Sorry if this topic is not relevant to the US gun rights debate, but I thought that American gun owners, which constitute the most important market for Italian gun manufacturers, should be informed about this.
I’m an Italian gun owner and enthusiast and I’m a member and activist of our gun rights association, called FISAT. We have a Commission in Italy that decides which guns are legal and which are not. In theory it should be an easy job: full-auto guns are banned, all the others are permitted. The Commission, however, is mainly composed by antiguns from the government, who constantly try to stretch the Commission powers in order to restrict gun rights. Manufacturers too have their representatives. Recently, this Commission decided to introduce a regulation that will stop new imports of black rifles to Italy, basically because they look evil. It’s not a ban, at least not formally (rifles already imported are still legal), but this regulation introduces so many restrictions that no importer will be able to meet all criteria needed to import a black rifle in the Italian market.
This could sound to you like your ordinary assault weapon ban story, but the disturbing part is that the representatives of the Italian manufacturers voted IN FAVOR of this proposition.
Considering that Italian manufacturers don’t make or import black rifles, they probably believed they could take some economic advantage from a black rifle ban, with the added benefit at the same time of brownnosing the powerful antigun bureaucrats sitting in the Commission.
This is a betrayal: the manufacturers are selling Italian gun owners’ rights to the government antiguns, in exchange of a potential increase in their market share, and maybe of more government orders in the future. Many gun owners are disgusted by this and wrote protest letters to the manufacturers, who replied indignantly that they would never approve of any restriction of gun rights, and so on.
Too bad we have the original document of the Commission that shows the contrary! It is posted here: http://tinyurl.com/5v9funo (.pdf document, in Italian).
In conclusion, when you buy an Italian firearm in the US, please consider that the manufacturer of that gun is an accomplice in trampling gun rights in its home country.
Best regards,
goerz
I’m an Italian gun owner and enthusiast and I’m a member and activist of our gun rights association, called FISAT. We have a Commission in Italy that decides which guns are legal and which are not. In theory it should be an easy job: full-auto guns are banned, all the others are permitted. The Commission, however, is mainly composed by antiguns from the government, who constantly try to stretch the Commission powers in order to restrict gun rights. Manufacturers too have their representatives. Recently, this Commission decided to introduce a regulation that will stop new imports of black rifles to Italy, basically because they look evil. It’s not a ban, at least not formally (rifles already imported are still legal), but this regulation introduces so many restrictions that no importer will be able to meet all criteria needed to import a black rifle in the Italian market.
This could sound to you like your ordinary assault weapon ban story, but the disturbing part is that the representatives of the Italian manufacturers voted IN FAVOR of this proposition.
Considering that Italian manufacturers don’t make or import black rifles, they probably believed they could take some economic advantage from a black rifle ban, with the added benefit at the same time of brownnosing the powerful antigun bureaucrats sitting in the Commission.
This is a betrayal: the manufacturers are selling Italian gun owners’ rights to the government antiguns, in exchange of a potential increase in their market share, and maybe of more government orders in the future. Many gun owners are disgusted by this and wrote protest letters to the manufacturers, who replied indignantly that they would never approve of any restriction of gun rights, and so on.
Too bad we have the original document of the Commission that shows the contrary! It is posted here: http://tinyurl.com/5v9funo (.pdf document, in Italian).
In conclusion, when you buy an Italian firearm in the US, please consider that the manufacturer of that gun is an accomplice in trampling gun rights in its home country.
Best regards,
goerz