I'm no fan of BATF. They loom in the background as a potential problem for American gun-owners and those of us who believe the clear wording of the Second Amendment. The reason the amendment is second only to freedom of political discourse is that the Framers knew that the people must retain the capability to throw off an oppressive government should the need arise. They had just done it ten years before they wrote the Constitution, so it wasn't a theoretical exercise.
My first encounter was with the Gun Control Act of 1968. I had bought a Beretta handgun in 1966, just prior to my first combat tour in Southeast Asia. It was my back-up weapon and it rode in a custom holster sewn to the right thigh of my G-suit. For years afterward it still had flecks of yellow paint embedded in the grip checkering where it had rubbed for 100 missions against the ejection seat handle.
When I was returning from Spain in 1976, I ran afoul of the GCA. My combat companion had become a "Saturday Night Special" and was banned from re-importation to the US. I had to resurrect receipts and proof of previous ownership before the GCA so that some petty bureaucrat could choose to bestow on me the right to retain my own property.
Now, what would you make of this:
Not A Shotgun. Now a Destructive Device. Or Something TBD
If you ever needed an example of bumbling incompetence and making it up as they go along that would be a good tale to resurrect.
Yesterday it was a shotgun. Today it isn't. But what it is today might have to be registered, taxed and licensed. Or maybe not. And just because one definition fits and another one doesn't will not be construed to mean the BATF doesn't know what they want or why they want it.
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