Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Richard Durbin, and other Congressional Democrats asked the United States Commerce Department to cut assault weapon exports and increase oversight measures of gun exports.
It is being reported by Reuters that this overture is an attempt to fortify the law, which was weakened under the Trump administration. Last fall, the Commerce Department initiated a 90-day moratorium in order to study the "risk of firearms being diverted to entities or activities that promote regional instability, violate human rights or fuel criminal activities."
The pause features shotguns and optical sights and is slated to end this week. The department could determine if it wants to make the halt on export licenses permanent at that time or return to prior practices.
They are discussing whether would like to add permanent restrictions as well. The letter was signed by the US. Representatives Joaquin Castro, and Norma Torres, as well as Warren and Durbin.
It was sent to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who voiced support for returning export authority oversight to the Department of State. It was changed to the Department of Commerce under then-President Trump.
Furthermore, the petitioning group asked the Department of Commerce to extend the review, declaring that it wishes to curb exports and commit to better post-shipment oversight while shortening the period export licenses are valid from four years to one.
"From March 9, 2020, to June 30, 2023, Commerce approved nearly 25,000 firearms export licenses with a total value of $34.7 billion, or roughly $10.5 billion per year," the letter said, which represented an increase of more than $1 billion in the annual value of license approvals.
In December, HNGN reported on Russian soldiers using American-made rifle scopes in combat in Ukraine.
In this instance, scopes were labeled as "for installation on hunting weapons" and "not for installation on military weapons," but such verbiage is nebulous if no one's there to enforce it. We will keep our readership updated on this story as additional details are made available.
