I’m not sure if this has already been posted anywhere. I couldn’t find it on here.
There are two petitions right now. The first is to try to remove SBRs/SBSs from NFA.
The second is to try to remove suppressors from NFA.
It’s probably not going to happen, at least any time soon. But every voice heard helps. A buddy posted this on a different (non-gun) forum, so I figured I would pass it on here.
IMO it will simply draw more attention to an area that it isn’t needed.
Elaborate?
It’s pretty self explanatory. Kind of like the idiots whoo write NFA Technical Branch to “clarfiy” something and then BATFE decides it needs to apply to everyone.
NFA stuff is pretty low under the radar. The government is getting money from every transaction they aren’t going to let that go.
What could happen is some congress-critter who doesn’t like guns decides he wants to raise the fees (when he sees its’ only 200.00) and then we are paying double.
Lots of things could go wrong.
I see what you’re saying. Honestly, I don’t see the petition going anywhere past being exactly that. I do agree that the laws on NFA are asinine and outdated, but some of that does work to our advantage (i.e. $200 tax stamps). The Government could very well account for inflation from when that tax was originally imposed, and make it just as impossible now as it was back then to pay the tax.
I do feel that there should be some sort of reform for NFA rulings, and it should be reassessed, or at least better supervised at the agency level, because the ATF can pretty much take whatever they want as an interpretation of the existing laws.
Not to mention all the people out there that are blissfully ignorant to the fact that “machine guns, silencers, and sawed off shotguns” aren’t illegal in most places.
I agree that NFA laws are stupid. Criminals will continue to take hacksaws to their shotguns, and slap “pistol uppers” on their ARs. NFA only punishes the law abiding citizens who will actually pay the tax and go through the legal hassle.
This on-line petition system that they’ve set up is interesting but I guess we’ll have to see how it pans out. Some of the petitions on there are quite silly (in my opinion) and could cast the whole thing in a really bad light.
As for the two petitions regarding the sbr/sbs and suppressors, I would have to agree with IG’s response. However there is one that is a bit more low key, and that is to increase manpower and efficiency for the NFA branch. I think that maybe helpful and perhaps less likely to pop up on the congressional radar.
Lastly, there is a petition to provide free internet to our troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, which I feel is worthy of signing.
True. But I see these tax stamps as the Government’s way of creating a sort of Jim Crow law to keep average working people from being able to participate. I think the the whole $200 stamp is unlawful honestly considering it has nothing to do with Interstate Commerce (the entire premise of the NFA branch) for those firearms that never leave the state.
It needs to be repealed and that’s the truth.
I absolutely agree that it should be repealed. I don’t see the Federal Government doing that though, especially because our community is so small compared to the community that wants ALL guns gone. The entire reason NFA is now null and void and is no longer the issue it was when the laws were created.
NOT signing this petition isn’t doing anything to stop it from being a public spectacle, so, I signed it because every signature helps draw notice to an issue that is known regardless, and not signing it isn’t going to make it any less visible. If our Government wants to try to take away our right to own NFA weapons, I can almost guarantee that it will see a Supreme Court hearing, which, is maybe what this country needs to see to realize that these laws are unconstitutional.
I don’t want to see anything brought to the attention of Congress in regards to NFA. Look at what happened the last time that occurred, we lost our ability to have new machine guns. It could backfire and then we can’t have new SBR’s, silencers, AOW’s, or anything else for that matter. In fact, being that the US is cash strapped, they could figure in inflation for 200.00 in 1934 dollars to 2011 dollars and then what kind of tax would we be looking at? Unless they could repeal the entire act, including the machine gun ban, it ain’t worth messing with. And in the current political climate, there isn’t a snowballs chance in hell of the machine gun ban being lifted.
Out of curiousity. Those that support a repeal, let me ask this. Would you rather that we focus on un-fucking this country to include our financial mess? or would you rather have a bunch of politicians most of whom are stupid when it comes to firearms poking around into the NFA world?
The 1986 FOPA was a good piece of legislation that had great intentions and then it backfired and screwed us. Short of a dictatorship that is run by a gun fanatic, there isn’t going to be a repeal of anything.
Wouldn’t repealing these asinine laws that restrict our rights to own this type of weaponry part of “unfucking the country”?
Read the last two posts. In the bigger scheme of things, it’s not a priority right now.
NFA. I do not honestly believe that there is enough collective intelligence in Congress, Senate, or the Office of the POTUS to do anything that involves higher level of thought.
Exactly
This is the same Supreme Court that only ruled 5-4 in the Heller case that you have a right to own a handgun. If this court has to rule on machineguns it will NOT turn out in our favor.
However Iraqgunz I do agree with you as to the possible destruction of our civil liberties. Good reading for those interested in the “Firearm Owner’s Protection Act of 1986” that the NRA endorsed and Reagan signed.
As debate for FOPA was in its final stages in the House before moving on to the Senate, Rep. William J. Hughes (D-N.J.) proposed several amendments including House Amendment 777 to H.R. 4332 [4] that would ban a civilian from ownership or transfer rights of any fully automatic weapon which was not registered as of May 19, 1986. The amendment also held that any such weapon manufactured and registered before the May 19 cutoff date could still be legally owned and transferred by civilians.
In the morning hours of April 10, 1986, the House held recorded votes on three amendments to FOPA in Record Vote No’s 72, 73, and 74. Recorded Vote 72 was on H.AMDT. 776, an amendment to H.AMDT 770 involving the interstate sale of handguns; while Recorded Vote 74 was on H.AMDT 770, involving primarily the easing of interstate sales and the safe passage provision. Recorded Vote 74 was the controversial Hughes Amendment that called for the banning of machine guns. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), at the time presiding as Chairman over the proceedings, claimed that the “amendment in the nature of a substitute, as amended, was agreed to.” However, after the voice vote on the Hughes Amendment, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) ignored a plea to take a recorded vote and moved on to Recorded Vote 74 where the Hughes Amendment failed.[5][6] The bill, H.R. 4332, as a whole passed in Record Vote No: 75 on a motion to recommit. Despite the controversial amendment, the Senate, in S.B. 49, adopted H.R. 4332 as an amendment to the final bill. The bill was subsequently passed and signed on May 19, 1986 by President Ronald Reagan to become Public Law 99-308, the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act.
I wonder how many people that sign these petitions actually own an NFA firearm.
I’ll go one step further and wonder how many of these people actually know what the hell they’re actually voting for, or for that matter, give a shit what the citizens they represent want.
I believe that the NRA was pissed about the last minute stuff that went down and how Rangle fucked us.
In any case, if no one thinks that couldn’t happen again then I have a condo I’d like to sell you in Baghdad on the river.