Re: Armed Aircraft

A thread of 2 messages, 18 May 1992 to 19 May 1992, in the order they were sent.

#4153 Re: Armed Aircraft

George W Herbert · 18 May 1992

	Not that it has any significant bearing on Traveller,
but I thought I ought to properly explain the why behind the FAA's
"take it all off" ruling about ex-soviet warplanes in civilian hands.

	The Federal Bureau of Alcohol and Firearms (BATF) regulates
among other things weapons sales and import/export in the US,
from handguns to nuclear missiles (though nobody's ever asked for that
particular permit... it does exist on paper, tho 8-).
	A normal civilian simply cannot within the US own what's
term a Weapon of Mass Destruction.  You have to be registered as
an Arms Dealer to have one, not an impossible (or even all that
expensive; I spend more many years on Gaming stuff than the permit
would cost for that level...) task, but one that few people do.
	If you're not a dealer, then you can't have a Weapon of
Mass Destruction.  Aircraft and Tanks (and ships and missiles and...)
all fall under the Weapons of Mass Destruction category.  Any aircraft
that was origionally a combat aircraft is a weapon.
	To "de-weaponify" one, you have to honest to god make it impossible
to put weapons back in without making serious modifications... i.e. take
the weapons and mounts both out, remove weapons pylons from the
outside, etc.  The FAA isn't the one making this rule; it's the BATF.
I don't know about the Ejection Seat, but civilians in the US have
owned them before (a civil-owned F-104 set a new speed-at-height record
at one point, then went out of control.  The pilot ejected and
survived).  I would guess that either these are the ejection seats
that use a cannon shell as the ejection charge (ouch), or that
the FAA will grant specific exemptions later (perhaps) to people who
prove they'll treat and maintain the (dangerous) ejection seats right.

- -george william herbert
[email removed] [email removed]

#4189 Re: Armed Aircraft

Steve Deemer · 19 May 1992 · reply to #4153

George Herbert wrote a pretty good summary of the current state of US
law concerning Weapons of Mass Destruction, but I'd like to clarify a
few of his points.

To buy and sell anti-tank guns, rocket launchers, etc., a person needs
a Federal Firearms License.  A Class III FFL allows one to deal in
full auto firearms and a few other controlled devices.  A Class II FFL,
I believe, is what George is referring to when he spoke of being registered
as an "Arms Dealer".  However, a FFL is not required to own controlled weapons,
only to sell them.  There is some licensing and paperwork involved to
buy a controlled device, but you don't have to be a registered dealer.  A
friend of mine buys C4 plastic explosives and shaped charges for his
business, a oil well perforation service.  He has to fill out a ton of
papers, but he doesn't need an FFL to buy.

Tanks and aircraft designed to carry weapons are not classed as weapons
in themselves.  Anyone can buy an M3 Stuart tank or a P-51 Mustang, sans
weapons, no problem.  What you have to do to disable the weapon carrying
capability depends on the BATF's whim.  I knew a group of WWII reenactors
in Oklahoma City who bought a Wehrmacht surplus Hetzer tank destroyer
from a museum in Switzerland in 1981.  To legally import into the
country, they had to have the breech block of the cannon cut in half
to disable it.  They had this pretty carefully done in Europe, then shipped
it to all to Oklahoma, where they applied for a manufacture permit to
enable the cannon.  Once they had the permit from the BATF, they had
the breech welded back together and they had a fully functional light
tank destroyer to play with.  Finding cannon shells to fire was a
problem, though.

What's happening today is that the BATF is making up its own rules as it
goes along.  If the BATF doesn't want to allow something, they simply
restrict it, regardless of whether or not they have a legal basis to do
so.  For instance, there is an Executive order banning the import of
a list of specific weapons into the US.  The BATF has taken it upon itself
to expand that list to include weapons are not restricted by the order.
One dealer I've read of got clearance from the BATF to import a number
of rifles, got them as far as a US Customs warehouse, then found that
the BATF had changed its mind.  The rifles are sitting in the warehouse,
they are legal to import, but the BATF says no, we won't let you bring
them in.  Sue us.

It's the same thing with the Soviet aircraft.  There are no real legal
restrictions on the aircraft or their systems, but the BATF is simply
overreaching its authority in what it can control.