The panel did not try to determine whether the rifles were suitable for sporting purposes, said Johnson, but the particular weapons examined “were basically (suitable as) target rifles and relatively expensive. A semiautomatic weapon fires one bullet for each pull of the trigger.) (A fully automatic weapon, also called a machine gun, fires a steady stream of bullets with a single pull of the trigger. Johnson, a former Army weapons expert and now a private firearms consultant, said the federal panel looked briefly at four semiautomatic versions of foreign military rifles to make sure that they were not readily convertible from semiautomatic to fully automatic fire. The bureau said that years later it used that evaluation in deciding to permit importation of Uzis and AK-47s as sporting weapons.īut a former member of the federal firearms panel told The Times that the six-member body paid scant attention to the importing of foreign rifles and concentrated instead on handguns in an attempt to screen out cheap “Saturday night specials.” military rifles be approved for importation,” the bureau statement said. “It was recommended that these types of semiautomatic versions of.
The bureau, in a written response to questions from The Times, said the federal firearms panel did not examine Uzis or AK-47s, but determined that several civilian models of other military weapons made in foreign countries “had a particular use in target shooting and hunting.” importer of the weapon.īureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officials say their policy of allowing importation of Uzis and AK-47s as sporting weapons is based on a decision made 20 years ago by the Treasury Department firearms evaluation panel, which held meetings during a two-month period in December, 1968, and January, 1969, and then disbanded. About 75,000 Uzi carbines have been imported from Israel since 1980, according to Action Arms Ltd. More than 88,000 AK-47s, most of them from China, were imported into the United States from January, 1985, through November, 1988, according to federal data. 17 attack in a Stockton schoolyard that left five children dead and 30 wounded in a matter of minutes. But the firearms have also been used in widely reported mass murders.Īn Uzi was among the weapons used in San Ysidro on July 18, 1984, by a deranged gunmen who killed 21 people and wounded 15 others at a McDonald’s restaurant. The weapons have been used routinely in street crimes that often get little attention outside the areas in which they occur, law enforcement officers say. And I think the existing law could easily be applied to ban the (importation of) civilian versions of the Uzis and AK-47s.”Īssemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), author of a similar bill on the state level, said that after learning of the federal importation law he is drafting a state resolution to ask the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to re-evaluate its policy of allowing Uzis and AK-47s into the country.īoth the Uzi and the AK-47-semiautomatic versions of fully automatic military rifles-are increasingly used by drug dealers and youth gangs on the streets of Los Angeles and other American cities, according to law enforcement officials. “These are not weapons that can be reasonably construed as having legitimate sporting functions. Berman (D-Panorama City), who has introduced legislation to ban the possession, sale, manufacture and importation of assault weapons. “I don’t think the law is being properly applied,” said Rep.