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H.R.5005 has been the subject of some speculation across the internet, especially the part about the government security contractor's exemption from the 1986 machine gun ban. To back up a little bit, the 1986 machine gun ban was brought about by the Hughes Amendment to the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. The procedure for passage of the Hughes Amendment was of questionable validity, but it is a bit late to challenge that 20 years later. Make no mistake; H.R.5005 does not correct the injustice of the Hughes Amendment. What it does do is allow for the correction of two situations. First, there are security firms working overseas that possess and use NFA firearms as a part of their contracted services. Given the current law, these firms are unable to develop or maintain NFA firearm proficiency within the United States. H.R.5005 would make it legal for those people/firms to possess post-86 machine guns. The second situation involves ammunition manufacturers. At this time they can not possess machine guns to test their ammunition. Obviously, if you want to sell your product to the US government, you want to be able to adequately test it before you arrive at the government tests. H.R.5005 fixes this situation. H.R.5005 does not provide for the US military to be able to privatize security services within the United States. That is already happening within some military bases. The bottom line is that H.R.5005 only performs a pin prick to NFA law. It does not correct any of the myriad of abuses to the Constitution that exist in current law. Neither does it open the flood gates to allow abuses to expand. On a scale of -5 to 5 where -5 is a Brady dream bill and 5 would repeal NFA'34, Gun Law News gives this bill a 2 - positive, but not earth shattering. Rep. Smith's office has provided their summary of H.R.5005 for our consideration.
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Written by beerslurpy on 2006-04-08 17:59:26
If they want people to carry machine guns in Iraq and be trained in the US, recruit them into the armed forces. Otherwise repeal the ban on civilians owning such weapons.
I think it is very dangerous to create a special class of warriors that can operate with neither the restrictions placed on civilians nor the rules and discipline imposed upon military personell. The end result of this bill will be a class of soldiers that take orders from the US govt but arent a political liability when they break the rules ala abu ghraib. I cant understand why everyone is having such difficulty seeing the problems this bill facilitates.
These security contractors are exempted from both state and federal restrictions on weapons ownership, use and transport. Just as we saw in Katrina, it will not take much at all to mobilize "private security contractors" for the "national security interests" of the US or its agencies. If FEMA decides it needs killers on the ground after a hurricane, it just draws up a contract and viola it is done. These security contractor provisions are very open to abuse.
As I already pointed out here (http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=193426) in pdf and word format, this bill does not actually change anything for the better. It moves existing rules from appropriations to the US Code and then scoops out some exemptions for government contractors. This bill is more like a 0 because it doesnt actually affect gun control for the average person at all. | There is more to this bill than machine
Written by admin on 2006-04-10 09:40:35
I could not disagree more.
This article didn't go into other aspects of H.R.5005, but they do exist. Remember that any law that needs to be passed yearly as a part of appropriations bills can easily be left out. Making these laws permanant has real value.
I also could not agree more that all civilians should be able to possess machine guns and without any 'tax stamp' but repeal NFA'34 or even Hughes will take alot of work.
As far as 'civilian contractors' go, they could be deputized and issued post-86 weapons now with no change in law.
In general, now matter how small the step, bills moving law in the right direction have value and help momentum. | Written by beerslurpy on 2006-04-10 22:53:17
One benefit of this that just occurred to me is that it is tepid enough to make it through the house and most of the senate without much difficulty since it is so mild. The interesting part would be in seeing who opposes it.
It could basically function as a litmus test on the gun issue for 06. Anyone who opposes it is obviously an knee-jerk anti-gunner, regardless of any rhetoric they spew. | Amendments to 5005 - that's the ticket
Written by Poshboy on 2006-04-11 13:36:43
What no one has said so far (most likely because they do not work in the Congressional arena like I do each day) is that HR 5005 _can_be_amended_.
The first place to attach a 922o repeal is in the full House Judicial Cmte vote. Yes, the bill can be amended by the anti's, but 12 years of NRA work has filled the Cmte with NRA-rated A's and A+'s. The bill as reported will then face the House Rules Cmte, which will close the rule (thus prohibiting any amendments on the House floor). If it makes it through a full House vote, than it is off to the Senate. [But a friendly Member on Judiciary HAS to offer the amendment, and I have heard no one yet step forward to offer a 922o repeal. Most likely because no one has lobbied a Member's office to do it.]
