I’d like to tell you a story about a gun.
Shortly after World War II my grandmother was alone on a very rural farm in southern New Mexico while my grandfather was winding down his government job about 8 hours away. Concerned for my grandmother’s safety, my grandfather purchased a “ladies” handgun — a pearl-handled Colt 1905 pocket pistol in .25 ACP (If you are not a “gun person,” let me just say these “ladies guns” are woefully underpowered). My Grandmother, never the fool, was said to have replied, “I want the .45,” an ex-military 1911 pistol. I don’t know if there was any initial disagreement but in the end, she got her way.
Like all the pistols of that time, and almost all modern pistols too, the serial numbers of both those guns are on the grip or frame. I know this because both of those pistols sit in my safe, cherished mementos of a remarkable woman.
You may wonder why I mention the location of the serial number. Well, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is at it again, proposing illogical regulations that pretend to solve a problem. This agency, which should not exist in a free society, has proposed a requirement that any Federal Firearms License holder that “comes in contact” with a semi-automatic pistol with a serial number anywhere other than the slide (the top of the pistol) will be required to engrave a serial number on the slide.
Aside from the emotional cost, being required to deliberately damage my grandmother’s guns would destroy more than 80% of the value of these very historic guns. That is only one of the horrors included in the laundry list of petty, vindictive regulations that the ATF is proposing.
You can help right now by financially supporting the Libertarian Party.
It is far cheaper to kill a regulation before it is issued than to defeat it in court later, but sometimes that choice is not ours. We need to be prepared to fight in every arena against the erosion of our Second Amendment rights. Please support the party today and add your voice to those pushing back against the ATF.
