From: Clayton Cramer Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 12:33 PM To: letters@pressdemo.com-nospam Subject: "easily converted to fully automatic fire" Clayton E. Cramer http://www.claytoncramer.com August 8, 2001 The Press-Democrat Letters Editor Dear Sirs: Your editorial of August 8 and the wire service story of the previous day concerning the recent California Supreme Court decision both make the claim that one of the guns used in the 101 California Street murders (the Navegar DC9) is "easily converted to fully automatic fire." If so, the Clinton Administration--no friend of gun makers--failed to enforce the existing federal laws on this subject. Contrary to popular myth (and more than a few deceptive ads in some of the more extreme gun magazines), "readily restored" isn't something that you can do with a screwdriver and a couple of parts, even so-called "assault weapons." The federal law, 26 USC 5845(b), is very clear: "The term 'machinegun' means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or CAN BE READILY RESTORED to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger." [emphasis added] This law is enforced. On a number of occasions during the Reagan Administration--but not at all during the Clinton Administration--the federal government ruled certain guns and gun parts to be "machineguns" (ATF Rul. 81-4, 82-3, 82-8, 83-5), thereby bringing them under the very strict federal machine gun licensing and transfer requirements. The Navegar guns can not be "readily restored" to shoot full automatic, or they could not have been sold over the counter to the 101 California murderer. Why do reporters (and editorial writers) keep repeating this myth that semiautomatic guns like the Navegar DC can be "easily converted to fully automatic fire"? Because the gun control groups--which know better, or at least should know better--keep repeating it, and journalists that would never take the NRA's word for anything, trust everything that comes out of a gun control group's press release. Very Truly Yours, Clayton E. Cramer