On the surface 922r looks like a gun control measure. In a way it is but what it really is is a protectionist trade control measure. Remember that the US gun manufacturers were getting hammered by cheap imports in the 80's.
As a side effect, the legislation may have been somewhat protectionist against very specific items, but, no, the statement above is incorrect. As someone who was present during House committee and floor debates, there was no such protectionist debate at the time.
In fact, it was the Gun Control Act of 1968 that created what is known as the "sporting purposes" standard for imported firearms, saying that they must "be generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes." This was the basis for the 922(r) restrictions on domestic assembly that emerged decades later [922(r) was part of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act signed into law by President Clinton on November 30, 1993, and went into effect on February 28, 1994]. And the Brady Act was vigorously opposed by the NRA and most of the U.S. firearms industry.
Yes, Ruger was trying to find compromise with Congress on a variety of items well before the Brady Bill. Ruger was much more interested in avoiding product liability claims, and trying to find a middle ground on several other hot button issues. (BTW, Ruger was also advocating computerized instant background checks as early as 1988-89). However, Ruger's efforts were NOT primarily motivated by protectionist goals in anything I had heard or saw in writing.
It wasnt until later on that importers and enterprising individuals starting making enough parts for those mag fed semi autos that had been previously banned to get under that 10 part threshold
Yes, but it was a very short lag between when the law took effect, and the first "compliance parts" came to market. (I picked up a ROMAK AK in 1995 and compliance parts not too long after that).
