Sporting Purposes

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svtruth

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Let me lead off by saying, I know little about the ins and outs of this, but I do know that mal-intentioned legislators try to prohibit certain guns because they don't have a "legitimate sporting purpose".
So does anybody try to develop sports using the types of guns likely to be targeted by the above mentioned legislators?
 
It's a grave mistake to try to lend legitimacy to the whole "sporting purpose" concept. We should be debunking "sporting purpose" whenever we can. The 2nd Amendment has nothing whatever to do with sporting purposes. It's about the means of defending oneself and one's liberty.
 
The Nazis started taking guns from the Jews with the whole "sporting purposes" thing in the 1938 nazi weapons law. The 2a has NOTHING to do with sporting, hunting, or any other such nonsense.

Watch some 3-gun matches and you'll see plenty of the types of guns frequently targeted by gun banners.
 
So does anybody try to develop sports using the types of guns likely to be targeted by the above mentioned legislators?
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It doesn't work like that. If you take the time to read the regulations governing "sporting use," it actually includes a bit that dismisses any sport that is developed as an attempt to legitimize previously unsporting weapons.

Watch some 3-gun matches and you'll see plenty of the types of guns frequently targeted by gun banners.
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If you go back and read the BATFE study on the importability of sporting shotguns that was released early last year, they actually include a section of the report that basically says "Yes, we're aware of IPSC and 3 gun, but without further study, we're not really sure if these are actually sports."

Because, evidently, an event that has winners, losers, athletes, jerseyes, sponsors and spectators might not actually be a sport.



As far as good news goes, back in November, there was a rider attached to a bill that basically freezes the regulations in place as they are, so the ATF can't make new claims about what sorts of shotguns are or are not sporting.
 
After the next big hurricane, riot, etc. the local Chamber of Commerce could sell T-shirts and award plaques for those who blasted away at mobs of lawless types rioting in their front yard. Saves the police money responding and decreases required jail space!

Winning categories could include "fewest shots fired to drive back one mob".

That might make the Street Sweeper a sporting arm and legal to sell again!:D

But on a serious note: 2A has nothing to do with the sporting thing.
 
It doesn't matter. Most of the harassment laws hit target shooters particularly hard.

Example: Ban "assault pistols" - and define any pistol with a magazine outside the grip as such. You just outlawed 2/3rds of the pistols used in the Olympic Games.
 
Who ever came up with the "legitimate" sporting purpose law has not regard for the 2a.

Who decides what a sport is? I hear basket ball players say running & swimming are not sports all the time; yet weight lifting is? All of this is seriously opinionated (firearm sports included).

In my opinion anything can be a legitimate sport: as long as it has some aspect of competition, skill, or endurance and of course people who enjoy it.

I mean how the hell did the .950 JDJ get approved for a "sporting purpose" by the ATF. shooting that thing one time has the potential to break your shoulder & collar bone! Plus at $40 a pop it's not like anyone will do any serious target practice with it! In my eyes the only things it's good for is killing whales, elephants, & destroying stuff (shooter included).

The striker shotgun does have legit sporting, hunting (with ammo cap restrictions), and self defense. Yet it is banned... why? I mean you can get a saiga 12 with a 20 round mag which is far more effective than a striker for dastardly purposes... yet is legal & very common.

What this country needs is to heavily scale down the bureaucracy and mindless red tape the government has imposed on this "once free" country. We have evolved into a protectionist police state that wipes it's A**hole with the constitution and bill of rights that so many people gave their lives to defend.
 
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As long as SHOOTING is a Olympic Sport it will always be hard for them to play the "legitimate sporting purpose" card............
 
Shooting is a sport, therefore, I shoot. The second ammendment is a right granted by the Bill of Rights. "Sport" is not mentioned there.......chris3
 
In the USA, "sporting purpose" came about with the Gun Control Act of 1968.
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Yes, and that's because the pro-gun side thought that it could ingratiate itself with the general public by relying on the notion that "sporting purposes" were broadly "acceptable" and were the (main) reason that guns should be allowed. As I recall, the real reasons behind the 2nd Amendment (personal and social defense) weren't even discussed in the runup to the GCA '68, or were dismissed as fringe arguments. Remember that in 1968, the prevailing legal opinion was that the 2nd Amendment applied only to the militia (meaning the National Guard). Of course, the "sporting purposes" notion soon boomeranged against gun owners.
 
3 Gun counts as a perfectly legitimate reason to have rifles with all the evil features, but nobody except for shooters thinks of it as a legitimate sport, or actually knows about it. To drag up a quote from the security people at my college: "Shooting isn't a sport. There're no guns at the Olympics!" She must therefore suffer from terrible Narcolepsy whenever shooting events come up.
 
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This is one of the big problems with administrative law. You have a specific agency that has not been elected making rules that average people need to live with. One of the big problems is that it doesn't take 51% of the house and senate to ban something, just a bunch of people sitting around a table who put something out for public comment. Oh....and they can rule that a shoe string is a machine gun.
 
The new attempts at an AWB have a clause that basically says that even if a gun can be used in a sport, it doesn't necessarily mean it has a sporting purpose. The antis just want to use a "sporting purposes" clause to have a compliant ATF/Attorney General ban any gun they feel like banning.
 
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