with a distress message after his PT-109 was sunk during World War II.


Times Topics: George W. Bush Presidential LibraryThe objects have been bequeathed to the American public, accessible through a visit to each man’s presidential library and museum. And so when the library for George W. Bush opens in 2013 on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, visitors will most likely get to see one of his most treasured items: Saddam Hussein’s pistol.

The gun, a 9 millimeter Glock 18C, was found in the spider hole where the Iraqi leader was captured in December 2003 by Delta Force soldiers, four of whom later presented the pistol to Mr. Bush. Among the thousands of gifts Mr. Bush received as president, the gun became a favorite, a reminder of the pinnacle moment of the Iraq war, according to friends and long-time associates.

Before Mr. Bush left the White House in January, he made arrangements for the gun to be shipped to a national archives warehouse just 18 miles north of his new home in Dallas. His foundation said a final decision had not been made on including the gun in the presidential library. But his associates and visitors to the White House said Mr. Bush had told them of his intention to display it there.

For nearly five years, Mr. Bush kept the mounted, glass-encased pistol in the Oval Office or a study, showing it with pride, especially to military officials, they said. He also let visitors in on a secret: when the pistol was recovered, it was unloaded.

“We were getting ready to leave the Oval Office, and he told us, ‘Wait a minute, guys, I want to show you something,’ ” recalled Pete Hegseth, the chairman of Vets for Freedom, who described a July 2007 visit. “The president moved back into his private study and he came out with the gun, inside this glass case. He said, ‘The Delta guys pulled it off Saddam.’ He was very proud of it.”

Mr. Bush also showed Mr. Hegseth another item: a brick from the Iraq safe house where the Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by an American air strike in 2006.

The gun is among 40,000 artifacts and gifts the Bushes had collected, including the bullhorn Mr. Bush used to address rescue workers at ground zero and a special edition Cooperstown baseball bat signed by every living Hall of Famer.

Douglas Brinkley, an author and history professor at Rice University, said the pistol opened a psychological window into Mr. Bush’s view of his presidency.

“It represents this Texas notion of the white hats taking out the black hats and keeping the trophy,” Mr. Brinkley said. “It’s a True West magazine kind of pulp western mentality. For President Bush, this pistol represents his greatest moment of triumph, like the F.B.I. keeping Dillinger’s gun. He wants people generations from now to see the gun and say, ‘He got the bad guy.’ ”

Mr. Bush once said his favorite biography was of Sam Houston, the Texas hero who would have kept a gun from a vanquished enemy, Mr. Brinkley said. The fact that Mr. Hussein’s gun was unloaded was an amazing “irony,” he added.

Mark Langdale, the president of the George W. Bush Foundation, said the library would use items to highlight 25 of Mr. Bush’s presidential decisions. “The gun is an interesting artifact, and it tells you that the United States captured Saddam Hussein and disarmed him literally,” Mr. Langdale said. “How we fit that into the decision to go to war, we haven’t gotten to that point yet.”

One longtime friend of Mr. Bush, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity, said the gun had become as important to Mr. Bush as the police shield given to him by Arlene Howard, the mother of a New York Port Authority officer, George Howard, who died on Sept. 11. He still keeps the shield with him, the friend said.

The George W. Bush Presidential Center will cost $200 million. More than $100 million has already been donated, according to several of Mr. Bush’s friends. The former president has raised much of the money, usually at small luncheons and dinners. Some donors have given as much as $5 million, the friends said.

“The president is working very hard, and the money is rolling in,” one friend said. “People love the man, they think he did a great job, and they know the library is very important to him.”

The odyssey of the gun began on Dec. 13, 2003, when Mr. Hussein was discovered in the 8-foot-deep hole on a farm near Tikrit. Delta Force soldiers did not see the gun at first, said Steve Russell, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who helped lead the mission and is now a Oklahoma state senator.

Mr. Russell said Mr. Hussein had been crouched on all fours, the gun on the floor. The soldiers kept the rare pistol, which can fire bullets automatically, with two AK-47s found in the farmhouse, he said.

In early 2004, one of the soldiers came up with the idea of presenting the gun to Mr. Bush. On March 1 that year, the Delta Force men surprised the president with the pistol at an Oval Office meeting.

