BATFE Taking Comments on "Sporting Purposes" Exemption to "Armor Piercing Ammunition" Law Until Dec. 31
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is taking public comments on its website until December 31, with regard to how it should determine what types of projectiles meet the "sporting purposes" exception to the federal "armor piercing ammunition" law. At this time, the question centers primarily around rifle-caliber projectiles made of metals harder than lead, such as the Barnes Bullets solid brass hunting bullets.
Under the law, adopted in 1986, "armor piercing ammunition" is defined as "a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium." A second definition, added in the 1990s, includes "a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile."
Because handguns have been made in certain rifle calibers, many bullets that were designed originally for rifles also "may be used in a handgun." If such projectiles are made of the metals listed in the law, they are restricted as "armor piercing ammunition" unless they meet one of the law's exemptions. Being considered at this time is the exemption for "a projectile which the Attorney General finds is primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes."
Last week, BATFE met separately with gun control activist groups, firearm industry groups, and groups representing hunters and other gun owners. The latter meeting included the NRA; Safari Club International; representatives of state wildlife agencies; and firearm and ammunition importers.
BATFE has expressed two opinions about the law and exemption that warrant particular scrutiny.
First, BATFE suggested that it believes that the "armor piercing ammunition" law was intended to affect all ammunition capable of penetrating soft body armor worn by law enforcement officers. NRA reminded BATFE that the law was intended to protect law enforcement officers against the potential threat posed a very narrowly-defined category of projectiles: those, such as KTW and Arcane, which by virtue of their hard metal construction were designed and intended to be used by law enforcement officers to shoot through hard objects, such as automobile glass and doors, when fired at the velocities typical of handgun-caliber ammunition fired from handguns. Neither before nor since the law's enactment, has an officer been killed due to such a bullet penetrating soft body armor.
NRA further pointed out that the legislative history of the law clearly shows that members of Congress, including the sponsor of the law in the House, Rep. Mario Biaggi (D-N.Y.), a decorated former NYPD police officer, expressly did not want the law to restrict rifle-caliber bullets that happen to also be useable in handguns chambered to use rifle cartridges.
Second, BATFE says it considers projectiles to not be exempt under the "sporting purposes" test if they "pose a threat to public safety and law enforcement." BATFE also expressed concern that since the law was adopted, various new rifle-caliber handguns have been invented. On that point, NRA made clear that the sporting purposes exemption is straightforward: it applies to all projectiles that are "primarily intended for sporting purposes"--nothing more, and nothing less. Under the law, a projectile would be exempt if it is primarily intended for sporting purposes, even if it is secondarily intended for self-defense or some other legitimate purpose. Furthermore, the law does not condition its restrictive language or its "sporting purposes" exemption on the design of a particular handgun; the law is concerned only with specific projectiles that can be used in handguns. NRA cautioned the BATFE against interpreting the law in a manner more restrictive than Congress intended.
For more information on ATF's position and information on how to submit comments by the Dec. 31 deadline, go to www.atf.gov/firearms/industry/. http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2012/batfe-taking-comments-on-sporting-purposes-exemption-to-armor-piercing-ammunition-law-until-dec-31.aspx
What can happen to your guns if you get caught in a hurricane. Or don't care for them properly.
These are pictures from some guns that were flooded with salt water from Hurricane Sandy. I have been cleaning these guns for a couple weeks on and off. Takes me about an hour to clean each one completely. Some are so bad that I have been sanding the parts to try to take the pitting out from the rust. On this first Mossberg I actually sanded and sand blasted the bolt. Never thought I’d ever have to do that to a gun.
You can go to the link and see more, take care of your junk. http://jesseingall.com/?p=3483
More good news
Smith & Wesson Posts 48% Increase In Second Quarter Sales As Demand Surges For All Firearm Products
U.S. firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson reported a 48 percent increase in sales in its announcement of the company's second-quarter financial results for fiscal year 2013.
The company's press release read:
"Net sales from continuing operations for the second quarter were a record $136.6 million, up 48.0% from the second quarter last year. The increase was led by continued strong sales across all of the company's firearm product lines."
As CNSNews.com previously reported, gun sales have surged since the reelection of Barack Obama, reaching an all-time single day record on Black Friday this year with 154,873 background checks completed by the FBI.
The press release also shows that the company now anticipates higher net sales from continuing operations. The latest projections estimate between $550.0 million and $560.0 million in net sales for fiscal year 2013, which would represent year-over-year growth from continuing operations of approximately 35.0%.
