Once Banned Firearms Coming In, U.S. Says : Weapons: Crime bill now before Congress would close loophole, White House declares.

The White House said today some previously banned firearms are being allowed into the country because the Administration has no choice. But, it said, a crime bill being considered by Congress would correct the problem.

“Apparently the way the existing rules are written, ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) is not authorized to prevent these weapons from coming in,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.

“The new crime bill, I’m told, does rectify this problem,” he said. “We look forward to signing that crime bill.”

Fitzwater said the guns should not be allowed into the country “if they are the same weapon that was originally banned and that was a circumvention of the rule.”

The Washington Post, relying on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Firearms Policy Project, said permission has been granted to import new versions of the Uzi, AK-47, Galil, HK-91 and other assault weapons. The importation of those weapons was prohibited last year.

The paper, in today’s editions, quoted officials as saying the new versions have been altered to remove flash suppressors, grenade launchers, bayonet attachments and other military-style features that made them unsuitable for “sporting purposes.”

Once the military-style features were removed, “they no longer fit the category of semiautomatic, assault-type rifle” and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had no grounds for keeping them out, the paper quoted bureau spokeswoman Dot Koester as saying.

However, the guns can still accept magazines of up to 30 rounds of ammunition and have pistol-grip type stocks that enable them to be reloaded quickly.

Josh Sugarman, director of the group that made the documents available to the newspaper, was quoted as saying those features make them every bit as deadly as the banned weapons and “make a mockery of last year’s action.”