Lugers and Mausers and Suppressors (oh my!)

Back when I reviewed Geoffrey Sturgess’ recently released Luger compendium, I had mentioned that it came with a neat documentary on the development of the Luger. The film is 74 minutes long, and is geared towards the casual firearms enthusiast, rather than the dedicated Luger student – it’s a very approachable and well produced piece, and I assumed it was just a part of the book packages. However, I have discovered that the DVD is available by itself from the producer (Wide Angle, who also has several films on historic tanks and armor). You can see the trailer here:

It is available in the US and Europe for 14 pounds (roughly $22) plus shipping, and is quite enjoyable. It and Wide Angle’s other films can be purchased from their web site, at http://www.wideangle.co.uk/shop.htm .

Another item that has been brought to my attention is a cool web site with original documents from Paul Mauser’s archive, appropriately titled the Paul Mauser Archive. They have posted a number of letters, diary entries, and more with translations and nice scans of the original documents. The web site only has a fraction of the documents which still exist, but I expect anyone doing serious research would find the site owners (Mauro Baudino & Gerben van Vlimmeren, who co-wrote The Parabellum is Back!) quite helpful.

Lastly, we have a couple pieces of good news on the legal front. At the NFATCA meeting this past weekend, we were informed that the NFA branch of ATF is hiring an additional 9 examiners to process NFA transfers. This will almost double the staffing level, and should reduce the wait time for transfers on machine guns, suppressors, SBRs, and so on by 40% or 50% (this may be the only time we’ve ever been happy about additional bureaucrats!).

We also heard rumors that in 2013 the NRA ILA lobbyists and lawyers will tackle the goal of removing supressors from the NFA, so they will no longer require a tax stamp. This would be a fantastic step forward, for several reasons. For one thing, it would vastly increase the general use of sound suppressors, which ought to be as standard as mufflers on cars. It would reduce consumer cost significantly by vastly expanding the market (and, of course, by removing the $200 tax from the equation). In addition, suppressors made up about 60% or the transfers being processed (or sat on) by ATF, and taking them out of the equation would result (theoretically) in another huge  drop in transfer times for other NFA goodies. So, cross your fingers that the rumors pan out!