The decision in United States v. Burden, decided back in November of 2016, is not breaking news, but as I’ve seen several commentaries on it recently, I thought I might weigh in.  The defendants in that case argued that they had not violated the Arms Export Control Act because — get this — ammunition magazines and grenade launcher mounts, according to the defendants, are not defense articles. The defendants argued that these items are not defense articles because they can also be used with airsoft guns.  Accordingly they claimed the magazine and mount are not defense articles as defined in section 120.4 of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and no license was required for their export.   This is pretty much like arguing that cannons are not defense articles because you could use them in circuses to shoot people into trampoline nets.

For reasons that are not clear, this led the District Court to actually consider whether these items were defense articles or not as defined in section 120.4.  That section deals with commodity jurisdiction determinations and had no relevance to the case under consideration.  The question properly before the court was whether the grenade mounts and ammunition magazines are on the United States Munitions List (“USML”), not whether they are defense articles.

If the items are on the USML, they are by definition defense articles.   The very first sentence of the USML makes this crystal clear:

U.S. Munitions List. In this part, articles, services, and related technical data are designated as defense articles or defense services pursuant to sections 38 and 47(7) of the Arms Export Control Act.

This means that the only real question the court had to answer was whether the grenade mount and ammunition magazine were described in Category I(h) of the USML which covers “[c]omponents, parts, accessories and attachments” of firearms described in Category I, subparts (a) through (h). It doesn’t matter that these items can be used on airsoft or paintball guns any more than it matters that a cannon can be used in a circus act or a performance of the 1812 Overture. Certainly the magazine meets the definition of a component and the mount meets the definition of an attachment and that, pretty much, should have been the end of it.

Even so, the court decided that the items were defense articles not because they were on the USML but because an expert witness from DDTC said that they were defense articles. The expert in question was Robert Warren, formerly Division Chief of the Plans, Personnel, Programs, and Procedures Division of DDTC, an odd choice in comparison to, say, the division chief for the division that handles licensing for firearms.  In any event, the court noted that Warren testified that “a defense article as we termed it is anything that has a military significance or military application.”  And that, according to the court, settled the question as to whether the mount and the magazine were defense articles.

Of course, the idea that something is a defense article if it has a military application is the equally stupid mirror argument to the defendants’ nonsensical claim that something is not a defense article if it has a non-military use.  Under the standard articulated by Warren, a water canteen purchased at a camping store or a pair of camo pants purchased from a clothing store would be defense articles.

As noted above, there was no need for anyone to dive down this rabbit hole and figure whether the mount and the magazine were defense articles.  If they were described by Category I(h) as attachments and components of firearms then they were defense articles.  End of story.  No further proof as to whether they were defense articles was necessary.   And, given that the defendants did not appear to dispute that these items were components and attachments of firearms but only that they were defense articles, it is not unfair to accuse them of raising the fabled Chewbacca defense.

Photo Credit: Human Cannonball by Laura LaRose [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Flickr https://flic.kr/p/6shAzP [cropped and processed]. Copyright 2009 Laura LaRose

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