Letter to the Editor from R. Edelstein

John,
Reading your (slightly) tongue in cheek article on the ITAR status of Sri Lanka sent my deranged mind wandering on strange interpretations for the ITAR exemption permitting Americans to export three weapons and a thousand rounds of ammo temporarily “for personal use”. Now a gun exported and returned would be a temporary exportation, in the spirit of the regulations.

But if you USE the weapon abroad, you would expend some of the rounds, so wouldn’t that constitute a permanent export? Even if you picked up your brass and recovered the bullets, the powder would be gone and it would be in a vastly altered state. And if you fired the bullets into another person, wouldn’t that constitute a transfer of ownership? Or are you presumed to own the bullets even after they reside inside the body of another?

What if you were to fire the weapon across the border with another country. Wouldn’t that be a “reexport”? Or if you shoot someone and they manage to drag themselves across the border into another country? (Some of those countries are so small that just in falling, you could cross the line!) The “Expended Round Report” could become quite complicated.

Ronald E. Edelstein, CHB
Global Trade Compliance Manager
Freescale Semiconductors

Ron,
Thanks for you insight regarding the potential trap of using the ITAR exemption for temporary exports of 3 guns and 1000 rounds of ammo for personal use. I like the way you think.

For the record, ITAR 123.17(e) authorizes permanent exports of ammo for personal use and 123.17(c) authorizes temporary exports of ammo for personal use. So, if you plan to not bring any of the ammo home, you might want to use the 123.17(e) exemption.

You pointed out the risks of using 123.17(c) for a temporary export of ammo. I guess the risk is that if you declare 123.17(e) for your 1000 rounds of ammo for permanent export, you can’t bring it back home with you and, since 123.17(3) is personal use only, I guess you gotta load all of it into your gun and shoot it off until you use up all 1000 rounds because you can’t give the ammo to somebody else overseas. (And don’t forget to destroy those spent shell casings!)

Thanks,
John Black