The second place to attach a 922o repeal will come when the full Senate votes on the House-passed bill. This is the time when the most danger comes. As we all know, the Senate can attach anything, and you know Schumer and Feinstein will go nuts when they read about a 922o repeal on the House bill. There will be a nasty fight, and most likely some kind of amendment will be attached, forcing it to either a conference committee or back to the full House.
The third place to attach a 922o repeal is in the conference committee. This is the place where professional Washington lobbyists attach the stuff they don't want the public/opposition to see. In the conference committee--most likely attended by about 10-15 Members--you can strip out the stuff you don't like, and add in the stuff you do. The secret is for the leadership to pick the right conference committee Members.
Conference committee reports are the ones you read about in the paper as passing in the middle of the night. You can get a 922o repeal attached in the report and sail the final bill as a complete up-or-down vote through the House and Senate. With enough public focus on the benign sections, the controversial sections will escape through along with the rest.
That's how we end up with bridges-to-nowhere, and that's how we can get a 922o repeal to the President to sign. (Don't get me started on whether Bush would sign or not; I only have one bottle of aspirin right now...)
--PB | Amendments to 5005 - that's the ticket
Written by Poshboy on 2006-04-11 13:41:23
What no one has said so far (most likely because they do not work in the Congressional arena like I do each day) is that HR 5005 _can_be_amended_.
The first place to attach a 922o repeal is in the full House Judicial Cmte vote. Yes, the bill can be amended by the anti's, but 12 years of NRA work has filled the Cmte with NRA-rated A's and A+'s. The bill as reported will then face the House Rules Cmte, which will close the rule (thus prohibiting any amendments on the House floor). If it makes it through a full House vote, than it is off to the Senate. [But a friendly Member on Judiciary HAS to offer the amendment, and I have heard no one yet step forward to offer a 922o repeal. Most likely because no one has lobbied a Member's office to do it.]
The second place to attach a 922o repeal will come when the full Senate votes on the House-passed bill. This is the time when the most danger comes. As we all know, the Senate can attach anything, and you know Schumer and Feinstein will go nuts when they read about a 922o repeal on the House bill. There will be a nasty fight, and most likely some kind of amendment will be attached, forcing it to either a conference committee or back to the full House.
The third place to attach a 922o repeal is in the conference committee. This is the place where professional Washington lobbyists attach the stuff they don't want the public/opposition to see. In the conference committee--most likely attended by about 10-15 Members--you can strip out the stuff you don't like, and add in the stuff you do. The secret is for the leadership to pick the right conference committee Members.
Conference committee reports are the ones you read about in the paper as passing in the middle of the night. You can get a 922o repeal attached in the report and sail the final bill as a complete up-or-down vote through the House and Senate. With enough public focus on the benign sections, the controversial sections will escape through along with the rest.
That's how we end up with bridges-to-nowhere, and that's how we can get a 922o repeal to the President to sign. (Don't get me started on whether Bush would sign or not; I only have one bottle of aspirin right now...)
--PB | Oops...
Written by Poshboy on 2006-04-11 13:50:09
Sorry about the duplicate posts--I am still learning this system.
If I were doing this, I would offer the 922o repeal in the conference committee. The downside is that adding the repeal at that stage could cause the whole bill to crash down to defeat. The antis would use it as an excuse to rally enough moderates to kill the bill.
But one never wins by playing safe in life. Pass the conference committee report in the wee hours before these guys adjourn for the session on an early Saturday morning in October. You won't read about it in the papers until the following Monday.
_That's_ hardball politics, the only kind I like.
--PB
| Final thought
Written by Poshboy on 2006-04-11 13:55:00
And passing a 922o repeal in the middle of the night would be a nice "F-you" to the antis who pulled the same last-minute stunt in 1986 when they gaveled the recorded vote down on the Hughes Amendment.
"What comes around, goes around," I believe is the saying. Us gunnies never forget, as the late Neal Knox once wrote.
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