Empowered by the “sporting” provision of the 1968 Gun Control Act, BATF is recommending that military style shotguns, regardless of the operating system, be banned from importation. Once again, the 2nd Amendment comes under attack through a regulatory process and is high time that we pull out all stops on the issue.
A high level view of the “sporting” provision simply stipulates that The Attorney General of The United States can determine which firearms can or can not be imported, based on the sporting test. It means that if the serving General deems certain features or designs fall outside their vision of “sporting” he or she can ban importation of that firearm. That restriction applies to spare or repair parts as well.
I have to share a story with you because it exemplifies the mentalities behind these restriction.
When the assault weapon ban sunset, I threw a pizza lunch for a group of coworkers. After eating her pizza, a very well educated woman, who should have spent as much time in a gym as she did studying, assailed me; she said to me “how could you do this? These things are evil and vicious things that kill people.” It took about a nanosecond for me to come to the conclusion that her education, or pretense of one, was no indicator of her intellectual capacity. Here is a woman with years of academic work who fervently believed that an inanimate object possessed the capacity to be evil, ruthless killers. She’s clearly an animist, I thought, and possibly worships rocks…
That same deficiency permeates the liberal thought process in Congress and I would like to give you a slightly different perspective; one that I can support with quantitative analysis.
Congressman or Congresswoman, order your Master at Arms to setup a table on the floor and ask him to place on that table a Glock pistol, with a 30 round magazine; also place an M4 and AK47 on the same table, but make sure that he equips them with lights, night vision optics and all those things than conjure up evil in your minds; finally ask him to place a military shotgun on that table be sure to put rails on it and lights much like the M4 or AK47. You should now have evil in abundance before you.
Now, get up and walk to that table and start yelling at the Glock, hit it with a golf club; threaten it with physical harm. Use profanity and the most hurtful and insulting language you can muster. Do this for every item on the table. Do it several times, do it for days on end. Now, how many times did that Glock or M4 or shotgun shoot you? Did any member of Congress feel empowered and driven to killing by the proximity or access to those evil devices. I dare say none.
Violence is a human behavior and the availability or scarcity of tools like firearms does not embolden or deter. People with a desire to kill will do so. All economists know this and they call it substitution. In other words if hamburgers are unavailable people will eat hot dogs; the same holds true for firearms, kitchen knives, baseball bats, et al.
Republican or Democrat, I urge you to focus on those things that really make America safe. I appreciate your service and dedication, but please amend the 1968 Gun Control Act to strike the “sporting” concept.
FOG HORN 