Second Amendment Rights Once Again at Risk

by Raven Clabough
New American

Americans continue to watch their Second Amendment rights diminish, this time as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives ( still known as ATF) launches a campaign to change the definition of “shotgun.” According to the blog Beregond’s Bar, a recently released study by the Bureau will ultimately make shotguns illegal, and may also have negative implications for all guns.

The study focuses specifically on the sporting purposes of shotguns, just as the ATF 1998 survey provided guidelines for determining the sporting purposes of rifles.  

Beregond’s Bar notes, “Sporting is one of the three main thrusts of gun control efforts in America. The other two are racism and those who openly advocate complete bans except for military and police.”

Providing background on how sporting criteria is often utilized to advance gun control, Beregond’s Bar explains:

Sporting use was how the original distinction was made about what weapons would be subject to a special tax in the National Firearms Act (NFA) in 1934, and again in Title II of the Gun Control Act of 1968.  The congressional power to tax was used selectively to make ownership of weapons the government didn’t like burdensome and expensive. This was gun control via the back door, as even the ATF admits. As would become the pattern, politicians found that actually dealing with crime and criminals was difficult and expensive. Blaming guns and passing a law to look like they were doing something about it was much simpler.

Declaring that activities that were “generally recognized” as legitimate “sporting purposes in previous studies are not necessarily the same as those activities that are generally recognized as sporting purposes in the modern era,” the study outlines a number of features of shotguns wherein “sporting use” cannot apply, many of which are common in hunting and self-defense:

• Folding, telescoping, or collapsible stocks;
• bayonet lugs;
• flash suppressors;
• magazines over 5 rounds, or a drum magazine;
• grenade-launcher mounts;
• integrated rail systems (other than on top of the receiver or barrel);
• light enhancing devices;
• excessive weight (greater than 10 pounds for 12 gauge or smaller);
• excessive bulk (greater than 3 inches in width and/or greater than 4 inches in depth);
• forward pistol grips or other protruding parts designed or used for gripping the shotgun with the shooter’s extended hand.

The study concludes that there should be a “limited exception to the general prohibition on the importation of firearms without placing any undue or unnecessary Federal restrictions of burdens on law-abiding citizens with respect to the acquisition, possession, or use of firearms.” Though the ATF contends that its determinations will have no impact on “true sporting shotguns,” it admits that they will “certainly prevent the importation of certain shotguns.”

The study also recommends that “sporting determinations for shotguns not specifically addressed by this study be reviewed by a panel pursuant to ATF orders, policies and procedures, as appropriate.”

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April 20, 2011

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