Postino,
Yes, minor publicity was given to this "grind-em-up" requirement in the 1950s. And by ATF.
Alanint,
It was most certainly not done "out of ignorance". It was done because the law, and ATF, said so. Thousands and thousands of Luger owners, almost all of them, substituted their own judgement and ignored it. Very few did otherwise. I'm not sure whether the literal law covering it actually survives today. It may. But the fact that ATF would be unable to show a record of any significant level of enforcement during the last 50 years would make it more or less a dead letter and probably not successfully prosecutable.
And remember, all C96 pattern Mauser pistols and all military Inglis pistols with shoulder stock mounting provision have been exempted. As a matter of legal consistency, this should be extended to cover all pre-1946 Lugers of any barrel length and model. There is no valid public interest argument to the contrary.
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