Keith writes:(snip)HR 3193 passed the house yesterday.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:hr.03193:
I read this bill and wondered about one item: SEC. 4. REPEAL D.C. SEMIAUTOMATIC BAN.
So I went to the D.C. Official Code and found that the existing statute defines:
(10) "Machine gun" means any firearm which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily converted or restored to shoot:
(A) Automatically, more than 1 shot by a single function of the trigger;
(B) Semiautomatically, more than 12 shots without manual reloading.
Wow! That defines all (or essentially all) semiautomatic firearms as "machine guns" - because all it takes is a magazine 12 rounds, or the possibility of having such a magazine to have it considered a machine gun. (Yes, I know that it says "more than 12 shots", but a magazine of 12 round capacity plus one round in the chamber = 13 shots.)
Yep--that's the DC ban. I understand they refuse to register Ruger 10-22 rifles, because altho they come stock with a 10 round mag, some folks make 30-50 round mags for them. So a simple semiauto .22 falls under it.
BTW--the early drafts of the NFA also keyed the def. of MG on number of shots. Probably because the Thompson with drum magazines were on everyone's mind. NRA was the one who suggested that the real definition is more than one shot per trigger pull. DC appears to have taken both the early NFA definition and the final one and enacted both.
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