NRA warns federal regulations may censor online gun speech
Michael Tennant for The New American reports:
The Obama administration is proposing regulations that could “censor online speech related to firearms” and subject violators to “severe” penalties, the National Rifle Association (NRA) warns. The new rule, says the NRA, “is as much an affront to the First Amendment as it is to the Second.”
The proposed regulations, published in the June 3 issue of the Federal Register, are part of a “large scale overhaul of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR)” that the administration has been pursuing “for the past several years,” writes the NRA. The ITAR, which implement the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) of 1976, require anyone wishing to export certain “defense articles,” which include firearms and ammunition, and “defense services” to obtain a license from the State Department before doing so. They also demand that producers of such articles and services “register with the U.S. Government and pay a hefty fee for doing so,” according to the NRA.
In addition, writes the gun group, exporting “technical data” about defense items, such as “blueprints, drawings, photographs, plans, instructions or documentation,” is subject to ITAR — and that is where the real danger lies.
Read the full story at The New American.
