I have not been posting much lately, Spring brought an increase in work and decrease in regional shows/ordnance availability, so less to talk about and time to talk about it. I'm still trying to look in every day or so, so don't consider me gone yet.
I was out east last week for work and had the chance to speak with a number of ordnance/explosives professionals, from the law enforcement side. I took the opportunity to try and find out what was the issue behind several rumors in regard to practice grenades, smoke grenades, 40mm flare rounds (IR and otherwise) etc.
It is complicated and difficult to explain, but let's take the military way and go BLUF, or put the "bottom line up front". In regard to live items, military smoke grenades are regulated as explosives, full stop. As are practice grenade fuzes, and all versions of military 40mm flares. Any other military items which contain any quantity of explosives or explosive material as defined within ATF regulations http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-10-28/pdf/2013-25370.pdf are also regulated. As I understand the explanation, this means that to possess, use etc. you must have an explosives license/permit, and an approved magazine, etc. Quantity of items or quantity of material in the items is irrelevant. Regulated is regulated.
This does not apply to inert items, nor to (most) non-military law enforcement type items (teargas, smoke, 37mm, etc.) for which the manufacturers requested and received an exemption. For most persons in possession that are not attempting to sell my understanding is that they are normally being given a one time walk. You may lose the item, but are not likely to have serious legal issues. For some of the bigger fish that are selling via Gunbroker and other sites, they are getting visits and are being asked to give up their items, plus their sales lists. I was initially notified of this by an individual that I purchased from, telling me that he had given my name to ATF with a list of my purchases. Fair enough, he was complying with his local agents.
There are many folks out there that can explain this better than I, I am just the messenger with a weak understanding other than the end results. But you can visit the ATF site and with a little digging come to understand a couple of basic points on your own. First, this is not new. The level of enforcement may be at a lower level, but the test of the regulation has not changed in years, not much over decades. Second, this is not political. It does not matter who is in office, all agencies tend to use their budgets to fight the most urgent fires - from their perspective. Focus this year may be different from last year, due to circumstances that we do not always see from the cheap seats.
During my discussions with the agents no specific reason was given for the current focus, but folks living in the southwestern US border States can look at their own news feeds to see that issues once considered to belong to other countries have crossed the border, and are moving north with disturbing swiftness and violence. As usual (start debate here), much of the problem lays with some of our own people, happy to sell anything to anyone in order to make a buck.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/16/hand-grenades-becoming-key-weapon-in-mexican-cartels-arsenals-say-authorities/
http://borderviolenceanalysis.typepad.com/mexicos_drug_war/weapons-trafficking/
Note that neither of these articles are brand new, but discussions from both Mexican National Police and US agencies indicate that things have worsened in the past couple of years and are not expected to improve. Note again, the folks that I spoke with did not offer or make these connections - but open source information in great abundance offers the suggestion of a clear connection.
Most of you are over 18 and can make your own decisions on how you want to deal with this information. But during our discussions I said that I would put this out into the collecting forum, in hopes that those affected would be aware and free to make informed decisions. Please visit the ATF web site and work your way though it for additional and more accurate information. My apologies for any of my own misunderstandings that I may have passed along. For now, I have some housecleaning to attend to.
I was out east last week for work and had the chance to speak with a number of ordnance/explosives professionals, from the law enforcement side. I took the opportunity to try and find out what was the issue behind several rumors in regard to practice grenades, smoke grenades, 40mm flare rounds (IR and otherwise) etc.
It is complicated and difficult to explain, but let's take the military way and go BLUF, or put the "bottom line up front". In regard to live items, military smoke grenades are regulated as explosives, full stop. As are practice grenade fuzes, and all versions of military 40mm flares. Any other military items which contain any quantity of explosives or explosive material as defined within ATF regulations http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-10-28/pdf/2013-25370.pdf are also regulated. As I understand the explanation, this means that to possess, use etc. you must have an explosives license/permit, and an approved magazine, etc. Quantity of items or quantity of material in the items is irrelevant. Regulated is regulated.
This does not apply to inert items, nor to (most) non-military law enforcement type items (teargas, smoke, 37mm, etc.) for which the manufacturers requested and received an exemption. For most persons in possession that are not attempting to sell my understanding is that they are normally being given a one time walk. You may lose the item, but are not likely to have serious legal issues. For some of the bigger fish that are selling via Gunbroker and other sites, they are getting visits and are being asked to give up their items, plus their sales lists. I was initially notified of this by an individual that I purchased from, telling me that he had given my name to ATF with a list of my purchases. Fair enough, he was complying with his local agents.
There are many folks out there that can explain this better than I, I am just the messenger with a weak understanding other than the end results. But you can visit the ATF site and with a little digging come to understand a couple of basic points on your own. First, this is not new. The level of enforcement may be at a lower level, but the test of the regulation has not changed in years, not much over decades. Second, this is not political. It does not matter who is in office, all agencies tend to use their budgets to fight the most urgent fires - from their perspective. Focus this year may be different from last year, due to circumstances that we do not always see from the cheap seats.
During my discussions with the agents no specific reason was given for the current focus, but folks living in the southwestern US border States can look at their own news feeds to see that issues once considered to belong to other countries have crossed the border, and are moving north with disturbing swiftness and violence. As usual (start debate here), much of the problem lays with some of our own people, happy to sell anything to anyone in order to make a buck.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/16/hand-grenades-becoming-key-weapon-in-mexican-cartels-arsenals-say-authorities/
http://borderviolenceanalysis.typepad.com/mexicos_drug_war/weapons-trafficking/
Note that neither of these articles are brand new, but discussions from both Mexican National Police and US agencies indicate that things have worsened in the past couple of years and are not expected to improve. Note again, the folks that I spoke with did not offer or make these connections - but open source information in great abundance offers the suggestion of a clear connection.
Most of you are over 18 and can make your own decisions on how you want to deal with this information. But during our discussions I said that I would put this out into the collecting forum, in hopes that those affected would be aware and free to make informed decisions. Please visit the ATF web site and work your way though it for additional and more accurate information. My apologies for any of my own misunderstandings that I may have passed along. For now, I have some housecleaning to attend to.
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