Through executive action, Obama has banned ammo for the top-selling AR-15 style semi-automatic, labeling them ‘cop killers’, and The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will put the ban of 5.56 mm ammo on a fast track, which already driving up price and demand.
Gun stores are now reporting an increase in price of 30% and an increase in demand of 1000%.
Wednesday night, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, stepped in with a critical letter to the bureau demanding it explain the surprise and abrupt bullet ban. The letter is shown below.
The National Rifle Association, which is working with Goodlatte to gather co-signers, told Secrets that30 House members have already co-signed the letter and Goodlatte and the NRA are hoping to get a total of 100 fast.
“The Obama administration was unable to ban America’s most popular sporting rifle through the legislative process, so now it’s trying to ban commonly owned and used ammunition through regulation,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA-ILA, the group’s policy and lobby shop. “The NRA and our tens of millions of supporters across the country will fight to stop President Obama’s latest attack on our Second Amendment freedoms.”
At issue is so-called “armor-piercing” ammunition, an exemption for those bullets mostly used for sport by AR-15 owners, and the recent popularity of pistol-style ARs that use the ammo.
The inexpensive 5.56 M855 ammo, commonly called lightgreen tips, have been exempt for years, as have higher-caliber ammunition that also easily pierces the type of soft armor worn by police, because it’s mostly used by target shooters, not criminals. The agency proposes to reclassify it as armor-piercing and not exempt.
But now BATFE says that since the bullets can be used in semi-automatic handguns they pose a threat to police and must be banned from production, sale and use. But, as Goodlatte noted, the agency offered no proof. Federal agencies will still be allowed to buy the ammo.
“This round is amongst the most commonly used in the most popular rifle design in America, the AR-15. Millions upon millions of M855 rounds have been sold and used in the U.S., yet ATF has not even alleged — much less offered evidence — that even one such round has ever been fired from a handgun at a police officer,” said Goodlatte’s letter.
Even some police don’t buy the administration’s claim. “Criminals aren’t going to go out and buy a $1,000 AR pistol,” Brent Ball, owner of 417 Guns in Springfield, Mo., and a 17-year veteran police officer told the Springfield News-Leader. “As a police officer I’m not worried about AR pistols because you can see them. It’s the small gun in a guy’s hand you can’t see that kills you.”
Many see the bullet ban as an assault on the AR-15 and Obama’s back-door bid to end production and sale.
“We are concerned,” said Justin Anderson with Hyatt Gun Shop in Charlotte, N.C., one of the nation’s top sellers of AR-15 style rifles. “Frankly, we’re always concerned when the government uses back-door methods to impose quasi-gun control.”
Groups like the National Shooting Sports Foundation suggest that under BATFE’s new rule, other calibers like popular deer hunting .308 bullets could be banned because they also are used in AR platforms, some of which can be turned into pistol-style guns. “This will have a detrimental effect on hunting nationwide,” said the group.
Kirk H Thiery The only thing worse that sites like this are the waves of gullible idiots that hang on every word, do no research themselves, and believe EVERYTHING they are told. This is why the country is in the shape it is…
He has no authority to do that and any law enforcement officer that tries to enforce it should be charges with a constitutional violation.
Give him his own Country he can make his Constitution, like GITMO!
False
A true gun enthusiast knows how to reload their own ammo. It goes to show how this president is totally that stupid.
National Rifle Association (NRA) Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre relied on numerous falsehoods to claim that President Obama will move to ban sales of all firearm ammunition before he leaves office, thus making “the very real nightmare of every single gun owner in this country” a reality.
In the May issue of the NRA’s magazine, America’s 1st Freedom, LaPierre wrote, “President Barack Obama is setting the table to ban your ammunition — all of it,” and claimed that “the remaining two years of Obama’s term pose the greatest threat ever to the Second Amendment and our freedom.”
LaPierre imagined a ludicrous scheme where “two fatal turns of events” would lead the EPA to ban all lead ammunition and, subsequently, the Obama administration to ban all non-lead ammunition. According to LaPierre, “The president’s bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are partnering with private enviro-radicals to ban lead projectiles — including all hunting bullets — as hazardous.”
Despite the fact that the EPA has given no indication that it is preparing regulations on lead ammunition, LaPierre insisted that the agency is still seeking a ban.
The facts prove him wrong. In December 2014, FoxNews.com reported that “[i]n a decision favorable to gun enthusiasts,” a federal court ruled against environmentalists who argued that the EPA has the authority to regulate lead ammunition. According to FoxNews.com, “The National Rifle Association and much of the pro-gun lobby intervened on the EPA’s side in urging the federal appeals court to uphold the dismissal of a lawsuit by 101 environmentalist organizations.” (The EPA does not believe it has authority to regulate lead ammunition under the Toxic Substances Control Act.)
Furthermore, as the NRA’s own website notes, the NRA declared “victory” in December 2014, after claiming it secured congressional appropriations language that included “a new provision to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), or any other federal agency, from regulating traditional ammunition and fishing tackle.”
More broadly, LaPierre ignored the fact that proposals to ban lead ammunition have only focused on its use in hunting, because lead in spent ammunition leaches into the ecosystem and can fatally poison endangered wildlife. Environmental groups are not trying to ban lead ammunition used for the purpose of self-defense. For example, in California, the first state to ban lead ammunition for hunting, a new regulation banning lead bullets only applies “when taking wildlife.”
The other fallacy LaPierre forwards to back up his theory that Obama is planning to take away Americans’ ammunition has to do with the since-abandoned effort by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to ban a particular type of armor-piercing round used in the AR-15 assault weapon and similar military-style guns.
The ATF announced its intent to try and ban a particular type of AR-15 ammunition known as M855, or “green tip,” in February. Citing concerns for the safety of law enforcement officers, the ATF said the move was necessary because the round contains a steel penetrator, which makes it more powerful than other types of ammunition used in the AR-15.
If Obama “can set a precedent by banning AR-15 ammunition,” LaPierre wrote, “he is well on his way to banning any and all of the ammo his anti-freedom heart desires.”
But in March, after the NRA unleashed a campaign against the proposed ban, the ATF announced that it was withdrawing its proposal. Asked whether the ATF had any future plans to ban “green tip,” then-ATF Director B. Todd Jones told a congressional hearing, “It probably isn’t going to happen any time soon,” adding, “We are not going to move forward.” Even if the ATF were to reverse course and ban “green tip” ammo, a multitude of non-lead ammunition options, both for the AR-15 rifle and all other guns, would still be available for purchase.
LaPierre’s baseless assertion that one of Obama last acts as president will be to ban all firearm ammunition is just the latest chapter of the NRA’s “massive Obama conspiracy” theory, which imagines the president seeking “to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country.”
Heres a good read for you.
He say’s it is to protect police? If there is a shred of truth to that is would be a first! His stance on police has not shown much interest in protection, quite the opposite. More likely it is simply a further step in disarming law abiding citizens.
Biggest POS this Country has ever seen…….
It will be changed back when we get a Republican President. In the mean time I have as many as I need to hold off a few bad guys.