Topic: ATF unilaterally bans further import of surplus 5.45x39

[Glock32]

The ATF is now denying import requests for surplus 5.45x39 ammunition from Russia and former ComBloc countries.  Their reason is that someone is now marketing a pistol chambered in that round, and our myriad dumbass gun laws include a ban on "armor piercing handgun ammunition".

Additional kicker is that this surplus ammunition from the 70s and 80s isn't even really armor piercing.  It does include a steel core, but it is not a hardened penetrator. That's quite common with European ammunition, because mild steel is cheaper than lead. But as you know, the ATF will latch onto any pretense in furtherance of their aim of civilian disarmament.

I'm also irritated by the mentality expressed by some in the gun community, where they are effectively placing blame for this at the feet of whoever manufactured a 5.45 pistol. Now I can see being miffed about it from purely a cause-and-effect standpoint, but it's still precisely backwards to vent your spleen on them. The culprits are the politicians and bureaucrats. I reject this mentality that says innovation and freedom of choice should be curtailed lest we incur the wrath of Nanny. The real anger should be over the fact that we permit Nanny to have that kind of power at all.

http://www.thebangswitch.com/import-ban-on-7n6-5-45x39/

[fordguy_85]

Utter ridiculousness.  And, of course these people would realize that if logic and reason EVER entered into their skulls.

[Libertas]

Begs for a blackmarket workaround, if they want to make honest people criminals, fine, but then they should expect to be dealt with themselves as tyrants.

[richb]

Stuff like this shouldn't even be an ATF decision.   Why are they lawmakers?    I sure didn't elect any ATF agents.   Did you?

[Glock32]

Stuff like this shouldn't even be an ATF decision.   Why are they lawmakers?    I sure didn't elect any ATF agents.   Did you?

That's the biggest single problem we have, if I had to choose just one: the delegation of lawmaking authority to bureaucrats. Nobody elects these bureaucrats, and now with the degree of NSA spying that has come to light (i.e. spying on elected officials), there is a very real question of who has authority over whom. Who is really in charge, the people's elected representatives or the entrenched bureaucrats?

Mark Steyn is fond of pointing out that you don't need permanence in your President or Congress as long as you have a permanent bureaucracy. Elections come and go, majority parties come and go, committee chairs and memberships come and go, but the bureaucracy never changes. It's always there, and regardless of who is in elected office the bureaucracy will invariably work toward that which aggrandizes its own power and funding.

This whole thing of Congress passing large, comprehensive bills and allowing the alphabet agencies to fill in the blanks as they deem necessary has to be ended some way, somehow.  It must be put on the new list of "injuries and usurpations".

[Pandora]

This whole thing of Congress passing large, comprehensive bills and allowing the alphabet agencies to fill in the blanks as they deem necessary has to be ended some way, somehow.  It must be put on the new list of "injuries and usurpations".

This is precisely how we've ended up with almost every area of our lives so strictly regulated.  There is no way in hell any Congress would ever have the time to write and pass all the laws necessary to do the dirty work of the agencies.

[Glock32]

5.45x39 7N6 Ammo Banned From Importation By ATF? (HD)

*sigh*

So, it's not just a rumor.  Funny -- the "not the hill to die on" crowd was initially out there pooh-poohing these reports as premature.  What is it with so many people on our side of the political spectrum?  They're incredulous when they should be concerned, and gullible when they should be calling bullsh*t.

This may not be the end of the world, because imports of commercial lead-core 5.45 will continue....for now anyway.  But that's just the point ain't it?  That so much can become instantly Verboten with the stroke of some bureaucrat's pen.  Even if they are later found to be wrong, first you have to get somebody with the resources to bring a suit, then they have to have legal standing, then they have to go through layers of appeals, meanwhile the bureaucracy defends itself with an army of lawyers that you and I are paying for.  So even when they're wrong they're not really wrong, because it costs them nothing to be wrong, and they can be wrong for years and have their desired influence on things.  The process matters more than the result.