The final part of Alice Hausman’s HF241` – her gun grab bill focused on so-called “assault weapons” – may be the strangest, most vaguely-written, dumbest of all. It’d ban any…:
3.23(5) shotgun with a revolving cylinder
It’d seem to be aimed at the big, scary looking “Streetsweeper”-class shotguns, which do, indeed, have a “revolving cylinder” holding their rounds…:
And it’s not “semi-automatic” (not to get technical, but that means “weapon that uses the force of either the explosion or recoil to eject the empty cartridge and chamber a new round”; the Sweeper has a wind-up spring).
But it said “shotgun with a revolving cylinder”. That also includes the Rossi Circuit Judge…:
…a popular .410-gauge varmint plinker.
And for that matter, it includes the extremely popular Taurus Judge (no relation)…:
…which is a pistol, sure – but a .410 gauge shotgun with a revolving cylinder (that also happens to fire .45 Long Colt pistol rounds as well.
Look – we get it. Alice Hausman is subcontracting her bill-writing out to Heather Martens – who, herself, knows nothing about guns whatsoever.
The question isn’t “are Hausman and Martens and the rest of the DFL metrocrats on the Public Safety committee talking out their asses on the subject”. That’s a given.
The question is “aren’t you DFLers embarassed?”
But Joe Biden already says that a shotgun is all you need to defend yourself. He told his wife to just step out on the deck and fire two shots in the air and it would drive the bad guys away…or perhaps make them pause just long enough for the Secret Service to arrive.
The Judge loaded with #4 or self-defense disk/pellet loads is an estimable piece for home defense. Accuracy under stress isn’t as critical, easier to maneuver in a small area, there’s much less worry about over-penetration, and it’s plenty noisy. Plus, you have the option of chambering a couple long Colts after the shotgun shells just in case an intruder is especially persistent. Sure wish I hadn’t lost mine in that unfortunate boating accident.
Like handguns with shoulder stocks which are already heavily regulated as “short-barreled rifles” and cannot be owned without a great deal of federal paperwork and money, so are the “Streetsweeper”-style shotguns which were defined by the BATFE as “destructive devices” and can only be legally owned by going through the federal registration and taxation process. Unless prohibited totally by local regulations.
So why do they want to waste time on items that are already restricted by the federal government? Sure, they can make them completely illegal to own, but how common are they?
I would bet that they are trying to use a “reasonable restriction” against the big, menacing “Streetsweeper”, which every soccer mom would agree no one needs – especially when they see a picture of one or learn that it was developed for military use in South Africa- knowing full well that the popular Taurus and Rossi revolvers and long guns (there is a rifle variant) will also be banned without being named specifically.
Two for one; ban the (already virtually banned) Streetsweeper and get the popular and available .410 Taurus/ Rossi revolver banned for no extra effort.
If the bill was written with this in mind, I’d say that the writer is far more clever than Ms. Hausman appears to be. Smart move by the anti-gunners, or just a blind pig finding an acorn?
It might be easier to ask them what weapons law abiding citizens DO need, and ban all the rest. I wonder what response you’d get?
All of those gun grabbers should be forced to read Evan Todd’s letter to his excellency, Barack Obumbler asking whose side he is on. Evan Todd was wounded during the Columbine shooting and he is strongly opposed to gun grabbing disguised as background checks.
Does anyone here have any experience dealing with Roger’s Gunsmithing in Coon Rapids? I have an old .22 rifle I need to get rehabbed and there is no local gunsmith who does hot bluing.