That is not true.RKBA wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2019 11:08 pm
Before that, was the 1986 Orwellian named "Firearm Owners Protection Act" ...which fixed some of the really big problems with the 1968 Gun Control Act, but did not at all liberate anything, only fixed procedural matters and...gave us the ban on new full-autos via the Hughes Amendment.
FOPA 86 allowed for the import of foreign military surplus firearms. That is why a pre 68 "no import marked" Mauser K98 will sell for $1,000 or more. Because prior to 1986 you almost never saw one and it had to be imported prior to 1968 gun control act which banned foreign military surplus.
Prior to FOPA 86, things like SKS, Moisin Nagants, Tokarovs, Makarovs and all the other things we see as $100 cheapie imports were impossibly rare as they had to be imported prior to 1968 (which hardly ever happened from a commie block country) or they were some kind of amnesty / Vietnam bring back.
While we are at it, the Hughes Amendment isn't the first machine gun ban, that was in the 1968 GCA when all foreign military full autos were made non transferable. That is why every single transferable MP5 actually began life as a HK94 and as converted domestically prior to 1986. All factory MP5s are are pre 86 dealer samples or post 86 dealer samples.
Additionally ammo records were no longer required. If you bought ammo in 1985 it went into a log book just like firearms.
But probably the most important thing FOPA 86 did was permit the sale of personal firearms at a profit without having to be a licensed firearm dealer. A very common sting in the early 80s was for agents to set up at a gun show and sell a particular firearm for very favorable prices. Then undercovers would solicit the buyers and offer them $100 more than they just paid for the firearm and IF the buyer sold the firearm, he would be arrested for selling "firearms for profit" without being a licensed dealer.
Without FOPA 86 just about everything in every Buy, Sell, Trade forum would be illegal activity and this is why every serious collector back in the early 80s had a kitchen table FFL to protect them from prosecution if they made a favorable trade or sale.
Also the registry was going to be closed anyway, the other versions of the Hughes / Rodino bills closed the registry but declared everything non transferable including SBRs, suppressors and everything else. That meant whoever owned them in 86 were going to be the last owners.
It was known as H.R. 3155 Racketeer Weapons and Violent Crime Control Act. FOPA 86 was the only alternative and Reagan didn't have a line item veto. In all that time we haven't had a single piece of legislation that challenged any provisions of the 1968 Gun Control Act and people had been trying to get something through since it was passed in 1968, it took almost 20 years to actually happen.
More importantly, if Reagan hadn't signed it, Bush 41 would have absolutely signed it. So we'd still have a domestic machine gun ban but none of the other provisions of FOPA and SKS would be an amazingly rare firearm.