James Debney, President and Chief Executive Officer of Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation stated:
"Our strong fiscal second quarter financial performance reflects the ongoing successful execution of our strategic plan, and accordingly today we are increasing our full year fiscal 2013 financial guidance."
http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/smith-wesson-posts-48-increase-second-quarter-sales-demand-surges-all
Black boxes in cars raise privacy concerns
WASHINGTON - Many motorists don't know it, but it's likely that every time they get behind the wheel, there's a snitch along for the ride.
In the next few days, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to propose long-delayed regulations requiring auto manufacturers to include event data recorders - better known as "black boxes" - in all new cars and light trucks. But the agency is behind the curve. Automakers have been quietly tucking the devices, which automatically record the actions of drivers and the responses of their vehicles in a continuous information loop, into most new cars for years.
When a car is involved in a crash or when its airbags deploy, inputs from the vehicle's sensors during the 5 to 10 seconds before impact are automatically preserved. That's usually enough to record things like how fast the car was traveling and whether the driver applied the brake, was steering erratically or had a seat belt on.
The idea is to gather information that can help investigators determine the cause of accidents and lead to safer vehicles. But privacy advocates say government regulators and automakers are spreading an intrusive technology without first putting in place policies to prevent misuse of the information collected.
Data collected by the recorders is increasingly showing up in lawsuits, criminal cases and high-profile accidents. Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray initially said that he wasn't speeding and that he was wearing his seat belt when he crashed a government-owned car last year. But the Ford Crown Victoria's data recorder told a different story: It showed the car was traveling more than 100 mph and Murray wasn't belted in.
In 2007, then-New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine was seriously injured in the crash of an SUV driven by a state trooper. Corzine was a passenger. The SUV's recorder showed the vehicle was traveling 91 mph on a parkway where the speed limit was 65 mph, and Corzine didn't have his seat belt on.
There's no opt-out. It's extremely difficult for car owners to disable the recorders. Although some vehicle models have had recorders since the early 1990s, a federal requirement that automakers disclose their existence in owner's manuals didn't go into effect until three months ago. Automakers who voluntarily put recorders in vehicles are also now required to gather a minimum of 15 types of data.
Besides the upcoming proposal to put recorders in all new vehicles, the traffic safety administration is also considering expanding the data requirement to include as many as 30 additional types of data such as whether the vehicle's electronic stability control was engaged, the driver's seat position or whether the front-seat passenger was belted in. Some manufacturers already are collecting the information. Engineers have identified more than 80 data points that might be useful.
Despite privacy complaints, the traffic safety administration so far hasn't put any limits on how the information can be used. About a dozen states have some law regarding data recorders, but the rest do not.
"Right now we're in an environment where there are no rules, there are no limits, there are no consequences and there is no transparency," said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy advocacy group. "Most people who are operating a motor vehicle have no idea this technology is integrated into their vehicle."
Part of the concern is that the increasing computerization of cars and the growing transmission of data to and from vehicles could lead to unintended uses of recorder data.
"Basically your car is a computer now, so it can record all kinds of information," said Gloria Bergquist, vice president of the Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers. "It's a lot of the same issues you have about your computer or your smartphone and whether Google or someone else has access to the data."
The alliance opposes the government requiring recorders in all vehicles.
Data recorders "help our engineers understand how cars perform in the real world, and we already have put them on over 90 percent of (new) vehicles without any mandate being necessary," Bergquist said.
Safety advocates, however, say requiring data recorders in all cars is the best way to gather a large enough body of reliable information to enable vehicle designers to make safer automobiles
.
"The barn door is already open. It's a question of whether we use the information that's already out there," said Henry Jasny, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Automotive Safety.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been pushing for recorders in all passenger vehicles since the board's investigation of a 2003 accident in which an elderly driver plowed through an open-air market in Santa Monica, Calif. Ten people were killed and 63 were injured. The driver refused to be interviewed and his 1992 Buick LeSabre didn't have a recorder. After ruling out other possibilities, investigators ultimately guessed that he had either mistakenly stepped on the gas pedal or had stepped on the gas and the brake pedals at the same time
When reports of sudden acceleration problems in Toyota vehicles cascaded in 2009 and 2010, recorder data from some of the vehicles contributed to the traffic safety administration's conclusion that the problem was probably sticky gas pedals and floor mats that could jam them, not defects in electronic throttle control systems.
"Black box" is a mechanic's term for a part that should only be opened by someone with authority to do so. The term is most widely used to refer to flight data recorders, which continually gather hundreds of data points about an aircraft's operation during flight. Aircraft recorders, by law, are actually bright orange.
