My comment at the other posting is pasted below:
Seeing the additional posts and reading comments, I went back to dig a bit. I found the following:
Gibson Guitar Corp. Responds to Federal Raid
Gibson Les Paul Guitars With Less Ebony
Gibson Guitar Corporation admits to importing endangered wood
India import led to probe at 2 Tenn. Gibson Guitar plants
Gibson guitars set to miss Indian notes as raids in US and Europe on Gibson's facilities continue
Now The Gibson Guitar Raids Make SenseNow The Gibson Guitar Raids Make Sense
In my opinion, I think it's clear that things are 'not clear'. I leave it to someone else with more time than I to wade through all the BS, but hold to my opinion above. There is also the apparently UNRESOLVED ISSUE of 'possession of endangered woods'; you all know what that means.
"Now there are 4,500 laws and hundreds of thousands of regulations that no one, not even a lawyer, not a judge, could possibly know. Furthermore, there is no central location or website that an average citizen can go to find out what the federal crimes are. And that matters when intent does not have to be proven to be convicted," Paul Larkin, senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Newsmax.From here:
Last year, Blackburn and fellow U.S. Reps. Jim Cooper of Nashville, a Democrat, introduced legislation they said would protect people from charges for unknowingly possessing illegally imported wood, and would require the federal government to establish a database of forbidden wood sources.Last October: US reps seek new law after raids at Gibson guitars
Officials with the U.S. Justice Department and the Interior Department in a letter to members of Congress last month said it is not a crime to "unknowingly possess" such instruments, and that prosecutors would target only "those who are removing protected species from the wild and making a profit by trafficking in them." Blackburn said the bill would make that approach the law. "We don't want individuals to have to depend on the language of that letter," she said.Well, the only legislation 'I' can find at congress.gov is H.R.3280, and it's languishing in Committee...
Unfortunately, on July 19, House Republican leaders canceled plans for a floor vote and effectively pulled the bill from further consideration by the 112th Congress.
Now, H.R. 3280 is just languishing.