House Passes Ban On Plastic Guns As Senate Eyes Broader Reforms

US News

Republicans Vote to Renew Gun Control Bill

The House will vote Tuesday to ban the sale of undetectable guns

By Lauren Fox

December 3, 2013  

Lawmakers want to ensure plastic and 3-D printed guns, such as the "Liberator" pistol pictured above, are regulated and detectable."

Democrats have tried in vain in 2013 to get House Republicans to pass gun control measures they believe would curb violence such as the massacre in Newtown, Conn. Tuesday, however, gun control legislation which has a long record of bipartisan support and is sponsored by a House Republican with an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association, is up for consideration.


[VOTE: Should 3-D Printed Guns Be Legal?]

The Undetectable Firearms Act will be voted on under a suspension of the rules, which means it will need a two-thirds majority to pass. Its lead sponsor is Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., a veteran lawmaker who represents portions of rural North Carolina. His bill would extend a law that bans the sale of firearms that can go undetected in a metal detector.
The law has been a source of bipartisan compromise in Congress since the Reagan administration. It was a forward-looking bill in 1988 when it was first authorized. Then it was aimed at ensuring large-scale gun manufacturers couldn't produce or sell weapons that could slyly bypass security checkpoints undetected. Now, in an era when consumers with a 3-D printer could make plastic guns at home, the law may have wider implications.
The vote in the House is expected less than a week before the current version of the legislation expires. The Senate, however, has yet to act and will be out of session until Monday.
Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., brought a similar bill up for a vote before leaving for the Thanksgiving holiday, but Republicans in the Senate objected. Democrats in the Senate warn that the rapid advance in 3-D printing technologies could produce more undetectable guns and more mass shootings.

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Jennifer Bendery 

jen.bendery@huffingtonpost.com

House Passes Ban On Plastic Guns As Senate Eyes Broader Reforms

Posted: 12/03/2013 5:14 pm EST  |  Updated: 12/04/2013 11:19 am EST

WASHINGTON -- Something bizarre happened in the House of Representatives on Tuesday: Republicans quietly passed gun control legislation.

The bill, which renews the 1988 Undetectable Firearms Act, faced so little opposition in the House that it was only debated for 10 minutes and passed on a voice vote. It's the only gun-related measure to get a House vote since Democrats launched a major push for action on gun violence in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting late last year.

Tuesday's vote doesn't implement new gun laws -- it just extends a current one banning guns that don't contain enough metal to trigger X-ray machines or metal detectors. The law was originally signed by President Ronald Reagan and was renewed by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, passing Congress with broad bipartisan support each time. It is currently scheduled to expire on Dec. 9.

While the House didn't make any changes to the law, Senate Democrats are poised to try to expand it. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will put forward a bill on Monday, the same day the law is set to expire, containing a provision targeting plastic guns made with 3-D printing technology. Specifically, his bill would require that guns contain a piece of metal that is intrinsic to its operation, such as in the barrel or the trigger handle, rather than an extraneous piece that could be removed before a gun is put through a metal detector.

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Allen West warns of back-door attack on guns

Former U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., is joining the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups to warn about a back-door attack on the Second Amendment by the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency.

Ex-Rep. Allen B. West, R-Fla.

In a column posted on his website Sunday, West wrote about the Doe Run company’s lead-producing plant in Herculaneum, Mo., which is being forced to close after the EPA required it to spend up to $100 million on upgrades.
Doe Run, the last primary lead smelter in the United States, has been around since 1892 but is closing on Dec. 31.
West accused Obama of using the EPA to advance “backdoor gun control … while we are all distracted with Obamacare and Iran nuclear negotiations.”
West argued the Obama administration’s “new extremely tight air-quality restrictions” have led to the end of lead as the primary metal in bullets — making ammunition much more expensive and less accessible and leaving America no choice but to turn to overseas operations to produce lead bullets, a situation West says is akin to a federal power grab on guns.
“Come 2014, all ammunition sold to civilian gun owners in America will have to be imported, a result of President Obama’s crackdown on sulfur dioxide and lead emissions and accompanying harsh Environmental Protection Agency regulations,” wrote West.

The Doe Run smelter opened in 1892/Photo: KBIA

“[This] will surely increase the price and possibly come under government control,” Mr. West warned, according to a Breitbart.com report. “It seems this is fully in concert with the U.S. military and Homeland Defense recent purchase of large quantities of ammunition.”
He said the “chilling effect” is that while the closure of the smelt plant doesn’t take guns out of the hands of Americans, it does put in jeopardy ammunition supplies.

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Backdoor gun control is here: no lead means no bullets
 

Written by Allen West on December 1, 2013

I am one who steers very clear of tinfoil hat conspiracy theories. I often believe progressives plant stories in order to distract and disrupt, enabling them to pursue their true goals and objectives. That’s why I stress the importance of staying focused on the modern liberal socialist policies of the Obama administration, not the sideshow antics.
However, as a former combat commander, I have been trained to look for trends. And I believe we’ve found a very disturbing one. it seems that back door gun control is in full effect in the United States. Why? Thanks to Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), we can no longer smelt lead from ore in the United States.
The first contact the EPA made with The Doe Run Lead Smelter in Herculaneum, Missouri (population 2,800) was in 2008 but it was in 2010 that the EPA finally forced Doe Run to plan a shut down. This plant has been in operation since 1892 but will finally close its doors this month. It was the last lead smelting plant in the US.
The closedown is due to new extremely tight air quality restrictions placed on this specific plant. President Obama and his EPA raised the regulations by 10 fold and it would have cost the plant $100 million to comply.
In response to the Doe Run lead smelter shutdown, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the Doe Run Company “made a business decision” to shut down the smelter instead of installing pollution control technologies needed to reduce sulfur dioxide and lead emissions as required by the Clean Air Act.
Of course this is why we need serious regulatory reform that precludes executive agency fiat, especially regulation implementation that exceeds a certain adverse financial impact to a private sector business.

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