Does anyone know whatever became of this?

Gun Control Forces Stop NRA/Gun Industry Effort to Import Millions of Surplus Military Firearms [cold_link]source: http://www.vpc.org/news/jan98.htm[/cold_link] Working closely with Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Treasury Department and White House staff, the VPC, along with other gun control groups and peace activists, were successful in defeating an attempt by the National Rifle Association and gun importers to attach an amendment to a bill appropriating funds for the Department of the Treasury to allow the importation of 2.5 million surplus military M-1 rifles and M-1911 pistols. These weapons were originally provided to foreign governments as part of military assistance programs. Under current law it is illegal to import them. Although this effort was defeated on the House floor when that body considered the Treasury appropriations bill, the NRA resuscitated the amendment and attempted to attach it to the Commerce, Justice, State spending bill. This amendment was sponsored by Representative Alan Mollohan (D-WV). The Violence Policy Center worked to educate the public and policymakers about the dangers of this proposal. The VPC analyzed firearms tracing data from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and found that 1,800 of these weapons had been traced to crime scenes nationwide in 1995 and 1996 alone. Both the Washington Post and New York Times editorialized against the gun import amendment and used the tracing statistics provided by the VPC. Thanks primarily to the leadership and dogged determination of Senator Lautenberg, pro-gun forces succeeded only in securing language in the committee's report. This language does not have the force of law but will require that a study of surplus military imports be conducted. It is fully expected that the gun lobby will again attempt to sneak through its surplus-military amendment during the next session of Congress.

www.house.gov/mollohan/

Mollohan? Wasn't he at the center of a corruption scandal last year? Guess that one got buried.

When I'm president, not only will I strike down all the import laws, but I'm taking the '86 ban and '34 NFA out too. The ATF will be disbanded and its duties divided between the FBI and IRS.

Yeah, sure, the gun-grabbers will go into fits of rage and scramble to ban everything all over again, but in the meantime you guys can be grabbing cheap, unregistered machine guns by the crate as soon as they hit the docks.

The way I read the bit, it made it seem like we can't recover any more of our lend-lease inventory without an act of Congress (literally), as that would violate one of the import bans.

But certainly that can't be right?  Even at the time the piece was written.

Quoted: When I'm president, not only will I strike down all the import laws, but I'm taking the '86 ban and '34 NFA out too. The ATF will be disbanded and its duties divided between the FBI and IRS. Yeah, sure, the gun-grabbers will go into fits of rage and scramble to ban everything all over again, but in the meantime you guys can be grabbing cheap, unregistered machine guns by the crate as soon as they hit the docks.

I would not mind re-tasking the ATF with duties like investigating gun crimes* until their job retraining was complete (and of course, the implementation of a hiring freeze).

To borrow a page from the Dem playbook, not a complete and total surrender, a "phased withdrawal."



* such as tracking down stolen/burgled firearms.