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This is a quick update.  It's going up unedited as I received it
from Pop because of the urgency of the issues around muzzle-loaders
using "modern" primers (see "BATF Again 'Reaching'" below) and
because I'll be disconnected for a couple of days as I move out of
the house we've lived in for the past 11 years.  It's a short move
- -- same neighborhood, but a disruption nonetheless.
Chris 
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I wrote and am solely responsible for everything above this line
Chris Knox
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NEAL KNOX REPORT
                        Clinton's New Ban
                          By NEAL KNOX
     WASHINGTON, D.C. (Nov. 20) -- The day after Congress
recessed for the rest of the year -- not to return until Jan.
27 -- President Bill Clinton signed a long-anticipated freeze on
importing what the Administration is calling "sporterized assault
weapons."
     He opened Saturday's radio address by recounting that "In
the three years since I signed the Crime Bill ... Crime has
dropped for a record five years in a row."  Now that's a good
trick, even for Clinton.
     Naturally, he gave the credit to his semi-auto ban, the
Brady bill and "65,000 new police officers funded under the crime
bill."  Never mind that the crime rate started dropping well
before, when courts started putting more bad guys into prison
longer.
     "As effective as the assault weapons ban has been," he said,
"we know that some foreign gun manufacturers are getting around
the ban by making minor modifications to the weapons that amount
to nothing more than cosmetic surgery.  Well, we didn't fight as
hard as we have ... only to let a few gun manufacturers sidestep
our laws and undermine our progress."
     What he calls "sidestepping" the law, is merely compliance
with law -- just like automakers modifies their cars to comply
with pollution or safety requirements.
     The gunmakers simply removed the "offending" military-
pattern features -- like muzzle brakes, bayonet lugs and
protruding pistol grips.
     But those dastardly cosmetic modification brought Clinton to
near-apoplexy:  "Assault weapons in the hands of civilians exist
for no reason but to inspire fear and wreak deadly havoc on our
streets. "
     Did you notice that Mr. Clinton didn't target "criminals"
but "civilians?"
     The civilian with an H-Bar AR-15 next to me at Camp Perry
last year "wreaked havoc" only on the center of a 1,000-yard
target.
     What Clinton signed was an order suspending the importation
of "modified assault weapons" even if the BATF had already
approved the license.
     The Administration's intent, as White House official Jose
Cerda told the Los Angeles Times last month, was "taking the law
and bending it as far as we can to capture a whole new class  of 
guns."
     The excuse for the retroactive portion was that a "rogue
operation" in BATF had approved the importation of 150,000
sporterized AK-47-style guns after the Administration let it be
known that they intended to clamp down on imports.
     BATF was maligned on this one.  They merely approved the
same type guns they had been approving under the law, up until
the time the White House announced its review -- when import
permits were put on hold.
     The reason so many were approved -- for far more guns than
most importers could afford, and more than they could sell -- was
that for weeks the L.A. Times had been hyping the "rumors" that
Clinton was going to shut off imports.  Importers, reacting as
expected, promptly started getting permits while they could,
running the numbers high enough to "justify" the "crisis" that
the Administration had orchestrated.
     The legal justification for the import freeze is Sec. 925(d)
of the Gun Control Act of '68 which says "The Secretary shall
authorize a firearm ... to be imported ... if (3)... of a type
... generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily
adaptable to sporting purposes ...."
     That language was intended only to ban the import of small
or cheap handguns, but was extended a few years back to ban the
StreetSweeper shotgun.
     What the Administration intends to do is revise the "point
system," the arbitrary method BATF used to "define" sporting
handguns, which is neither law nor regulation.  And we won't like
their revisions.
     The only way we're going to find a permanent solution is to
strike the "sporting purposes" limitation.  But with Bill Clinton
in the White House, that will never become law.
     So what I've suggested to friends in Congress is amending
that section to read "suitable for ... sporting purposes or
protection of self and family...."  
     I'd like to see the poll-driven Bill Clinton veto self-
defense; I think the required super-majority of a Congress might
well vote to override an anti-defense veto during an election
year.
                               ---
(Retain Neal Knox as your personal lobbyist on Capitol Hill and
begin receiving the bi-monthly "Hard Corps Report" by any
contribution to the Firearms Coalition, Box 6537, Silver Spring,
MD 20906.  For legislative updates call 1-900-225-3006; the cost
is 89 cents per minute, with no long distance charge.)
NEAL KNOX REPORT
                      BATF Again 'Reaching'
                          By NEAL KNOX
     WASHINGTON, D.C. (Nov. 30) -- BATF issued an Industry
Circular Nov. 6 declaring that "in line" muzzle loading rifles
"designed or redesigned to use modern firearms primers are
classified as firearms under the Gun Control Act."
     Under the reasoning in BATF's ruling, any muzzle loader,
including exact copies of antiques, or even centuries-old
originals, could come under BATF's control as a "Firearm."
     The justification for this interpretation and expansion of
BATF's authority is, according to Industry Circular 98-2,
"Primers are not an antique ignition system and are ammunition
for firearms subject to regulation."
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