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an interesting find

At the Clinton Presidential Library, I made an interesting find. It's a long pdf, but go to pdf page 23, paragraph 13. It is a draft affidavit for the then-ATF director. The rest of the file is devoted to a Clinton-era proposal to respond to those who continued to manufacture "assault firearms" by deleting banned features: the proposal would have used executive powers over imports, to ban their importation, and to suspend import permits that had been issued. The affidavit was probably for use against a court challenge to this, and it's faxed from the ATF General Counsel's Office.

Paragraph 13 would have read "[?? Immediate action with respect to the importation of the sporterized versions of semiautomatic assault-type rifles is necessary since these weapons may be used in crime and are a threat to public safety. [CRIME USE EXAMPLES??]"

The next document in the pdf is a court decision upholding a suspension of imports.

On pdf page 72 is a memo to Elena Kagan and Rahm Emmanuel. The author says that there's a difference between this situation and when Bush I banned some imports. Back then "more than a million assault rifles had been approved for import, and many were recovered at crime scenes." Now, "With respect to the Uzi, not a one has come in..."

Next to it is written in "ATF cannot find examples & this paragraph will be deleted."

The affidavit is, incidentally, dated in October 1997, three years after the "ban" went into effect and the "sporterized" guns started being made.

· AW bans