Some automakers began installing the recorders at a time when there were complaints that air bags might be causing deaths and injuries, partly to protect themselves against liability and partly to improve air bag technology. Most recorders are black boxes about the size of a deck of card with circuit boards inside. After an accident, information is downloaded to a laptop computer using a tool unique to the vehicle's manufacturer. As electronics in cars have increased, the kinds of data that can be recorded have grown as well. Some more recent recorders are part of the vehicle's computers rather than a separate device.
Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., has repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, introduced legislation to require that automakers design recorders so that they can be disabled by motorists
A transportation bill passed by the Senate earlier this year would have required that all new cars and light trucks have recorders and designated a vehicle's owner as the owner of the data. The provision was removed during House-Senate negotiations on the measure at the behest of House Republican lawmakers who said they were concerned about privacy.
"Many of us would see it as a slippery slope toward big government and Big Brother knowing what we're doing and where we are," Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., who is slated to take over the chairmanship of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in January, said at the time. "Privacy is a big concern for many across America."
http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/20286045/black-boxes-in-cars-raise-privacy-concerns#ixzz2ENxW4Zah
Of course i look at a little different from the artocle, but i think it is outstanding that 3 out of 4 NFL players own guns
NFL players: Three out of four own guns
NFL players say they need to own guns for protection, and that hasn't changed despite the Jovan Belcher shootings.
Most players say Jovan Belcher murder-suicide will not change attitudes"I was always shocked at the number," says former coach Tony Dungy of gun ownershipMany cite 2007 death of Sean Taylor from home invasion as motivation for buying guns
11:12AM EST December 7. 2012 - Former NFL running back Thomas Jones was always around guns, long before he became a football-carrying member of that unofficial gun club within the National Football League.
As a kid, he and his buddies fired guns in the woods in Big Stone Gap, Va. They'd shoot bottles and go hunting.
His dad had guns.
Jones bought his first gun his senior year at the University of Virginia, and, as a rookie with the Arizona Cardinals a dozen years ago, he learned quickly that guns were an ingrained part of the NFL culture.
COMPLETE COVERAGE: Belcher tragedy
"Most guys when they first come into the league is when they first start to realize they need protection," Jones says. "Because money brings a lot of positive things. But most of the time, it brings more negative things. People don't like you for what you have, for who you are. They don't like you for what you represent. And people will go to any length to take what you have or harm you in some way just because they don't have what you have. If you don't have a firearm to protect you from situations and God forbid something happens to you, you wish you would have a firearm."
Jones, who retired last season with the Kansas City Chiefs after 12 years in the league, was a big brother to young linebacker Jovan Belcher, who killed his girlfriend, and then himself, last Saturday.
Yet less than a week removed from the tragic shootings in Kansas City, NFL players aren't ready to give any ground on their belief that carrying guns is not only a right but, in their world, a necessity. Indeed, numerous players told USA TODAY Sports that in their estimation, roughly three-quarters of NFL players owned guns, compared with 40% to 45% of households in the general population, according to the National Rifle Association.
Though no statistics on NFL gun ownership exist, and league spokesman Greg Aiello called the percentage estimates "a wild guess," even former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy — widely viewed, even now, as the moral compass of the NFL — says the number of players who armed themselves during his tenure "shocked" him.
When Dungy, now an NBC analyst, was coaching the Colts, he'd always ask at the first team meeting of the year, "How many of you guys have guns?" Then he would tell the players that they needed to register their weapons in Indiana.
"I was always shocked at the number of guys who raised their hand. ... That was kind of eye-opening to me. ... (But) it's just a fact of life. These guys had them. ... I think so many of these young guys have been around guns and have seen guns, and they just feel that's part of the landscape for them growing up."
Like Jones, Belcher owned guns. But Belcher shot and killed his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, the mother of their three-month-old daughter, and then killed himself with a different gun in front of his coach and general manager in the parking lot of Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium.
"I'm not ... trying to tell guys in the league they need to purchase firearms," Jones says. "I'm just saying to be realistic about our lifestyle."
Wayne LaPierre, chief executive officer for the NRA, dismisses any notion that guns are to blame for the tragedy, or that NFL players are in some way different.
"It's not a culture of athletes," he says. "It is particular behavior by particular individuals that is no different from the rest of society. We've got to stop making excuses. A murderer is a murderer."
Lessons of Taylor's deathAccording to numerous players, it's not a secret that the NFL is loaded with firearms. One of the reasons routinely mentioned is protection, and one of the incidents players often cite is the death of Sean Taylor, a Washington Redskins safety who was killed in a home invasion in Miami in 2007. He was 24.
