That title is a decent approximation of how inaccurately the current situation has been described to me. It’s 95% untrue. The proposal at hand is not the result of legislation. There is no executive order on the matter. It is not a blanket ban on 5.56. It only affects one specific loading.
Here’s the short explanation. The 1985 Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act (LEOPA) delegated authority to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) to decide whether certain ammunition could be banned from civilian ownership if it is deemed “armor piercing.” The criteria are quite specific:
A projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium; or
A full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.
Military M855/SS109 ammunition has long been exempted from that definition by name. Last month, the ATF decided to change their minds on the matter. Their report is here [pdf].
The first problem is, they’re wrong. The second problem is, it won’t stop them.
The SS109 projectile does have a steel rod in the bullet, but it’s only one part. Loads from different companies can vary quite a bit in terms of weight and steel content, but the rod doesn’t make up more than 25% of the total weight of the bullet.
They don’t seem to care. In fact, they consider it such a foregone conclusion, they took the liberty of removing the exemptions before the proposal was even published. The exemption for M2AP .30-06 ammunition (the black-tip stuff) was also removed.
Despite the fact that no law enforcement officer has ever been killed with M855 ammunition fired from an AR-15 pistol, gun-control advocates are claiming that the ban should proceed because such a thing could happen. Passing bans based on something that could happen is poor policy.
(In fact, the velocity of the M855 cartridge drops quite a bit in shorter barrel lengths, to the point that it’s unlikely to penetrate much of anything.)
This is part of the new agenda for this administration. They thought they could exploit the Sandy Hook shooting to push new laws punishing gun ownership, but they failed. Shortly after that, we saw attempts at bypassing the legislative process through subtle regulatory changes. The most glaring was 41P, which appears to have lost momentum.
Now we have this. Congress is making noise [pdf] about stopping it through legislation, but I doubt they can hurdle the inevitable veto. We can bring a lawsuit, but that could take years to reach resolution. By that time, the ammunition will have been off the market.
I despise it, but it looks like we’re going to have to live with this one.
Incidentally, the LEOPA was signed into law by ermagherd conservative hero Ronald Reagan, with no shortage of praise. William J. Hughes (yes, that guy) made sure it got ramrodded through committee.
And, of course, Cheaper Than Dirt has stayed true to form by jumping on the gouging bandwagon:
