Transcription
The civilian marksmanship program just announced that they'll be making genuine US military surplus M14s available to the public, with an anticipated delivery date of late 2026, early 2027.
If you're not familiar with the CMP, they are an organization that sanctions a whole bunch of different shooting disciplines. And they're also really the only avenue that the US military or Department of Defense has to dispose firearms and make them available to the public. So, this is where you're going to find a lot of your surplus M1s and 1903s and 1911s and that sort of thing.
If you read through the announcement, of course, the CMP says that these M14s are going to be semi-auto only. And they say that whatever they're doing is going to be permanent and irreversible. Now, for them to announce that they're making M14s available is actually a really huge deal, more so than any of the other firearms out there, because up to this point, there have been very few true military M14s that have made it into private ownership. And the ones that have made it into private hands are all transferable NFA items, that's with the exception of a single national match M14.
Basically, in the 1960s, the Office of the Director of Civilian Marksmanship or DCM, which was what the CMP used to be called, it was part of the Department of Defense back then. They sold a bunch of National Match M14s that had been converted to semi-auto to competitors at Camp Perry at the National Matches. Well, after the 1968 Gun Control Act went through, the ATF decided that these National Match M14s were now considered unregistered NFA items. So, anyone who had one of these National Match M14s were basically forced to turn them in and have them be destroyed.
One particular individual went to court to keep his M14, and a US appeals court said that his specific M14 was okay, but refused to make any sort of broader ruling. So basically all of the M14s you see out there that aren't an NFA item or that one guy's specific National Match M14, they are typically commercial copies of the M14. The Springfield Armory Inc. M1A is probably the most popular example. And I'll never not take an opportunity to point out to people that Springfield Armory Inc., the current company based out of Jeneio, Illinois, has nothing to do and has never had anything to do with the former US military armory that was Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts.
So, there are some very interesting legal implications here as far as like the 1968 Gun Control Act and the NFA goes in regards to the M14s. And if you know a little bit about the law, I'm sure it's probably making you scratch your head a little bit, too. Uh, personally, I don't know a whole lot about the law. I'd rather wait and see what my friends over at Fudbusters have to say. And thank you to Ivan for kind of proofreading some of the stuff I wrote down.
But if this announcement excites you and you're interested in maybe getting your own military M14 surplus from the CMP, as you should if you consider yourself a red-blooded American, there is a specific process you have to go through with the CMP in order to be eligible to receive a surplus rifle. Now, if you watch my video on how to get an M1 through the CMP, then you know all this stuff. And this is going to be a brief overview. So, if you need more information or a refresher, I will link that video at the end of this video.
But basically, you need three things to satisfy the CMP requirements. You need proof of US citizenship and legal age to own a firearm. This is usually going to be in the form of a birth certificate or naturalization paperwork or a passport, but there are other options as well, especially if you're military and stuff like that. You also need, uh, proof of involvement in some kind of marksmanship related activity. The easiest way to get this requirement would be to compete in a competition or take a training course and submit your certificate. If you're a veteran or law enforcement or security, any of those firearm certifications apply as well. Um, the CMP sanctions my favorite sport, which is bullseye pistol shooting. So, go shoot a bullseye match and go submit your scorecard to the CMP.
The last thing you're going to need to satisfy the requirements is proof that you belong to a CMP affiliated club. They have a tool on the website to find a CMP affiliated club. You may already belong to one and not know it. So, go ahead and check out the tool. The Glock Sport Shooting Foundation or the Grand Collectors Association are very popular CMP affiliated clubs that anyone can join online.
Once you have those three requirements, you fill out the order form, you get it all notarized, and send the whole packet by mail to the CMP. Now, they do have an online form that you can do now, which I personally have no experience with. I still prefer the mail order form, but the requirements for the online form are going to be the exact same. And you're going to need proof of citizenship, legal age, proof of involvement in a marksmanship related activity, and proof of membership in a CMP affiliated club.
If you need more information on this, go ahead and check out the video I made a while back about the CMP order process here. It goes a lot more into detail and goes step by step.
Other than that, I'm really interested to see what Matt and Ivan have to say about the legal implications of the CMP actually putting M14s out there to the public. So, thank you all for watching and thank you especially to my channel members and Patreon supporters for supporting the channel directly. Have a great day.