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Dana Milbank: NRA's idea of recreation
WASHINGTON — The days are growing colder, and soon millions of American hunters will pursue a time-honored tradition. They will load their automatic weapons with armor-piercing bullets, strap on silencers, head off to the picnic grounds on nearby public lakes — and start shooting. Here Milbanks proudly displays his abject ignorance about shooting on public lands. If you do not immediately recognize this pastime as part of America’s heritage, then you are sadly out of step with the current Republican majority in Congress. On Tuesday, a House panel takes up the “Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act of 2017,” which promises “to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing and shooting.” Among these recreational enhancements:
Note the use of the term assault rifle, which is a term made up by the left in the run up to the assault weapons ban in the 1980s. You should also be aware armor piercing slugs are allowed as long as they are the 5.56mm, not the Russian made 5.45mm, In an effort to show Russian president Vladimir Putin who was boss, someone somewhere in the jungle of the justice industry pointed out that short barreled rifles and AK pistols are being sold which can fire the most common round for the AK-74, the 7N6. President at the time Barak Obama seized on that and on his right to limit certain imports from Russia as part of sanctions after the Russian takeover of Crimea in 2014. The M-855 5.56mm round was also banned for use and sale for sporting purposes. A lot of AK shooters bitched about it, so the ban was withdrawn. But not for the 7N6. To ban the 7N6 round and not the M-855 round was, in a word, unfair to AK-74 owners. The 7N6 is called armor piercing even though it is the regularly issued round for the Russian military. It has a mild steel core, and that, according to the geniuses in the government, makes it armor piercing. Easing importation of foreign rifles: One class of rifles are foreign made rifles, which are imported but are also demilled, rendered useless, with the parts being sold as kits. Chances are that Milbank is also bitching about the reimportation of US made rifles for the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Dunno, but I know Milbank is incredibly in the dark about all of it, sufficiently so he has very little useful to say about firearms. The House Natural Resources Committee was to have had a hearing on the bill in June, before the baseball-practice shooting that seriously wounded House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, led to its cancellation. But the National Rifle Association was not to be denied. In a statement last week, the gun lobby’s director applauded the revival of the bill, which he said “will protect America’s hunters and recreational shooters and help preserve our outdoor heritage.” Among the GOP witnesses for Tuesday’s “recreational shooter” hearing: Stephen Halbrook, author of a book that draws parallels between the current gun-control debate and Nazis’ disarmament of Jews. The bill, notably, has not been embraced by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, and it is likely to draw a lot of opposition from Democrats. Clearly, both groups are dominated by elites who do not understand the joy of pheasant hunting with tungsten-tipped bullets. Allow me to explain. Milbank lamely explains: Consider Title XV of the sportsmen’s bill, also known as the “Hearing Protection Act,” which makes it easier for gun owners to buy silencers for their weapons. The uninformed might suspect that silencers are used by people who want to fire weapons without being caught by cops or observed by witnesses. But more and more hunters are finding that conventional earplugs and muffs are not adequate for today’s weapons — for example, quail hunting with an M777 howitzer or grouse hunting with an FIM-92 Stinger missile launcher. Heavy weapons. Ha ha. Good one. Sportsmen are further protected by a “Destruction of Records” provision requiring the government to delete silencer sale and transfer information. For obvious reasons, law-abiding hunters would not want silencer purchases to be logged. Such a paper trail would be an obvious tip-off to game animals, particularly those, such as the white-tailed deer, with access to the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. Cue the rimshot. Title XVI of the bill, the “Lawful Purpose and Self-Defense Act,” denies the government authority to reclassify bullets as “armor-piercing ammunition.” It’s OK if the ammunition pierces body armor, as long as the manufacturer claims the ammo is meant to be used for sport and not for killing people wearing body armor. This provision is particularly timely because a growing percentage of Western grizzlies have been seen in recent years wearing Kevlar vests when they attack schools in Wyoming. As I understand it, most modern vests Class III or less will not protect you from regular rifle slugs, not just those classified as armor piercing. I take personal comfort in Title XI of the sportsmen’s bill, which says that if you can legally own a gun in states with anything-goes gun laws (such as Texas), you can transport that gun through places with restrictive laws (such as Washington, D.C.). People could be free to take their AR-15s, their AK-47s or perhaps even their M134 machine guns to the capital. They already are free to do so, as long as they don't get caught. They wouldn’t be allowed to leave them here, but it’s likely some would do so anyway — a welcome development, because I have discovered a population of moles burrowing in my lawn. A weapon that fires 100 rounds a minute would make quick work of them. A lot Milbank knows about moles. Title V, the “Farmer and Hunter Protection Act,” would enhance hunters’ enjoyment (and farmers’ finances) by allowing them to lure migrating birds to certain fields where crops have not been harvested — and shoot them. Those “sportsmen” who find this unsporting could instead make their way to one of the recreational areas run by the Army Corps of Engineers, which receive 370 million visitors a year — and would receive armed visitors under Title III, the “Recreational Lands Self-Defense Act.” The need for this is transparent. Suppose you are with your family, drinking beer on a pontoon boat on the lake, and another family’s boat bumps yours. Under current law, you have no recourse. But under this bill, you could settle things according to your sportsmen’s heritage, by raising your silencer-equipped assault gun and firing armor-piercing bullets at migratory birds. That's what Milbank would do anyway, the moment his cajones drop. Posted by: badanov 2017-09-15 |
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