Updating Military Brass Story and More

As we first reported last week, Alliant Techsystems (NYSE:ATK) has announced that it has discontinued a program of recycling spent brass casings from U.S. military installations. The decision should allow more once-fired military brass to be sold to civilian gun owners.

Montana Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester went to war with the Department of Defense last year, ultimately issuing a directive to the Defense Logistics Agency to discontinue the practice of shredding brass for recycling, rather than selling the brass into the civilian marketplace via a government-approved auction company.

Recent reports indicated, and then confirmed, however, that the sales to private companies rather than the open market via the approved auction of military surplus was being continued by some commanders. Apparently, a dizzying amalgam of directives, including EPA procedures, was being used by some as their reasoning to sell destroyed brass rather than intact ammunition cases being sold as surplus.

Last week, Montana’s sole Congressman, Denny Rehberg’s was “personally assured” by ATK their controversial program was “done”. There was, however, residual skepticism. After all, brass destruction was supposed to have been discontinued following last year’s confrontation with Senators Baucus and Tester.

It now seems Montana’s entire congressional delegation is satisfied. On Friday, Baucus and Tester released the following statement:

“We are pleased that Alliant Techsystems has decided to stop its current contracts to recycle spent brass casings for U.S. military installations. This is good news for America’s gun owners because it will make additional spent casings available, which is just one more way that gun rights in America are becoming stronger.”

Today, there doesn’t seem to be much doubt that Montana’s entire congressional delegation are strong gun rights advocates. In addition to going to bat for reloaders last year, Tester led, and Baucus joined, the bipartisan effort in Congress to write a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of gun rights in the U.S. Supreme Court’s McDonald v. Chicago case.

And the troubles for five former Blackwater Worldwide employees continue. On Friday, a federal grand jury returned a 15-count indictment charging former president Gary Jackson, former executive vice president William Wheeler Matthews, former general counsel Andrew Howell, former VP of logistics and procurement Ana Bundy, and former armorer Ronald Slezak with a variety of federal charges, including unlawful possession of automatic firearms and obstruction of justice.

The indictment alleges the five participated in several “schemes” to acquire a stock of automatic weapons for “operators” and the company’s Moyock, North Carolina facilities. To circumvent federal limits on the number of weapons they could possess, the group allegedly arranged straw purchases using blank letterhead stationery from a “small, local sheriff’s office”. With that, the company reportedly purchased seventeen Romanian AK47s and the same number of fully-automatic M4 rifles. Blackwater paid for the weapons, took delivery and then housed them in their armory- the sheriff’s office had no direct access.

Another alleged scheme included attempts to land a contract with the Kingdom of Jordan to build and run a training center. In the course of wooing Jordanian officials, the company reportedly presented them with three firearms- without accurately accounting for their disposition. Instead, the company created false form 4473s saying the firearms had been sold to company employees.

And finally, to the “don’t they ever learn” category for politicians who simply believe they can pass whatever laws they please, we can add the politicos of the City of Albany, New York.

That august body has passed an entirely new chapter (193) of the city regulations regarding “Firearms, Ammunition and Weapons”. In the new regulations, it is now illegal for any person to engage in “the business of selling, or to sell or give away, any firearm or other dangerous weapon, as defined in Article 256 of the Penal Code of the State of New York, or other deadly weapon which can be carried or concealed on the person, without securing a weapons dealer license.”

I’m betting that “any person” means, well, any person. And the license is “in addition to any other license required by law”.

If that’s enough to get your legal blood boiling, section 193-4 says:

“Every person dealing in the aforementioned deadly weapons shall make out and deliver to the Chief of Police every day before the hour of twelve noon, a legible and correct report of every sale or gift made under authority of his license during the preceding 24 hours, which report shall contain the date of such sale or gift, the name of the purchaser or donee with his or her address and age, the number, kind, description and price of such weapon, the number of the purchaser’s permit, and the purpose given by such person for the purchase of such weapon, which report shall be substantially in the following form:

Number of permit
Number of weapon
Name of purchaser
Address of purchaser
Age of purchaser
Kind or description of weapon
For what purpose purchased
Price

And there are new regulations ammo, too.

As I’ve asked may times before, it makes you wonder what city attorneys do in their obviously ample amounts of spare time. If they read much law, they would realize that while such eyewash legislation is fodder for the political machine, it’s a blatant waste of taxpayer funds.

Seems Washington’s not the only place where many of their constituents are ignored – until they’re demonized.

We’ll keep you posted on this one – it’s fairly certain there will be some litigation involved in the future.

–Jim Shepherd
www.shootingwire.com