Nothing more to see here
Turns out that shipment of AK47s illegally being smuggled into the US was, in fact, quite legal:
A U.S.-bound shipment of thousands of AK-47 assault rifles and other combat-type weapons, seized by Italian authorities who suspected they were being smuggled, actually have legal permits to be imported, American officials said Wednesday.
About 7,500 AK-47s, AKM rifles and other weapons worth an estimated $6 million were seized April 20 aboard a Turkish-flagged ship in the port of Gioia Tauro. They were bound for New York from Romania.
At the time, Italian authorities said the guns were hidden aboard the ship.
But Andrew Lluberes, spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the weapons actually were cleared by U.S. authorities. “The permits are valid,” he said.
A 1994 law prevents the U.S. gun industry from making, importing or selling military-style semiautomatic weapons.
But under ATF regulations, a properly licensed company can ship such weapons to a “custom bonded warehouse” in the United States. There, they are disassembled and their key firing components destroyed. The remaining parts can then be reconfigured into a weapon that will meet the letter of the 1994 law and can be sold legally in the United States.
I had the feeling from the onset that may be the case but I wasn’t familiar enough with the import laws to state that for certain. All that scaremongering about the Assault Weapons Ban and terrorist grade rifles and they turn out to be legal. Since they’re legal, I wonder if the Brady Campaign’s face is red.
