It all starts with bureaucracy, of course. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, which has "Firearms" right there in its name, regulates ammunition based on laws passed by Congress. One of those laws, the Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act of 1986, which passed 400-21 in the House and 97-1 in the Senate and was signed by God Reagan, says that any ammunition that "may be used in a handgun," is made of certain materials, like steel, and can pierce body armor can be banned. That's in the actual law. In fact, if the ATF didn't seek to ban those kinds of bullets, it would be violating the law. Pretty simple, no? Pretty cut and dried, no? If Congress doesn't like it, it can change the law.

So now there's this ammo, 5.56mm constituent projectiles of SS109 and M855 cartridges, which had been exempt from the law because they weren't used in handguns. This was the "sporting purposes" exception to the law. But now there are handguns that can fire these steel-tipped, armor-piercing bullets. The ATF is proposing banning the manufacture, sale and import of them. You can keep all the ones you have or will buy in your hording frenzy. But after that, the law says, the safety of police officers comes before your desire to hunt deer wearing bulletproof vests.

Of course, the gun-fellating right has lost its mind over this proposal because the ATF is part of the executive branch and that means the Negro communist Muslim president who hates America must want to kill all the white people and take their guns in order to burn the Constitution and install a Sharia law caliphate in the country. Or something like that.

more...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026287888
(General Discussion thread)

and, if you have the stomach for it
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172162113#post2
I posted it in the Gungeon as well.