New York Times: Request for an Emergency Rule on Border Gun Sales Is Denied

[slackmaster]

The Obama Administration has done less harm to the right of law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms than either Bush administration did. The administration comprehends that the situation on the border is neither new nor a crisis that demands immediate action. That's the kind of cool-headed leadership that our country needs.

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: February 4, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday rejected a request for an emergency rule requiring gun dealers along the Mexican border to report bulk sales of assault rifles, a proposal intended to make it harder for drug cartels to smuggle weapons.

The White House told the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that gunrunning to Mexico was a continuing problem, rather than the kind of fast-moving emergency that justified an exception to the normal process for reviewing proposed regulations....

For full copyrighted article, please go to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/us/05guns.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[thaddeus_flowe]

1. Don't just report bulk sales of assault rifles,

make them illegal altogether.
hmmm?

[slackmaster]

2. Assault rifles have been strictly regulated since 1934

Read and learn:

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/national-firearms-act-machine-guns.html

[thaddeus_flowe]

6. thanks for the atf page.

Still feeling a completely reasonable amount of distaste for assault rifles.
Especially those sold legally to drug cartels...

[slackmaster]

7. No firearm in the US sporting arms market has ever been sold legally to a Mexican drug cartel

Look up the term "straw purchase".

[Katya Mullethov]

11. What about all the guns from Carter's Country Guns ?

That is sort of a gray area .

[benEzra]

8. If you're talking about civilian "assault weapons"---

i.e. non-automatic, civilian-legal rifles with modern styling---then you run into the little problem that (1) rifles are the least misused weapons in the United States, and (2) you're talking about banning the most popular sporting rifles and HD carbines in the country.

Also, as I understand it, the BATFE proposed rule would have affected all self-loading rifles regardless of how the stock was shaped; it wasn't limited to "assault weapons", however you define them. Also, the definition of "bulk" was IIRC decidedly non-bulk.

[rl6214]

9. I seriously doubt

that anything sold along the border are assault rifles, bulk or otherwise.

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. Better notify the gungeon.

They're convinced he's gonna come get your guns.

[slackmaster]

5. It may have escaped your attention, but I posted this in the Gungeon

:-)

[X_Digger]

4. aka, we're not going to do via executive fiat for rifles what took a law in 1968 for handguns..

Good call!

[jody]

10. Reagan and the 2 Bushes as Republicans were de-facto assumed to support RKBA but Obama has to run

away from the gun-grabber image that many voters associate with we Democrats and even worse his own record of voting against and working against RKBA.

Your statement "Obama Administration has done less harm to the right of law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms than either Bush administration did" doesn't surprise me however he still hasn't clearly repudiated the anti-RKBA rhetoric of Holder, Napolitano, and other close supporters