SB 1596 removes short barrel firearms from the prohibited firearms list in Texas, but does not remove them from National Firearms Act (NFA) oversight. [More]
Yeah, I know, increments.
Still…
[Via bondmen]
4 thoughts on “Victory, I Guess”
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Increments are how we got into the current predicament, kinda like the story about how to boil a frog.
Will it work in reverse?
My crystal ball is still in the repair shop.
I’m assuming from the quoted title that SB 1596 is a bill in the Texas legislature?
Even if it passes and gets signed into law, Texas law only affects Texas. The Texas legislature lacks the authority to amend or change federal law. If this passes, someone who wants a short-barrelled rifle or shotgun will still have to jump through the federal NFA hoops, but they won’t have to do anything special to comply with Texas law.
And Texas can become a case-study showing that de-regulating SBRs and SBSs does NOT correlate with an increase in violent crime. Every incremental step is one more in the right direction.
Many states, including Texas, criminalize possession of some or all NFA firearms but then make exceptions where the items are possessed in compliance with the federal NFA. Depending on how explicitly the exceptions in such statutes are written, if by some miracle the NFA were amended to no longer control SBRs and SBSs, the practical effect is that they might then become illegal under state law. For example, a state statute could prohibit NFA firearms but then make an exception for NFA firearms possessed “pursuant to registration under the NFA.” If the NFA were amended (e.g. via the SHORT Act) to no longer require registration, then that exception would no longer protect the person, because the registration is no longer required and also no longer available. The Texas bill preempts such a situation just in case something like the SHORT Act were to be enacted.
We got into our present mess by increments, we do not have time enough to dig out increment x increment.