Sponsors are:
Senate: Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
House: Steve King (R-Iowa) and Zack Space (D-Ohio)
There's a catch, though.
So basically; Hollywood gets a sweetheart deal so they can have the next action hero walk around with the latest machinegun built post 1986; without having to go to a foreign country which has less stringent manufacturing/import rules -- if you ever wondered why Stargate had P-90s, it's because the show was shot in Canada.Allow importation and transfer of new machineguns by firearm and ammunition manufacturers for use in developing or testing firearms and ammunition, and training customers. In particular, ammunition manufacturers fulfilling government contracts need to ensure that their ammunition works reliably. S. 941 and H.R. 2296 would also provide for the transfer and possession of new machineguns by professional film and theatrical organizations.
But anyway; regular Class III owners get screwed. Typical.
There's a whole bunch of other parts of the bill of more interest to other people:
--Improve the process for imposing penalties, notably by allowing FFLs to appeal BATFE penalties to a neutral administrative law judge, rather than to an employee of BATFE itself.
--Allow a licensee a period of time to liquidate inventory when he goes out of business. During this period, all firearms sold would be subject to a background check by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
--Allow a grace period for people taking over an existing firearms business to correct problems in the business’s records—so if a person inherited a family gun store (for example), the new owner couldn’t be punished for the previous owner’s recordkeeping violations.
--Reform the procedures for consideration of federal firearms license applications. Under S. 941, denial of an application would require notification to the applicant, complete with reasons for the denial. Additionally, an applicant would be allowed to provide supplemental information and to have a hearing on the application.
--Require BATFE to establish clear investigative guidelines.
--Clarify the licensing requirement for gunsmiths, distinguishing between repair and other gunsmith work and manufacture of a firearm. This would stop BATFE from arguing that minor gunsmithing or refinishing activities require a manufacturers’ license.
--Eliminate a provision of the Youth Handgun Safety Act that requires those under 18 to have written permission to use a handgun for lawful purposes (such as competitive shooting or safety training)—even when the parent or guardian is present.
--Permanently ban creation of a centralized electronic index of out of business dealers’ records—a threat to gun owners’ privacy that Congress has barred through appropriations riders for more than a decade.
--Allow importation and transfer of new machineguns by firearm and ammunition manufacturers for use in developing or testing firearms and ammunition, and training customers. In particular, ammunition manufacturers fulfilling government contracts need to ensure that their ammunition works reliably. S. 941 and H.R. 2296 would also provide for the transfer and possession of new machineguns by professional film and theatrical organizations.
--Repeal the Brady Act’s “interim” waiting period provisions, which expired in 1998.
--Give BATFE sole responsibility for receiving reports of multiple handgun sales. (Currently, dealers also have to report multiple sales to state or local agencies, a requirement that has shown little or no law enforcement value.) State and local agencies could receive these reports upon request to BATFE, but would have to comply strictly with current requirements to destroy these records after 20 days, unless the person buying the guns turns out to be prohibited from receiving firearms.
--Restore a policy that allowed importation of barrels, frames and receivers for non-importable firearms, when they can be used as repair or replacement parts.
So basically, a significant rewrite of what the BATFE can do; following 2006 hearings on abuses by the BATFE -- that's what the 'establish clear investigative guidelines' and 'clarify licensing requirements' bits are about; because the BATFE used it's power as a regulator to basically screw with people.
As for Class IIIs -- at least it's a first step...perhaps when people realize new MGs are being imported for Hollywood and people haven't died in a paroxym of machine gun violence after Hollywood imports eleventy thousand guns and a billion rounds to re-equip their special effects houses...
