I'm trying to find a more reputable source. But I found this, that pretty much echo's what a poster on Arfcom posted:
In Italy, a commission of officials and manufacturers regulate gun imports, and apparently unanimously voted, in March, to restrict imports of "military style" guns. This open-letter is making the rounds of gun forums:
Dear gun enthusiast friends in the US I am writing as an Italian fellow gun enthusiast to inform you of what is happening in Italy and possibly have your help.
Italian law permits Italian citizens to have military lookalike guns (like AR15 or AK) semi-autos but each model must be previously accepted by a state commission very similar to the one of California.
The Commission is composed of Ministry of Interior officials, police officials and members from the most important gun makers like Beretta, Benelli, Tanfoglio and Pedersoli Firearms as representatives of the industry and market; admitted guns are filed in a catalog and after that can be imported, sold or manufactured in Italy.
After a meeting of the Commission on 23 and 24 March 2011, the Ministry of Interior notified gun shops and importers that military lookalike guns whose magazine is compatible with their military counterparts, will be no longer be importable or manufactured. In fact it now forbids possession of new AR15 guns in Italy.
After this, the Italian shooters association, FISAT, filed a freedom of information act and, after obtaining a copy of the papers of the meeting, discovered that the Commission decision to ban AR15 guns had been taken unanimously, including the vote of Beretta, Benelli, Tanfoglio and Pedersoli Firearms representatives together with the representative of the gun shops association, which obviously is controlled by Beretta.
None of these manufacturers produces or imports military lookalike weapons, thus getting a distinct market advantage at the expense of Italian citizens’ liberties to possess and use this kind of firearms.
This is intolerable and Italian gun enthusiasts are appealing this in court; in the meantime we ask you to write to Benelli , Beretta, Tanfoglio and Pedersoli US distributors to tell them what happened and that your contempt about this. We thank you for your support, our firearms freedom depends on you.
Guess whose guns are still available? Beretta's carbines, Benelli's rifle and shotguns, etc, etc. Beretta and Tanfoglio make some nice pistols and Benelli some nice shotguns, but any manufacture that's busy screwing over Europe's remaining gun owners isn't seeing a dime from me.
