>A COPY OF A LETTER TO CONGRESS
>BY A GOP CHAIR EMERITUS
>
>March 1st, 1999
>
>Honorable Wally Herger, MOC
>Sam Rayburn Building
>Washington, D.C.
>
>
>Dear Wally,
>
> Recently a few members of the Military Vehicle Preservation Association
>explained a problem to me that I now want to bring to your attention. It
>seems the BATF is suddenly not issuing the necessary permit or document
needed
>to import historic and collector grade ex-military vehicles. According to
my
>sources the BATF requires an importation form similar in nature and purpose
to
>the form required for buying a legal firearm. By not issuing a "form 6,"
the
>BATF effectively shuts down commerce on such vehicles.
>
> Of course these vehicles are not armed with any weapons and they have
been
>completely demilitarized as required by current federal law. Simply
stated,
>collectors and historians want to preserve a part of history and the BATF
is
>stopping them. You should know that many of their (mil-veh) projects wind
up
>in public museums. Some are used in patriotic parades and a few even go to
>private display for various commercial purposes, including movie props.
But,
>in all this wide spread activity there has never been a single incident
where
>such a vehicle has been used for an illegal or dangerous purposes, not
once!
>
> It troubles me why the BATF has imposed this restraint without public
>notice, without any public commentary or without open legislative
discussion
>on the matter? They simply said no and put a lot of people out of
business!
>I believe you and I are equally concerned about such unfair, if not
>undemocratic process as imposed by BATF.
>
> Whatever the source or reason for this silly action, it needs to be
>examined. I suspect this stupidity has its roots in the 1960's, where
>anything military was bad and anything that hurt the military was good.
Those
>radical 60's types are now in high places and as demonstrated by BATF, are
>able to jerk people around thanks to their decades old misconpetions and
false
>prejudices. Little groups like the harmless MVPA are at their mercy. The
>MVPA is organized as a 501 3-c non-profit organization and as a result it
can
>not even lobby on it's own behalf, so people like you and I have to do it
for
>them. Note, their membership is small in numbers, but there cause is
>compelling
>and worthy.
>
> Wally would you kindly look into this see what's going on? Hopefully
you
>can at least offer us some reasoning behind the action, if not make some
>change back to the status quo.
>
>
>
>
>
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