I received an order today for two Trjicon RMR red dot sights. I called the customer to let him know the order would be shipped signature required. He asked if he needed to do anything with exports, because he was taking these two with his rifles on a trip to South Africa.
I said I'd check on it. I wanted to know for myself what the law was.
I started by calling Trijicon, and talking to the guy in charge of ITAR compliance. He said he thought that a red dot for personal use should be okay, but gave me the number of a State Department person to talk to.
The State Department guy didn't know what a red dot sight was, but said that this would fall under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Industry and Security at the Commerce Department. He gave me their number.
I called there, and spoke with a representative. He said that, even though the customer just wanted to take the sights out of the country on vacation, he would need to open an account with the Commerce Department, and then file for a SNAP-R license for export.
I told the customer all of this, and he said he'd call them. My guess is that he moved on to another retailer and didn't say anything about export.
These are red dot sights. They're not night vision or thermal. They're not high tech anymore. They've been around for 30 or 40 years. They're not some secret we need to keep from the Russians or Iranians, especially considering what our president is giving the Iranians.
We have reached a point where the bureaucracy effectively makes up laws as it goes along.
