Today (well technically a few days ago) is a day ending in “y”, which means somebody in Congress is losing their shit over the existence of firearms and the ability of the peasantry to acquire them. A letter submitted by our rulers in Congress was sent to our ruler in the White House urging him to enforce the ban on importing “military-style firearms” (firearms that have aesthetic features that offend many politicians). What interesting though is the argument made for why the President can prohibit their importation:
Enforcing the import ban would require no congressional action as the President has very broad authority under the 1968 Gun Control Act to prohibit the importation of firearms and ammunition unless they are “generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes.”
I think it’s safe to say that any claims that “military-style firearms” are not recognized as being suitable for sporting purposes are false. As it turns out “military-style firearms” are used in one of the fastest shooting sports in the country: 3-gun. 3-gun almost necessitates the use of rifles with quickly swappable standard capacity magazines. Anybody attempting to complete with a bolt-action rifle, for example, will find themselves entirely outclassed as well as holding up the entire stage for their extended run.
3-gun scoring is a combination of accuracy and time. The faster you complete a stage the better your score tends to be. Being able to top off your rifle, handgun, and shotgun quickly will greatly benefit your score. Anybody who has participated in a 3-gun match has noticed AR-pattern rifles and other “military-style firearms” dominate. And that, I believe, puts the whole sporting purpose debate to rest.
3-gun is military style or better required for all 3 of your guns, there is no way to compete with anything that is not semiautomatic and fast reloading, and large magazines do help in some of the stages that might otherwise necessitate a reload. And I am quite quick with a bolt action but sans stripper clips beating 10 rounds a minute would be quite difficult.