Update to ATF Shotgun Ruling
I have since learned that the new ruling is going to be akin to the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban, in that, shotguns with bayonet lugs, large capacity magazines…etc or commonly referred to as “evil parts,” will no longer be importable as they have “no sporting purpose.”
Interesting. Is the Saiga sporterized in the US or abroad?
January 21st, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Thankfully the Mossberg 590 is domestically produced.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Is’t that the same as making it 922 compliant???
If so, it is completely redundant.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Unc- As far as I know all Saigas are un-sporterized in the US.
Here is the imported: http://raacfirearms.com/
The evilest blackest thing they list is a thumb-hole stock.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Risky move on BATFE part. Backfire loses them the entire sporting purpose clause.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Forgive my ignorance, but I fail to see why the “sporting purpose” clause is relevant for import? How does this stand in light of Heller? If someone could chime and educate me, I’d appreciate it.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:19 pm
that’s a warm fuzzy thought Ian Argent.
The death of the sporting purpose clause would be amazingly awesome for gun nuts.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Guess that Chinese made Winchester M1917 copy is out too.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:21 pm
whoops, I meant 1897 copy, not 1917.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Pretty sure all the Saiga conversions are done here in the states. They have to do compliance parts counts and everything.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Also, don’t new rulings have to have a 30 day comment period and all that?
January 21st, 2011 at 1:26 pm
WTF? There are no “sporterized” Saiga’s imported. You have to buy them as is and convert them (remaining 922r compliant of course)
January 21st, 2011 at 1:44 pm
“Sporting purpose” is a red herring. According to the Second Amendment (and the Federalist Papers, et al), there’s no closed season on tyrants, but bureacrats and politicians would prefer a responsibly armed citizenry not understand that.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:48 pm
The second amendment does not refer to anything about sporting….
January 21st, 2011 at 1:48 pm
IIRC, “sporting purpose” starts in US law in GCA ’68 with BAFTE given authority to classify weapons as non Destructive Devices by stating that they have a “sporting purpose”, and was used for the “Import Ban” imposed by Bush I to ban the import of, basically, evil black rifles or the manufacture of EBRs with too many foreign parts. The underlying idea is that the reason for bearing arms is “sporting” – taken to be hunting, not sport like IDPA or other modern gun competitions
Don’t think anyone’s ruled on “sporting purpose” legality since Heller – but its removal would be interesting, basically kick over part of the NFA anthill …
January 21st, 2011 at 1:54 pm
I’m with Rabbit. No limit on tyrannical government jackasses.
January 21st, 2011 at 1:59 pm
I have a dream…
I dream that the Discovery Channel brings out a new show about a custom gun shop. This new show features Saiga shotguns in many episodes.
I dream this new show is very popular with many non gun owners. These interested people look for information about Saiga shotguns and find out that the ATF has just banned them because of a bayonet lug that does not exist.
I dream these newly interested people realize the absurdity of this new law, and they begin to understand the absurdity of many of the other gun laws.
I dream these people vote accordingly…
January 21st, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Is anyone else confirming this? All I can find is this one blog citing this information. Has anyone at the SHOT show actually heard this in person besides Mr. Prince?
January 21st, 2011 at 2:56 pm
“…the Second Amendment is not for killing little ducks and leaving Huey and Dewey and Louie without an aunt and uncle. It is for hunting politicians, like [in] Grozny, [or back in] 1776, when they take your independence away!” — California Rep. Bob Dornan, Congressional Record, 25 January, 1995
January 21st, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Maybe, since support for gun control is zilch and there’s a Republican majority in the house (and not exactly a strong Democrat majority in the Senate, combined with many of ’em being from places where the people like guns) it’s time for some new laws.
Like removing the “sporting purposes” requirement at import, and maybe amending the NFA a little.
(Of course, that first change would be strongly opposed by the domestic firearms industry, which doesn’t like the competition.)
(In reply to previous comments, Heller doesn’t affect import laws. It would affect some sort of outright ban on classes of firearms useful for defense or militia use.
But Congress could, under Heller and under the Second Amendment, consonant with the Commerce power, perfectly legally ban the import of all firearms.
Neither Heller nor the Second Amendment require that there be imported firearms available, so long as domestic ones are available widely enough and at prices sensible enough to not constitute a backdoor ban. Which, plainly, they are.
I’m not saying such a ban would be good policy, but it’d be neither illegal nor unconstitutional.)
January 21st, 2011 at 3:37 pm
I guess all those 3 gun shooting competitons that run high speed low drag shotguns, including the Saiga aren’t considered sports. What would you call those events – militia training? What we collectively need to do is contest the “sporting” language in court along with all the other ambiguous language that’s been used to justify these arbitrary rulings.
January 21st, 2011 at 3:49 pm
JClapp- I like the word “muster.”
January 21st, 2011 at 3:51 pm
The only imported configuration of the Saiga-12 has a sporting stock and a 5 round magazine. It’s actually quite light.
Factory high capacity saiga-12 magazines have never been available in the US. There are many individuals in the US that have torn apart saiga-12s and made them into weapons that would arguably be non-importable- but they also added so many domestic parts that they are no longer considered imported under US law or ATF regs.
The problem with declaring individually modified shotguns to be destructive devices is that there are millions of mossbergs and winchester defenders out there with all sorts of scary looking accessories. Banning them would create a huge backlash, confusion, years of paperwork backlog and years of litigation. There’s no such thing as a standard configuration for a modified gun. If there was one company out there selling some sort of “saiga-12 evil conversion kit” being sold, maybe they could ban guns converted with that kit. but there are almost as many configurations as there are modified shotguns.
And as for declaring that “all shotguns which have list of evil features are DDs” there remains the question of why that was universally understood that such shotguns were not DDs before, during and after the AWB- ie, why did congress have to ban shotguns as “assault weapons” if ATF already had the authority to ban them as DDs? The answer is that ATF has never had the authority to do so.
January 21st, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Mad Saint jack-
Too bad the ATF is not voted in, and no elected offical would dare force them to comply with any law. they are a regulatory agency, which in todays terms, they are a agency of force for the executive branch.
January 21st, 2011 at 5:03 pm
BATFE have put Raging Judge 28 on hold.—from Gunblast.com
January 28th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
JClapp —
Actually that is EXACTLY how ATF justified the 1989 import ban.
The kinds of shooting events commonly described as “action”, “tactical”, or “practical” are not (according to ATF), “sporting events”. They are combat training.
“Plinking” is not considered “sporting”, either, becuase its unorganized — it’s considered (by ATF) as “informal practice”.
According to ATF, “sporting” events only covers things like hunting, bullseye, or traditional skeet shooting, so “sporting purpose” guns are guns designed for these sports and do not have “combat” features.
I guess CMP matches (like the President’s Match) are not “sporting”, either, even though they are basically traditional “bullseye” events fired with military-configuration weapons, governed by an organization established by the US Government to develop, run, and support such matches.