In June of last year, the NRA introduced a bill to define the term “sporting purposes.” As the presser for the doomed bill declared, “many federal laws that regulate the importation, possession and transfer of firearms measure the lawful utility of firearms based on their usefulness for so-called ‘sporting purposes.’ BATFE and anti-gun administrations have exploited the lack of a clear definition of ‘sporting purposes’ to bypass Congress and impose gun control through executive fiat.” In other words, it’s a gun control loophole! One that California Rep. Jackie Speier wants to exploit . . .
The legislation proposed by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) calls for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to act on its power to bar the import of assault weapons that “are not suitable or readily adaptable for sporting purposes.”
The legislation, which would not affect gun production in the U.S., would include the imported Serbian AK-47 that was used to kill three and wound 14 others in Hesston, Kansas on Feb. 25, Speier said in a Facebook post on the bill.
“Current law allows the ATF to ban the importation of these assault weapons, but NRA lobbying has prevented the agency from exercising this authority,” said Speier, who was a congressional aide in 1978, when she was shot five times during the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana.
Some might say that Ms. Speier’s inability to understand the sporting purposes of an AR- or AK-style rifle — which includes hunting, target practice and removing a bad guy’s sporting chances of getting away with rape, robbery, assault or murder — indicates that she’s drunk gun control Kool-Aid, but I couldn’t possibly comment.
“The bill is supported by the Center for American Progress, Violence Policy Center, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence united with the Million Mom March, Washington Office on Latin America,” Ms. Speier’s website reveals. The Million Mom March? Wasn’t that the first, failed incarnation of Shannon Watts’ Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America? Try and keep up Jackie!
Anyway, nydailynews.com [which provided the quote above] was quick to point out that “The proposed legislation would not affect gun production in the U.S. The bill “would happily see American manufacturers take up the slack once European producers were banned from the U.S. market.” As if the Republican Congress would let this turkey out of committee. That said . . .
If Ms. Clinton is elected President there’s nothing to stop her from directing the ATF to ban imported rifles using the “sporting provisions” loophole. Congress could then defund the ATF or rewrite the law, but Clinton would have the first mover advantage. Just so we’re clear.