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Electric Monk

(13,869 posts)
Fri Feb 27, 2015, 03:54 PM Feb 2015

The Rude Pundit - Gun Nuts Losing Their Goddamned Minds Over Proposed Bullet Ban

It all starts with bureaucracy, of course. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, which has "Firearms" right there in its name, regulates ammunition based on laws passed by Congress. One of those laws, the Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act of 1986, which passed 400-21 in the House and 97-1 in the Senate and was signed by God Reagan, says that any ammunition that "may be used in a handgun," is made of certain materials, like steel, and can pierce body armor can be banned. That's in the actual law. In fact, if the ATF didn't seek to ban those kinds of bullets, it would be violating the law. Pretty simple, no? Pretty cut and dried, no? If Congress doesn't like it, it can change the law.

So now there's this ammo, 5.56mm constituent projectiles of SS109 and M855 cartridges, which had been exempt from the law because they weren't used in handguns. This was the "sporting purposes" exception to the law. But now there are handguns that can fire these steel-tipped, armor-piercing bullets. The ATF is proposing banning the manufacture, sale and import of them. You can keep all the ones you have or will buy in your hording frenzy. But after that, the law says, the safety of police officers comes before your desire to hunt deer wearing bulletproof vests.

Of course, the gun-fellating right has lost its mind over this proposal because the ATF is part of the executive branch and that means the Negro communist Muslim president who hates America must want to kill all the white people and take their guns in order to burn the Constitution and install a Sharia law caliphate in the country. Or something like that.

more...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026287888
(General Discussion thread)

and, if you have the stomach for it
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172162113#post2
I posted it in the Gungeon as well.
3 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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The Rude Pundit - Gun Nuts Losing Their Goddamned Minds Over Proposed Bullet Ban (Original Post) Electric Monk Feb 2015 OP
The gun nuts are billh58 Feb 2015 #1
Except it's an utterly useless move absent banning the actual gun.. sir pball Feb 2015 #2
Maybe you should send these billh58 Feb 2015 #3

billh58

(6,641 posts)
1. The gun nuts are
Fri Feb 27, 2015, 04:40 PM
Feb 2015

indeed losing their shit about this welcome and long-overdue ban on police-killing bullets for handguns. The right-wing gun lobby will spend millions to fight this...

sir pball

(4,940 posts)
2. Except it's an utterly useless move absent banning the actual gun..
Fri Feb 27, 2015, 11:09 PM
Feb 2015

Yes, the AR "handguns" shoot "cop-killer" bullets...by definition. Every damn round that comes out of one of those grotesque unwieldy abominations will chew up soft body armor, whether it's the eeeevil SS109 "armor piercing" round or an entirely innocuous Winchester white-box round you can buy at Wal-Mart. Body armor is proof against handguns, not rifles. Full stop.

Maybe banning repeating HANDGUNS designed to fire RIFLE ammunition would be more sensible, and probably more widely supported. Shit, I'd be behind it 100%.

Unless you really do want to disarm the hunters and sportsmen..

billh58

(6,641 posts)
3. Maybe you should send these
Sat Feb 28, 2015, 10:38 AM
Feb 2015

thoughts and ideas to the BATFE for their consideration, and then to Congress so that they can consider changing the law. From my point-of-view however, removing these bullets from the market is hardly "disarming" hunters and "sportsmen" (whatever that designation means). I'm sure that there are other bullets which will kill just as effectively.

Then again, this IS the Gun Control Reform Activism Group, so you might find more agreement and sympathy in another Group.

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