Sporting Purpose
Can we toss sporting purpose for vagueness? ATF seems to operate under the presumption that 3 gun or practical shooting isn’t a sport, since no clay pigeons, feathered critters, or stack-barrel Perazzis wielded by Vice Presidents are involved.
January 24th, 2011 at 10:44 am
I think this “sporting purpose” thingy is a trial balloon. If it holds up for importation, then the next logical step would be to “close the loophole” and apply it to ALL firearms that dont have a sporting purpose.
I dont think Obama wants to stand up and ask for gun control (of any kind). I think the #1 thing he cares about is getting re-elected. Yes, he will sign any anti-gun legislation that comes to his desk, but I think anything that is done will probably be done through backdoor channels. If they can get this sporting purpose thing to hold up and then transition it to ALL firearms, Obama can keep his hands clean and just blame it on the ATF.
January 24th, 2011 at 11:21 am
Getting rid of “sporting purpose” is an interesting question to consider. Clearly a good thing for rifles – basically nullifies most import bans and drastically limits ATF’s discretionary powers.
More complex for shotguns – remember, all shotguns over .410 are not DDs solely based on ATF’s finding that they have a “sporting purpose”. Without “sporting purpose”, every single 12ga (and 20ga and so on) would be legally an NFA-regulated DD. How long would that backlog take to clear?
January 24th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Making “sporting purposes” a dead letter will gut DD at least as far as bore size. Remember, there’s rifles whose bore size is over .50 inches that are not DDs because of a “sporting purpose”.
DD for explosive ammo will still remain, of course
January 24th, 2011 at 6:11 pm
Man, having shotguns put under the NFA sure would slap a lot of shotgunners in the face. I’d almost be in favor just for that.
January 24th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
Well, it’d get the fudds off the fence, that’s for sure. Which is why it won’t happen – BATFE isn’t that kind of stupid.
Which is why I think they’ll not declare the Saiga’s DDs, and instead just forbid their import under “sporting purposes”. Could be interesting.