American Shooting Sports Council presenting President Reagan with Colt firearms...

[.45fan]

You have no context.

FOPA was the first time something got through Congress that undid the worst parts of the 1968 GCA. If Reagan had not signed it, the hughes amendement would have simply been tacked onto the 89 Import Ban and Bush WOULD HAVE SIGNED IT.

FOPA allows you to buy and sell or trade guns as a private individual for favorable terms without having to be a FFL. If there was no FOPA there would be no EE here.

FOPA allowed for the importation of military surplus firearms, without FOPA you'd have never seen a Moisin Nagant and almost nobody would own K-98s.

FOPA allowed private, unrecorded sales of ammunition, including direct shipping to your home. Without FOPA dealers would still be recording ammo sales in a bound book and you'd have to go to an authorized firearms retailer to buy ammo.

But here is the most important reason Reagan signed FOPA, the preferred version trying to get through Congress was H.R. 3155 Racketeer Weapons and Violent Crime Control Act.

It closed the entire registry, machine guns, SBRs, suppressors....everything. NFA items would be "grandfathered" but non transferable. That means when the owners died, the estate would be required to sell the weapons to the Secretary of the Treasury.

That means damn few people would own ANY machine guns or NFA items today and nobody would be able to buy one at all. And it contained only a few of the beneficial provisions of FOPA (Firearm Owners Protection Act) 86 in order to make it attractive to some gun owners.

This is what the NRA and the President were up against with a Democrat majority Congress. This bill would have done little to eliminate abuses and excesses of the 1968 Gun Control Act and would have closed the books on machine guns, suppressors and everything else.

Reagan signed FOPA to prevent the Hughes / Rodino bill from being the only option.

Furthermore, FOPA 86 was the first and last time any law was passed that undid any parts of the 1968 GCA. Nobody else was gonna make it happen but everyone from Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, etc. would have likely signed any bill that closed the NFA registry. I'm not aware of a single President who ever signed anything into law protecting the rights of citizens to own machine guns.

People always say "we lost XYZ but kept A". This is why our right are disappearing. How about we just stop being thankful we only only lost a little. There isn't much pie left to give slices away from.

I'm not saying you're wrong about your post, I'm just sick of losing over and over, then hearing that people are wonderful because they only stuck the tip in as opposed to full strokes.

[MegademiC]

With people forward of the muzzle? It sure as shit does matter. The safe handling rules basically function as a "what would happen if the firearm discharged right now" exercise and then put in place safeguards that protect people "if the firearm discharged right now."

So had that rifle discharged and it was your mom leaning over a seat trying to stay out of the direction of the muzzle, still ok with you?

Somebody should have quietly took Ron aside and gave him a quick and polite refresher for "appearances sake" if that's how it needed to be presented because he had lots of bad gun habits. He defended second amendment freedoms better than most, but that didn't automatically make him a safe gun handler.

As long as its not pointed at them. If you mean "in front of" as in beyond 180 of the muzzle, then yeah no problem. We do it every week in uspsa matches.

In the picture it looks like the woman is well clear of the muzzle. Now, blowing a hole in the plane (altitude?) Is another discussion.

Edit, i just noticed the woman leaning away... rude but not necessarily unsafe.

[SteyrAUG]

People always say "we lost XYZ but kept A". This is why our right are disappearing. How about we just stop being thankful we only only lost a little. There isn't much pie left to give slices away from.

I'm not saying you're wrong about your post, I'm just sick of losing over and over, then hearing that people are wonderful because they only stuck the tip in as opposed to full strokes.

I don't think anyone was happy with the Hughes amendment.

But the reality is the choices were:

A: FOPA w/ Hughes Amendment
B. Hughes / Rodino Bill passed as law
C. Hughes amendment attached to 89 Import Ban or 94 domestic ban.