“That was a great day,” Mr. Bush told the Pentagon Channel in December. “I’ve had a lot of beautiful days in office; some not so happy. But my best days have come when certain milestones have been reached, and I love to share those milestones and those days with the people who actually made them happen.”

http://www.cybershooters.org/dgca/prod01.htm
On this web site has some details on the glock 18 machine gun note the selector switch and lots more information on this firearm.

For those of you who don't know, the Glock 18 is a selective-fire version of the vastly more common semi-automatic only Glock 17. The only external differences between the two pistols are the markings on the slide and the selector switch at the rear of the slide.

In the up position, the selector switch provides semi-automatic fire, and is in essence no difference from the Glock 17 in this mode. Flip the switch down, and the Glock 18 provides fully-automatic fire at a cyclic rate of 1,300 rounds per minute!

If the average a soldier would bring this same Glock 18 back and give it to someone would they be treated any different for firearm laws violations?

How about if the firearm was a thank you a gift of a custom engraved semi auto only handgun from a local chief in Afghanistan for protecting his village?


I know presidents are above the laws that the rest of US go to jail for just minor violations.

When Bush was in office he had the power to lift the 1986 ban on further importation / manufacture of machine guns like the one he got to make it "legal". Bush didn't change the law, why should he be above the law?


So is there a rule of law in this country, two sets of rules one for the elite ruling class and the other for peasants or some pigs are just more equal than other pigs on the farm?

Could the Glock 18 have be deactived before entering country (I don't know)and this post is just asking pointless questions or was the firearm laws broken and someone should go to jail? this should make for a interesting thread

[Lastdefender]

Only in a gun forum.... LOL

[WhiteShadow]

Whats the deal with Glock 18C's? Are they legal for regular citizens (you know, you and me, the people that arent above the law like the president) to possess if they have an NFA license?

[Solo]

If you click on the author's name you can find a link to e-mail him. Why don't you ask him to look into it for you?

[Shawn.L]

Whats the deal with Glock 18C's? Are they legal for regular citizens (you know, you and me, the people that arent above the law like the president) to possess if they have an NFA license?

NO.

if you do all the paperwork and pass all the checks you can buy pre-1986 guns that where already here and in the registry only.

(*Machineguns fall into three categories; Transferable, Pre-86 Dealer Samples and Post-86 Dealer Samples. Before the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA68), all domestic and imported machineguns could be registered and owned by private individuals. After GCA68, only domestically manufactured machineguns could be privately owned. Imported guns could only be owned by Federally licensed dealers and sold to government agencies or police departments. Today these guns are referred to as Pre-86 Dealer Samples. After the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA86) was enacted, sales of all machineguns manufactured after May 1986, were restricted to Federally licensed dealers, who could only sell them to government agencies or police departments. It became illegal to transfer ownership of a new machinegun to a private individual. This last group of machineguns are referred to as Post-86 Dealer Samples. As you can see, the number of transferable machineguns is now fixed. And as demand for these guns increase, so does the price. Machineguns that sold for a few hundred dollars 10 years ago, now sell for many thousands of dollars. )

I'm gonna hold off my opinion on this one, as I am of a mixed mind and dont have all the info.

I'm sure it could be inactive, or I doubt he would have any issue with having his pres library have a class III and have possession as a corp. IDK IANAL

[Lastdefender]

The G18 was introduced after the 1986 ban and as such can only be aquired as a post dealer sample.. i.e. the gun is unavailable to the general public.

[Azzy]

So it would be only available to military and law enforcement. There are so many ways that could be skirted around at that level.

I wonder if it will be on the curio and relics list when it is updated?

[Lastdefender]

It has a long way to go to get on the C&R list. Even when it does, it will be unavailable to the unwashed masses under current Federal law.

[Dave in PA]

What I find intriguing is that a group of military men (not Secret Service) can bring an automatic weapon to a meeting with the President in the Oval Office. There had to be some sort of preapproval from the security detail on that. Bringing it back into the US, as individuals would have proved impossible. The pistol had to have been brought into the country as a military piece. At the time it was presented to President Bush, he was still the Commande in Cheif of the US Military.

I have a feeling that if he (or any president) wanted some trigger time on any hardware in our inventory, it would be provided.

[ungawa]

I read through the article quickly but it sounded like the pistol has resided in the White House and some kind of National Archives. I am going to guess it's OK to be in the possession of the federal government at the whitehouse. Also, permission is routinely granted for MGs that are not in the NFA registry pre-86 to be housed at museums and such. These are things I don't know about because they don't apply to me and I've therefore never done it. But I have heard about it before.