NRA: Gun blogs, videos, web forums threatened by new Obama regulation

[SteyrAUG]

So we won't be able to talk about guns, but they can have websites radicalize our dumbasses.....

Pretty much. Starting to think the whole ITAR thing needs to go away. Just another .gov over reach. Guess Wikipedia is toast.

The ITAR, however, were originally promulgated in the days before the Internet. Some State Department officials now insist that anything published online in a generally-accessible location has essentially been 'exported,' as it would be accessible to foreign nationals both in the U.S. and overseas.

So how do they plan on keeping a copy of Jane's or a Blake Stevens book from going overseas? Never mind that there are probably thousands of "TM"s provided to the Iraqi military that are in the hands of ISIS along with abandoned weapons, vehicles and armor. The absurdity of this entire premise is astounding.

[markm]

If it keeps people from buying up the components I like, then I'm in!!!

[SomeOtherGuy]

I highly doubt it is as dire as you are led to believe. Let's wait for some lawyers to chime in before we jump off the bridge in unison.

I am a lawyer. I have briefly read the proposed changes and the NRA comments on them, and have tried to make sense of it. Very important preliminary information: most federal regulations are extremely dense and specific to a certain context, and it is often difficult for anyone, even a lawyer who deals with other federal regulations, to understand exactly how they are meant to work without some length of time practicing with them. I find that regulations are often specific on some topics while being totally silent on important related topics, and simply reading the regulations is often not enough to understand what the agency actually plans to do while claiming to be following those regulations.

With that said, what I see in the changes could, conceivably, be used to do bad things the way that the NRA describes, but I doubt that is actually the intent.

I'm fully aware that some parts of the current administration are extremely sneaky and dangerous, but major parts of the federal administration are simply career employees doing their thing, with limited responsiveness to whatever political regime happens to be in office.

I expect this is intended to limit web publication of blueprints and complete data packages. It might readily be used to limited the "Defense Distributed" and similar types of complete CAD files for firearms manufacturing. I don't think it's meant to limit the sort of discussions we have here or at other common forums.

It might be worthwhile to write in with comments expressing concern that this not be applied to hinder discussion forums and journalistic articles. But it's not the topic I'd be most excited about right now.

[glocktogo]

I am a lawyer. I have briefly read the proposed changes and the NRA comments on them, and have tried to make sense of it. Very important preliminary information: most federal regulations are extremely dense and specific to a certain context, and it is often difficult for anyone, even a lawyer who deals with other federal regulations, to understand exactly how they are meant to work without some length of time practicing with them. I find that regulations are often specific on some topics while being totally silent on important related topics, and simply reading the regulations is often not enough to understand what the agency actually plans to do while claiming to be following those regulations.

With that said, what I see in the changes could, conceivably, be used to do bad things the way that the NRA describes, but I doubt that is actually the intent.

I'm fully aware that some parts of the current administration are extremely sneaky and dangerous, but major parts of the federal administration are simply career employees doing their thing, with limited responsiveness to whatever political regime happens to be in office.

I expect this is intended to limit web publication of blueprints and complete data packages. It might readily be used to limited the "Defense Distributed" and similar types of complete CAD files for firearms manufacturing. I don't think it's meant to limit the sort of discussions we have here or at other common forums.

It might be worthwhile to write in with comments expressing concern that this not be applied to hinder discussion forums and journalistic articles. But it's not the topic I'd be most excited about right now.

Do you mean like the RICO statutes went from reigning in the mob, to stealing some poor schlep's money on the side of the road? Or perhaps the way Sarbanes Oxley was intended for Enron type fraud, but is now used to individual people for deleting their web browser history at home?

Yeah, they can say it's for the best intention in the world, but they'll still pave the road to hell with it.

[SomeOtherGuy]

Do you mean like the RICO statutes went from reigning in the mob, to stealing some poor schlep's money on the side of the road? Or perhaps the way Sarbanes Oxley was intended for Enron type fraud, but is now used to individual people for deleting their web browser history at home?

Never heard of that claim about use of SOX - do you have any links to articles?

But otherwise, yeah, something may be passed for one fairly legitimate purpose, and later be used for something else that's abusive. Happens all the time, but it could happen with almost any law. While I like narrowly drafted statutes, fundamentally that is more an issue with our current system of government than with the drafting of specific statutes. For example, stop and realize that the topic of this thread is not a statute, but a change in administrative regulations - something that has the legal effect of a statute (99% of the time), but is created by an agency through a non-democratic process, with only mild checks and balances. The sheer growth of administrative law is a bigger issue than any one particular regulation.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Let me grab my tin foil hat. What I could see is something like the old porn law regulations. All kinds of stuff flying around out there with little to define what is illegal. Then you get selective enforcement- so everyone gets nervous about what they post and that ends up being the chilling effect.

Probably not going to happen, but if 10 years ago you had told me about the selective use of the IRS and the lack of MSM interest, I would have said that was tin foil hat fodder too.

[glocktogo]

Never heard of that claim about use of SOX - do you have any links to articles?

But otherwise, yeah, something may be passed for one fairly legitimate purpose, and later be used for something else that's abusive. Happens all the time, but it could happen with almost any law. While I like narrowly drafted statutes, fundamentally that is more an issue with our current system of government than with the drafting of specific statutes. For example, stop and realize that the topic of this thread is not a statute, but a change in administrative regulations - something that has the legal effect of a statute (99% of the time), but is created by an agency through a non-democratic process, with only mild checks and balances. The sheer growth of administrative law is a bigger issue than any one particular regulation.

http://www.thenation.com/article/208...rowser-history

They used it on one of Tsarnaev's buddies, so no one is going to really get up in arms about it. This time...

[AKDoug]

Pretty much. Starting to think the whole ITAR thing needs to go away. Just another .gov over reach. Guess Wikipedia is toast.



So how do they plan on keeping a copy of Jane's or a Blake Stevens book from going overseas? Never mind that there are probably thousands of "TM"s provided to the Iraqi military that are in the hands of ISIS along with abandoned weapons, vehicles and armor. The absurdity of this entire premise is astounding.

Small detail, Janes is a British publisher already

[Moose-Knuckle]

But you get your dick cut off, slather on some whore paint, and put on a wig given hero status with protected speech.

Circling the bowl . . .

[skydivr]

They only have to win ONCE...