Spokesman Mike McCurry said his department was asking the Treasury Department to deny approval to businesses seeking to bring $1 billion worth of Russian guns into the United States until studies are done to see what is spurring a massive increase in the market for these arms.
"This is a huge increase in the volume of license applications that we've seen," McCurry said at a briefing, noting that only 1,000 weapons were imported from the former Soviet Union in 1992 and only 18,000 in 1993, compared with pending applications for 7.6 million this year.
He said the applications, filed with the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms by some 250 U.S. companies, also seek to import over 7 billion rounds of ammunition.
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