[supercat]

What about Congress resuming funding of the ATF to process prior felon redress before they cut it off in 92. (whoops felons don't vote usually so what's in it for pragmatism)

Actually, what would probably be politically easier would be to pass a statute explicitly requiring the BATF to reject all non-approvied applications within 30 days. The current statute provides that a rejection may be appealed and the issue decided in court, but a court has held that courts aren't allowed to overrule the BATF until it actually rejects an application. If the BATF simply sits on an application indefinitely there's no available appeal.

So a statute which on the surface is ordering the BATF to explicitly reject applications would actually have the effect of making it possible for people to have their applications appealed and maybe even granted.

[yarddog]

I don't know the exact wording of the law but I think if an application is not approved but is not denied either, that after a short period, the dealer is allowed to sell.

I have also heard that most dealers still will not sell even tho they can just to be safe.

[wardaddy]

Interesting perspective...as it now stands, it's the proverbial catch-22 and the VPC and "others" including some quasi-conservatives like it.

I will bet you that they may well amend the black powder and pre 1-1-1899 antique firearm gap to include those too at some point though to my knowledge no ex-felon has ever killed anyone with those.

In fact I believe that out of the 22,000 restorations the ATF granted between 68 and 92 only 169 went on to commit further crimes involving firearms. I think the ATF was approving about 1/3 of applicants historically.

It's so silly. Anyone ex-felon or otherwise who intends to commit a crime will get a firearm and could care less about the legality of it if they intend to use it to commit a crime.

It's just another way to outlaw gunowners if not guns. I believe that somewhere around 1 in 7 adult males are disenfranchised as such either federally or otherwise....and growing.