More Gun Roster Problems then Answers

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Transcript:

Hey folks, Jim Wallace here for gun owners action league.

Today was my first day at the new firearm control Advisory Board which has greatly expanded powers from the former Gun Control Advisory Board. So, one of the things that came up today during the meeting, which apparently nobody had caught including us, was a one-word change in the roster language and that is in 131 3/4 of chapter 140 and this was usually the language that people referred to when they talked about the rosters. You know they approved handgun rosters the approved Olympic style handgun rosters that kind of thing and it was always about the sale of handguns and the regulations for those sales were in a different section Section 123 but there's a new word in a roster language and that word is “use”.

So, instead of just saying that the roster is a firearms approved for sale in the Commonwealth using the parameters set forth in 123. It now says approved for sale and use. So, what does that mean? We don't have a clue. It's a very important word and we're gonna have to figure out what that means because nobody at the firearm control Advisory Board understood what it meant. The only thing that I can think of potentially is that, well, we've told people forever that Section 123 the handgun roster really only applies to what retailers can sell not what we can possess and use. Is this their work around to tell us that we can't use them?

Now, it's specifically does not say possess. So, are they saying we can possess things that are not on the roster but we just can't use them and what are the implications of that? Of course, we've asked with a million things with this new law about how they going to enforce that? Who knows, but if you look at scenarios like let's say you had to use a handgun in self-defense and it went to court - well you know that handguns not safe you shouldn't have been using that handgun.

The other thing is it applies to long guns. Now the state has basically set aside the long gun approved roster for a while because they're they have no idea how this is gonna work. But, does that mean if there's no roster eventually for long guns that we're not allowed to use what we have if it's, you know, it doesn't show up on a roster somewhere?

So, that's kind of interesting the second piece that came out today was they're supposed to come up with a roster of assault style firearms that are banned under the infamous section 131M. That's huge problem and I brought it up during the board because they were trying to figure out how they were going to start that roster. And maybe use the enumerated guns at first and then just expand on it and I pretty much just said whoa whoa whoa hold on, this is different from the approved handgun roster. As bad as that is, at least when you continue to put new guns on there it's what you can buy. Here's the problem that I brought up with the assault style firearms banned roster.

If you put up say a roster with, who knows let's just use a number 10 guns, that you cannot purchase and possess - OK so the retailers and the general public are going to look at that roster and say all right cool the gun I want is not on that roster so that means I can go buy it and the retailer is going to say OK that means I can sell it.  

Well, then they talked about well yeah but we can expand it later hold on so you're going to expand a roster of banned guns not guns you can buy but banned guns. So, what happens if people go out and buy a gun that was not on the original roster and three months later it's on the roster now what are you going to do?

There really wasn't a good answer from anybody in the room and it's not their fault because nobody thought about it ahead of time because there's two different avenues here 1 is approved one is banned and the rosters act in a completely different manner so long and short of it is you know some very good people in the room some knowledgeable people in the room but unfortunately no answers and that was only our first meeting well second really but the first meeting that actually started talking about subject matters anyway just more of the devil's snare with no answers.