Jon Christian Ryter -- ATF Wants to Regulate Chore Boy and 14" Shoelaces

ATF WANTS TO REGULATE CHORE BOY AND 14" SHOELACES

By Jon Christian Ryter
December 28, 2011
NewsWithViews.com

On Dec. 14, 2011 David Codrea of the Gun Rights blog for the Examiner.com released a copy of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms [ATF} opinion letter in which the firearms regulatory agency has construed the right to regulate Chore Boy® copper cleansing pads, fiberglass insulation and, of course, 14" shoelaces—if consumers buy too much.

The ATF assumes the right under the US Code to warn consumers that "stockpiling" copper scouring pads can legally be construed as a violation of the National Firearms Act 18 USC 92[a][24] because Chore Boy® can, and with provocation will, be considered an essential component of a gun silencer. As such, the ATF believes the federal government has a right to regulate the use of Chore Boy® copper scouring pads by restricting your right to buy multiple boxes of copper scouring pads at your neighborhood supermarket and too much Fiberglas™ insulation at your local home improvement store. If you are surprised that the ATF would assume the right to regulate Chore Boy® copper scouring pads, remember this is the same agency that tried to regulate 14" shoelaces as a machine gun-making "component" on Sept. 30, 2004.

On that date the ATF responded to a Feb. 6, 2004 letter from a Brian A. Blakely. The ATF was asked about the legality of using a small piece of string to increase the cycling rate of a semiautomatic rifle. Sterling Nixon, then the Chief of the Firearms Technology Branch responded by telling Blakely that any weapon that can be retrofitted to automatically fire more than one shot without physically pulling the trigger according to the National Firearms Act, 26 USC § 5845(b) is construed to be a machine gun. In 1996, the FTB classified a 14" shoelace with a loop at each end that was used to convert a semiautomatic rifle into a machine gun as a machine gun component as defined by 26 USC § 5845(b). Modifying a weapon by any person who is not a licensed gun manufacturer is a violation of law.

The Blakely inquiry dealt with a question concerning the repairing of a legal, registered silencer, and the repairing and/or replacing of the gas/sound-absorbing material in the silencer. The silencer could be repaired with a dollar's worth of fiberglass insulation and a few scraps of a copper Chore Boy. John R. Spencer, the current head of the Firearms Technology Branch of the ATF responded by saying that anyone except a licensed gun manufacturer repairing a silencer would be a violation of federal law. The proper procedure, Spencer advised, would be for the owner of the registered silencer to submit an application to the ATF and pay a $200 fee. In addition, he would also have to submit a "no marking" variance to the FTB since there would be no space on the silencer in which to apply a new serial number to the newly-added sound-absorbing material. Spencer also advised Blakely that it would not be legal for the owner of the registered silencer to "...have a stockpile of sound-absorbing materials for his own use in replacing deteriorated sound-absorbing material."

In March, 2010 a Cornelius, Oregon store owner, Brad Morgan and his son Ben discovered that a shipment of Airsoft BB pistols they ordered from Taiwan were seized by the Obama Administration's ATF agents in an Oct. 30, 2009 raid in Tacoma, Washington. The BB guns, which were worth $12,000 were slated for destruction because ATF Special Agent Kevin Crenshaw said "...[w]ith minimal work it could be converted to a machine gun." In reality, the ATF seized the BB guns because they were missing the blaze orange tips which are required on all imported toy guns. Ben Morgan disagreed with Crenshaw, saying "...[t]o say these are readily convertible to machine guns is absolutely preposterous. The round wouldn't go into the firing chamber, and even if the firing pin did strike the primer, the gun would basically blow up in your face."

Last October the Obama Administration's State Department barred the Republic of South Korea from returning tens of thousands of refurbished surplus M1 Garand rifles to the US consumer market by classifying the semi-automatic WWII and Korean War-era rifle as a threat to public safety in the United States. A Dept. of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms document uncovered by the Examiner's gun rights writer, David Codrea, revealed the ATF's alarm over the fact that the rifle that won World War II would not be regulated any more than any other firearm sold in America. Somehow that bothered the bureaucrats in the US government who are in bed with the globalists trying to impose a global ban on the private ownership of all firearms in the world in order to subdue all populations and make them serfs of the overlords of Utopia.

In May, 2009 the State Dept. approved South Korea's request to sell 87,301 M1 Garand rifles and 770,160 M1 carbine rifles to US gun distributors f or commercial resale in the United States. The Obama ATF contacted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and advised her that the White House felt that such a large stock of rifles "...poses a threat to public safety in the United States." In other words, the White House said "no."

But they actually didn't say that. What the ATF said—supposedly looking out for the profits of the retailers—is that the transfer of so many weapons would raise the number of guns available and lower the price (based on too large of a supply), making them more readily available, and cheaper. On top of that, the ATF said, the M1 rifles "...may be legitimately sold, trafficked or otherwise transferred. The only controls are the ones in the Gun Control Act of 1968 and, while these controls require federal firearms licensees to keep records, and place some restrictions on their firearms sales...very few records are required to be provided to the ATF, and ATF is specifically prohibited from maintaining any form of firearm registry." They further argued that anyone who can purchase seven separate parts for the M1—and install them correctly—could probably convert the carbine into a machine gun.

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"Could," "probably." The odds of the average deer hunter doing that are about as good as the Mortons converting BB guns into a live ammo-firing weapon, or converting a carbine into a machine gun with a common, ordinary 14" shoelace. What bothers the Obama Administration, I suspect, is the thought of having about a million military-trained conservative civilians armed with military-grade weapons when Obama or some other social progressive decides to surrender the United States to the UN.