The proposed rule, published Thursday in the Federal Register, would shift control of U.S. firearm exports from the State Department to the Commerce Department, in a move the regulatory language said is aimed at reducing "procedural burdens and costs" on American gunmakers doing international business.
As a first step to address the problem, the State Department is on the verge of revoking all outstanding licenses for firearms exports to British companies, a senior American official said.
BALTIMORE — A 34-year-old man from Thailand has been sentenced to just over two years in federal prison for a scheme to export firearm parts from the U.S. to his native country.
Licenses to export firearms will not be issued for European Union countries until the Governments have adopted laws to guarantee that the weapons are not re-exported "to the bad guys," as one senior official in Washington put it.
When the new applications started coming in, the number of firearms licensed for export declined dramatically, to fewer than 400 from 14,000 pending at the time the licenses were revoked.
On Wednesday, the Clinton administration suspended issuing any future licenses for the export of firearms to Canada.
The State Department, citing possible compliance concerns regarding the export of firearms, has ordered a Web site to remove what are believed to be the world's first online instructions on how to build a 3-D printable handgun.
Now the administration wants to relax rules on the export of firearms so that gun manufacturers can make more money, because apparently the weapons-making business is just not profitable enough.
Clinton Administration officials, who are making a major effort to stem the illicit movement of firearms, say they discovered the "European Union loophole" as they call it, during negotiations this year over a treaty to regulate the import and export of firearms.
