Can I get a citation for that?
It is historical and policy record. Easiest to understand when it was being done, but still plenty of references to it and the politics of the time.
I am sure I could dig up some references as easily as you could.
The M9 had just been fully adopted by the US military in 1990, and the military had tons of 1911 pistols no longer needed being phased out.
The pace of stockpiled weapons becoming surplus is slow, but they were well on their way.
Then you had all the anti gun politics of the early 90s resulting in things like the 'Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act' creating NICS in 1993, the Federal Assault Weapon Ban in 1994, and programs like the DCM (former CMP) being shut down among other things.
To further insure these evil guns never fell into the hands of any outside the government most were ordered destroyed. This was done by cutting up or crushing millions of receivers of a few types of firearms, including m14s and 1911s.
These were systematically 'demilled' over a few years in the early 90s.
When others brought back the DCM as the private CMP one of the intentional limitations the antis jabbed back with was to keep them from selling surplus handguns.
Specifically to restrict their sales to .22 and .30 caliber rifles only, with the specific intent of insuring the mass stockpile of 1911 pistols recently retired for the M9 were not distributed to the population before fully destroyed.
As a result today even when the M9 is retired they still cannot become surplus under that same limitation.
These actions were motivated specifically to keep then filled armories of things like completely legal and retired 1911s from going to civilians in the short term, or things like m14 rifles some day in the future.
That was the principal motivation for both the destruction, and the speed with which it was carried out.
They were rabidly anti-gun, and wanted to act fast while in power to insure even once out of power the guns were already destroyed and even if the policy was reversed, the stockpiles were gone.
As a result US GI 1911s went from being on the verge of becoming the most numerous cheap and affordable handgun in the United States, to remaining an uncommon collector's item.
MAYBE M9's after the bluing is rubbed off and the firing pin is britle as a toothpick.
Read above. Out of fear of 1911s going to civilians in the early 90s (demilled) and the DCM being destroyed (and revived as the CMP with new restrictions) surplus handguns cannot go to civilians.
So all current and likely future military rifles are select fire and can never be transferred to civilians, and all handguns are specifically kept from being transferred to civilians through current channels.
So 'surplus' sources of almost anything made in the last several decades, and likely firearms of the future have been prevented.