The bottom line is they were gonna close the registry, by 1984 machine guns suddenly became "affordable" again and the $200 tax was no longer prohibitive. And NOBODY was gonna stand up for machine gun rights and I mean NOBODY. No president has ever done it. So it was a matter of realizing they are gonna continuously attach some version of the Hughes amendment to everything and Reagan had a majority Democrat congress to deal with and no line item veto option.

And the only person I can recall or killed a bill over a second amendment poison pill was Larry Craig when he deep sixed his own industry protection act because a Republican majority congress successfully attached a renewal of the Clinton ban to it PRIOR to the sunset. Sen. Craig then killed his own bill rather than allow the reauthorization of the Clinton ban, it's the only time I've seen somebody do that.

And the ONLY time we've ever undone any part of 1968 CGA was FOPA. It's ironically the most the NRA or Congress has ever done for gun owners. They have been unable to reverse the 89 import ban, the ban on foreign machine guns in the 1968 GCA and nobody killed the 94 Clinton ban, in fact the Republicans under Bush 43 actually reauthorized it and only Larry Craig saved us and allowed it to sunset.

That is just the nature of our government, Reagan was the last person to actually GAIN anything and all anyone remembers is the Hughes amendment.

[SteyrAUG]

As long as its not pointed at them. If you mean "in front of" as in beyond 180 of the muzzle, then yeah no problem. We do it every week in uspsa matches.

In the picture it looks like the woman is well clear of the muzzle. Now, blowing a hole in the plane (altitude?) Is another discussion.

Edit, i just noticed the woman leaning away... rude but not necessarily unsafe.

Unless you are SWAT...or involved in some real world situation, nobody should be forward of the 180.

[Disciple]

Either four rules exist or they do not. And one of those rules is "all firearms are ALWAYS loaded."

When rigidly presented The Four Rules are an oversimplification given to reduce the likelihood of the simple minded shooting the rest of us, and they do not map perfectly to the real world.

[titsonritz]

Unless you are SWAT...or involved in some real world situation, nobody should be forward of the 180.

At the public square range/match and the majority of classes…100% agreed, however, there are always exceptions to the rules. I’m not SWAT or SOF but train with both and there are times where I’ve been and have had others beyond the 180. Everyone knows everyone and/or there is a vetted trust factor. The para-phrase “If you can’t do it competently at 360 you can’t do it for real” comes to mind. This should in no way be construed as excusing shitty gun handling, it just the opposite, one should be able to safely handle a weapon in the middle of a crowd.

As a matter of record you’d never see me handle a weapon like Reagan is pictured doing so. May he rest in eternal peace, I’d have called him on it too.

[titsonritz]

When rigidly presented The Four Rules are an oversimplification given to reduce the likelihood of the simple minded shooting the rest of us, and they do not map perfectly to the real world.

Similar to the “position Sul” origin, sometimes catering to the lowest common denominator is just reality.

[SteyrAUG]

When rigidly presented The Four Rules are an oversimplification given to reduce the likelihood of the simple minded shooting the rest of us, and they do not map perfectly to the real world.

They are a safety net for those who cannot engage in the shooting and handling of firearms without violating them. Learning how to function with them would literally prevent ALL unintentional shootings.

There is NO reason to point a firearm at or near somebody you don't intend to shoot or don't suspect you might have to shoot with the LONE exception that you are shooting somebody already and they just happen to be forward of the barrel and it's unavoidable.

If you do it simply because you are dry firing, you don't understand safe handling. If Reagan had NOBODY forward of the barrel he'd have been fine assuming he was checking the trigger (which is acceptable) but if it was just poor trigger discipline, that would not be acceptable.

[SteyrAUG]

As a matter of record you’d never see me handle a weapon like Reagan is pictured doing so. May he rest in eternal peace, I’d have called him on it too.

And that is really all I am saying about the matter. If somebody was his actual friend and "shooting buddy" they'd have helped him out.

[cd228]

You can say alot about old Ron, but that man loved this country, he could publicly speak and he had a great sense of humor!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgs-LaWyUJI