If you’ve followed the fight to preserve Americans’ Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms for any time at all, you know the battle is never truly “won.” Pro-freedom advocates engage in a perpetual game of civilian disarmament whack-a-mole, beating back universal background checks here, recalling anti-gun legislators there, then enacting preemption laws to counter local gun control laws back over here. Earlier this week, the pro-gun side took a small step forward with the news that after a deluge of negative comments and bipartisan congressional push-back, our friends at the ATF had withdrawn their proposal to ban 5.56 M855 “armor piercing” ammunition. But the congressional gun-grabber caucus isn’t taking the news lying down . . .
As surely as the sun rises in the east, a rogue’s gallery of hoplophobic Capitol Hilll critters is pushing the ATF to damn the torpedoes and ban the ammo no matter how much flak they may take. From thehill.com:
Congressional Democrats are pressuring the Obama administration to move ahead “swiftly” with a proposal that would ban a form of armor-piercing ammunition.
In a draft letter first obtained by The Hill, Democrats are urging the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to use his “existing authority” to keep “dangerous ammunition out of our communities.”
“We hope that the Bureau will swiftly review comments on the proposed framework and issue a revised proposal that will address the danger posed by handguns that fire 5.56mm and other rifle ammunition,” Democrats write in the letter.
Can anyone who opposed the M855 ban really be surprised?
House Democrats in their letter say they are “very disappointed” that the ATF delayed the rule. The proposal, they say, is true to the spirit of the Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act, which Congress passed in 1986 to ensure that officers do “not face extreme safety risk from firearm technology.”
Never mind the fact that the Fraternal Order of Police let it be known that the ban would have virtually no practical effect on crime or officer safety in the real world. After all, the goal here isn’t protecting beat cops. That’s just a transparent fig leaf. What the Carolyn Maloneys and Steve Israels of the world really want are fewer options and higher costs for America’s law abiding gun owners.
“If law-abiding gun owners cannot obtain rifle ammunition, or face substantial difficulty in finding ammunition available and at reasonable prices because government entities are banning such ammunition, then the Second Amendment is at risk,” said a letter (to the ATF) signed by 53 Republican senators.
Again, you probably knew that.
[h/t DrVino]