Redskins kick returner Brandon Banks echoes the mantra that it's all about protection. The third-year player, who declined to say whether he owns a gun, says "70% of the NFL players have guns. Guys get them as soon as they start getting some money, when people start knowing where you live."
BENEFITS: Belcher daughter eligible for at least $1 million
Players in other pro sports leagues agree with that sentiment, including in the NBA where former Utah Jazz star Karl Malone, a noted outdoorsman, once put the number of gun owners at "close to 60%."
But just as in the greater society beyond sports, gun ownership isn't only about protection. For many players and millions of Americans, guns are simply the equipment for another popular sport: hunting.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger calls himself "a huge hunter" and says he owns rifles, shotguns and handguns. He estimates the percentage of NFL players who own guns at "over 75%-80%."
Roethlisberger's teammate, James Harrison, is a gun collector and one of the most avid gun advocates in sports. Harrison reacted to the Belcher story with sadness, but the all-pro linebacker is unapologetic about his passion for firearms.
"It has nothing to do with the guns," Harrison says. "Somebody goes out and kills somebody with a knife; you going to blame the knife? It's the person who did it who's responsible."
Redskins wide receiver Josh Morgan no longer owns a gun. But he says he grew up in Washington, D.C., carrying unregistered handguns. He gave up guns "after one of my best friends got killed. That's when I had to stop. When you see so many people get killed and you witness so many deaths and go to so many funerals before you leave high school — and you've got 12, 13, 14 friends die from murder or get stabbed — you get tired of going to funerals. You get tired of crying."
Morgan says he knows a lot of players who own guns for protection, and he defends their right, even as he chooses not to exercise his.
"Some people just have nothing to lose," he says. "When you've got people like that, you've got no choice but to protect yourself and protect your family."
MEMORIAL: Kasandra Perkins remembered for bringing joy
The NFL's Aiello says the league educates players about guns and weapons every year. Each team conducts an annual mandatory preseason meeting with NFL security, club security and local law enforcement at which gun laws are reviewed and explained. At this meeting, NFL employees are urged not to own guns, according to Aiello.
Some players have followed that advice.
"I do not own a gun," says Redskins tight end Logan Paulsen. "It's something my wife and I have discussed. We (the team) are away a lot, so it gives me some peace of mind knowing she could protect herself (if she did have a gun). It also makes me nervous because there are a lot of issues with gun safety."
Paulsen, who puts the league gun ownership number at "70-80%," realizes that he's "definitely in the minority."
But Troy Vincent, the NFL vice president of player engagement who played from 1992-2006, disputes that the league has a gun culture, or that players commonly own and collect guns.
"No. No. I've never. … You'll hear people say, 80%-90%, 20%. How do you know that? We don't ask that question. That's personal information. ... (But) we're not naive by any stretch of the imagination."
While echoing Aiello's comments that the league does all it can to educate players, Vincent shed tears and became emotional when asked about the Belcher tragedy.
"A young lady lost her life, and it didn't have to be that way."
Family and friends said goodbye to Kasandra Perkins, 22, at a funeral Thursday in Blue Ridge, Texas.
Too eager to arm?
Because Belcher was a gun owner, a person in his home would have been three times more likely to be involved in a homicide, and five times more likely to have killed himself, according to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine.
If that Saturday in Kansas City were an average day in America, 32 people were slain with guns and another 54 people were killed by guns in suicides or accidents, according to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. More than 31,000 people in the USA die in gun-related incidents each year. This year, one of those deaths was the stunning suicide of recently retired NFL superstar linebacker Junior Seau, who had acquired a handgun for protection but, according to his friends, hardly knew how to load it.
SEAU'S FINAL DAYS: Plagued by sleepless nights
Whatever the reasons athletes give for gun ownership — or their Second Amendment rights to legally purchase firearms — gun safety advocates continue to be concerned about the link between guns and professional athletes. There's nothing wrong with owning a gun, they say, if the buyer is ready for gun ownership."
"You have young people with a lot of money, and there may be a quickness in a decision to buy a gun," says Dan Gross, president of the Brady Center. "There's a kind of social norm that exists in certain professional sports around ownership of a gun. It's kind of encouraged. And I think there's a tendency among professional athletes not to look into the right equation in terms of risks versus benefits."
Not true, says the NRA's LaPierre, who blames the premise of a gun culture in the NFL on the media and anti-gun groups.
