Gun Collecting: What the Ban on the Importation of M1 Rifles From South Korea Means to Collectors
The history of the M1 rifle is well documented, so there is no need to retell the gun’s famous history. The truth is that it has become a highly sought after collectible. Over the past decade the prices of the M1 has increased at a pace greater than almost any other military firearm. Read more
Washington Times Reports on Obama’s Back Door Gun Ban
This past week The Washington Times picked up on the M1 story, and called it “Obama’s backdoor gun ban,” a comment that is in line with our thinking. The paper reports:
“It’s more likely that the administration is seeking to win the admiration of gun grabbers. Mr. Obama has a history of supporting gun control as a state senator and U.S. senator, but he’s been limited in his ability to implement this anti-gun agenda as president. Democratic members of Congress remember the federal assault-weapons ban as one of the lead issues motivating voters to turn Congress over to Republicans in 1994. Senators facing tight races in pro-gun states don’t want to see a repeat of that midterm landslide. Therefore, the best way for Mr. Obama to appease the gun-grabbing fringe is to take actions that won’t bring too much attention to what he’s doing. As long as the destruction of these rifles stays under the public radar screen, he will have achieved his goal.”
It seems other in the mainstream media have the same line of thinking as FirearmsTruth.com on this issue.
World News Heard Now Hears, and Reports on, M1 Story
Finally, others in the media are starting to pick up on the M1 story, and we thought we were the only reporters looking into the issue. Mary Bargeman at World News Heard Now has posted an interesting read titled “More Proof of Anti-Constitutional Agenda with Gun Sale Nix.”
As much of the mainstream media has gone out of its way to note that President Obama hasn’t instituted new anti-gun legislation, it is nice to see someone report that the administration is no friend of the gun lobby. In fact, this is the latest proof that the Obama administration is actually hostile to gun owners. Read more
Mainstream Media Finally Picks Up M1 Story, Brady Campaign Notes Concern
After nearly two weeks of silence from the mainstream media, FoxNews.com has noted that the Obama administration has blocked the importation of M1 rifles from South Korea. According to the story from FoxNews, the South Koreans wanted to sell one million M1 rifles to gun collectors in America – but numbers closer to 100,000 had previously been reported in the Korean media.
Not surprisingly, the anti-gun zealots have supported the move to block the importation of the guns. FoxNews.com quoted Dennis Henigan of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence as noting:
“Guns that can take high-capacity magazines are a threat to public safety. Even though they are old, these guns could deliver a great amount of firepower. So I think the Obama administration’s concerns are well-taken.” Read more
The Hill Calls Obama “Gun-Friendly” – Is This Really the Case?
Should Democrats be upset that Obama hasn’t stood up to National Rifle Association? That’s the tone of a piece for The Hill by Bob Cusack, who quotes Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) as saying “I can’t even get a hearing (on gun control issues).” This has been a long and continued cry from the left-leaning media, which has repeatedly noted that the Democrats fear bring up the issue of guns. Read more
Did Australia Destroy Firearms Used in The Pacific?
(UPDATED: Weapons Confiscated were from the film The Great Raid)
As news continues to (barely) flow about the reported ban on the importation of vintage M1 rifles from South Korea news has surfaced that many other vintage World War II era equipment was recently destroyed in Australia.
At the Historicon Convention, historian consultant Dale Dye reportedly related his troubles with the Australian government. Apparently Dye had imported scads of World War II era rifles, Thompson submachine guns and other firearms from Korea to use in filming The Pacific, which aired earlier this year on HBO. When the time came to leave Australia the government confiscated all of them, and had the firearms cut up into scrap metal!
And we thought the American gun buybacks were bad news for collectors!
Updated: We spoke with Dale Dye, who clarified:
“It wasn’t The Pacific but it was the film The Great Raid, which was also filmed in Australia. I was told that after production wrapped the Australian government confiscated the firearms and these were ‘dealt with.’ I told that to mean destroyed. That’s what I was told, but I can’t confirm for a fact that the guns were in fact destroyed. As for the weapons used in The Pacific, those did in fact come home with us.”
Is the United States Blocking Importation of American Guns?
In an interesting twist, it seems that American M1 rifles – the type of rifle that helped win the Second World War – are potentially being kept out of collectors’ hands in the United States. Our friends at Ammoland.com are reporting that the rifles had been in South Korean warehouses since the end of the Korean War, and the South Korean government was looking to sell to firearms to collectors, only to face opposition from the American government. In total there were somewhere around 86,000 M1 Garands and 22,000 M1 Carbines that South Korea had been looking to have imported into the United States. Read more