"You've got good Americans who love to play sports, who are disciplined, who are responsible, and they're no different from any other Americans," he says. "Owning guns is a mainstream part of American culture, and it's growing every day."
Gross says he and his organization aren't trying to ban guns. They seek education and awareness, and they urge potential gun owners to pause and consider that — statistically speaking — placing themselves around guns increases their risks.
"What we saw with Belcher and Kasandra Perkins was a very clear manifestation of those risks, as was Junior Seau," Gross says.
LaPierre counters: "The one thing missing in that equation is that woman owning a gun so she could have saved her life from that murderer."
Other sports leagues
Just as with the NFL, other pro sports leagues have had their share of gun controversies.
In December 2009, Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton violated NBA rules when they had unloaded guns in the Washington Wizards' team locker room. Both were suspended for the remainder of the season. But gun ownership — for sport and protection — remains vibrant.
Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, now a commentator on TNT, says, "Most of the guys I played with over the years always had protection. We've had some players get mugged going home late at night, coming off a road trip or leaving nightclubs. But I've never heard of a situation like (the Belcher shootings) where everything went crazy."
Barkley, too, says that a tragic aberration like what happened in Kansas City doesn't diminish his right to own a weapon: Having a gun "is a personal choice. It's my personal choice, and I'm not going to change it. I don't care what anybody says."
NBA veteran and Los Angeles Clippers star Lamar Odom doesn't own a gun, even though he was once held up at gunpoint.
"I understand there are mixed feelings and mixed emotions about it," he says. "I think it's our right to be able to protect our homes, but I just don't feel the need."
Major League Baseball has long been associated with a hunting culture. This week, Chicago Cubs manager Dale Sveum revealed that former teammate Robin Yount accidentally shot him in the right ear on a recent quail hunt. And San Diego Padres general manager Josh Byrnes spoke out on guns after one of his pitchers, Andrew Cashner, lacerated a tendon in his right thumb with a knife after a deer hunt this offseason.
"As a GM, I am concerned," Byrnes said Thursday, while noting that he supports gun control. "We can control things on the job, but away from it, we hope they make the right decisions."
But Atlanta Braves general manager Frank Wren argues that hunting lends itself to experience with guns.
"What's different is that the hunting culture for the most part are the most gun-savvy and the most careful and cautious of any group of gun owners," says Wren. "And we're also not talking about handguns. That's a whole other class that we don't see."
Wren has plenty of experience on his teams with avid hunters, among them recently retired star Chipper Jones and former Braves first baseman Adam Laroche. Wren recalls them often setting up targets under the stadium where the grounds crew stores sand and practicing with bows and arrows. But he says in his 25 years with several franchises, he's never come across issues with players and guns. He says part of that stems from many players coming from Sun Belt states, where guns are often introduced in childhood.
"The first thing you do as a kid in the South is go take a gun safety course," Wren says.
Saving lives, or taking lives?
But just a day after the Chiefs gathered at Belcher's memorial service, players question whether the murder-suicide will have any lasting impact on the league.
Steelers wide receiver Plaxico Burress, infamous for accidentally shooting himself in a New York City nightclub in 2008, called the Belcher shootings "very, very unfortunate" but isn't sure the tragedy will be a lasting lesson to a gun-heavy league.
"It will for a little while," says Burress, who served 20 months in prison because he was carrying the gun illegally. "But over time something else will happen and we'll be having the same discussion then. Things like this happen to people every day. It just happened to be Jovan, somebody that we knew.
Steelers safety and player representative Ryan Clark doesn't own a gun in a locker room where his quarterback estimates that most of his teammates do. He has twice seen gun-related tragedies up close. Clark's freshman year at LSU in 1999, a close friend killed himself with a shotgun blast to the face.
"Everybody sat around the next day when we found out, wondering what could we have done different. What could we have said to him? You don't see the signs. We never found out why," Clark says.
He was also a teammate and friend of the Redskins' Taylor, whom he played with from 2004-05 before joining Steelers in 2006. Taylor armed himself with a machete during the home invasion in which he was shot dead.
"If Sean had a gun, he's probably alive today," Clark says. "I choose not to own one. But guys are targets and they have their families and they have guns in their homes, they want to protect themselves and they have the right to. The law gives them the right to."
Clark recognizes the difficult calculus, and societal wrenching, over the issue of gun ownership.
"In that case, Sean Taylor, maybe it saves a life there. But in the next case (Belcher), it takes two lives."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2012/12/06/jovan-belcher-kansas-city-chief-nfl-guns/1752195/
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