Posted on 03/11/2018 3:55:19 PM PDT by Lazamataz
NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY could ever call me a Never Trumper. In fact, I was perhaps one of the very first Trump supporters on this forum.
However, by using his Executive Order to ban bump-stocks as machine guns -- despite the fact that they STILL PULL ONE TRIGGER FOR ONE ROUND BEING FIRED -- he has just done something in an extra-judicial manner.
Despite the clear language of the law that defines automatic weapons -- that one trigger pull discharges multiple rounds continuously -- his EO causes the language to be ignored.
Now, I get that Trump bashed the NRA, then met with them the next day. I get that. That’s chicken feed for the liberals and RINOs.
BUT
Trump banned bump stocks pretty much by Executive Order.
DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THAT MEANS?
It means the first Democrat who gets elected will ban ALL SEMIAUTOS by Executive Order. All they have to do, with this precedent, is show someone firing a semi-auto in a bump-fire method using a pants belt-loop. Voila: It's a full-auto. Therefore, it can be EO'd away.
The right thing to have done was to encourage / demand the House give him a bump stock ban bill. Then get it through the Senate. Then sign it.
But by doing what he just did, he made it possible for Dems to EO firearms away.
Imagine this alternate-universe we are in.
Where Obama actually does three or four positive things for Firearms owners, and Trump is the first President in over 20 years to start opening the openings for broad gun control.
Physicists postulate infinite universes, where every decision taken by every life form anywhere in our universe, causes a new set of universes to be set into existence.
Somehow, we ended up in a really weird alternate universe.
I agree.
Thus, this vanity post.
Ping to a little vanity I wrote, sourcing my original comment as a guideline.
If you have anyone’s ear over there still, you might make them aware of his bases’ alarm.
A Democrat President will point to a fact similar to the above and say “now, no one needs to send five bullets downrange in five seconds, so I’m going to issue an EO making weapons with such capability illegal.”
Voila - we have full “handgun control” which makes every single handgun owned by a private citizen illegal.
If a Democrat POTUS ever did that the GOP would have 70 seats in the Senate. So you can stop hyper ventilating. The Dems talk a big game on gun control but the reality is they don’t want gun control any more than the GOP because many Dems are vulnerable on it. Like immigration they really just want a red meat campaign issue to get the Dem base all we wee’d up.
There are those who say that giving him advice is treason, because it implies that he doesn’t know absolutely everything without our help.
Trump is the best president we’ve had in decades so I won’t be attacking him — especially when it comes to something like the ban of bump stocks.
Trump has exposed his enemies and his weak, weak friends. His enemies attack and demean Trump 24x7 on every media outlet in every corner of the world. His weak, weak friends post their selfish, narrow-minded, nitpicking complaints to the one corner of the world that should support Trump unconditionally. Gary Cohn showed the world a respectful way to disagree with Trump. Resign. Or you can bet your future on bump stocks. Your call.
I'm not as upset about a ban on bump stocks as I am about the extra-legal process used to achieve that ban.
Besides, it is often said that a REAL friend will tell you when you screwed up.... so you should be calling me a REAL friend of President Trump.
Not saying this is 4D chess, but may I suggest:
By restricting them through regulation/executive action, he is limiting the damage the Anti Gunners can do. Why do you think Fineswine and Schmuck are so hot to do this legislatively.
Load the bill with amendments and backdoor bans/restrictions on guns, add Mental Health restrictions that violate due process.
With a straight regulatory ban on a single item, it’s done, over with, and the regulation can be rescinded at a later date if conditions warrant.
Just my two cents.
Realistically, however, our nation can't seem to equip itself with a Supreme Court that understands that marriage is between one man and one woman or that unborn babies should not be murdered in the womb.
For that reason we are obliged to suffer some setbacks in the effort to restore our rights.
Assuming that Gorsuch is what he seems to be and that Trump will nominate others of similar opinions, then there is hardly a sacrifice not worth making to keep Trump's ability to nominate Supreme Court Justices.
Trump manages to take the wind out of the anti-gunners sails by directing the DOJ to re-examine their stance on bump stocks. This matter was already researched thoroughly by a BATFE that would willingly ban ANY firearm if they thought the legislation justifies it. During the so-called "Assault Weapons Ban" they willingly barred some rifles because they had a bayonet lug. Not a bayonet, mind you; just the little piece of metal that would permit a bayonet to be attached.
For this reason, I have no doubt, without even reading the applicable laws, that bump stocks do NOT fall under the laws against machine guns. If they did, the BATFE would already have banned them.
That means that a lawsuit or a criminal prosecution involving bump stocks will be thrown out; even if it takes a Supreme Court decision to do so.
Without the bump-stock issue, I see no chance whatever that Congress will be passing any anti-gun legislation in the near future. That is what Trump has accomplished.
The same can probably be claimed for any ban on acquiring rifles by those who are 18 to 20, a clear infringement.
The Constitution clearly sets a minimum age for Congressmaen, Senators, and the President. If the Founders had meant to have an arbitrary age limit for possession of arms, they knew how to say it. As it is, the Constitution must be amended to implement such a ban.
The NRA supports the bump stock ban.
Technically, it is not an executive order. The Justice Department is working with the ATF to implement it through regulations - based on existing laws.
The NRA supported this approach, but opposed new legislation. I assume that would be to avoid all the other crap the gun grabbers want to do.
If these school shootings keep on happening, there’s going to be more and more people demanding and willing to give up the guns. It’s not rational.
In my opinion, that’s why in case after case, the potential shooters are just ignored, and the schools are gun free zones. So the gun grabbers can use their propaganda to brain wash people.
In addition to arming teacher volunteers, and other safety measures, I’d like to see them address the role of SSRI pharmaceuticals. All the mass shootings I have read about, the person was taking medications that can cause violence/suicide and hearing voices.
The lying MSM never mentions that little bit of info. Like I said, the gun grabbers don’t really want to stop these shootings, they want to be able to exploit it.
So to me, that’s the bottom line, get a handle on this to stop these mass shootings-best way to preserve 2cnd amendment rights - hold feet to the fire over this.
It’s an interesting perspective. It still troubles me in it’s implementation, however.
Bump stocks is NOT the hill to die on right now. Minimum age to purchase a firearm, due process when proposing taking firearms for mental health issues, yes, bump stocks, no.
I agree with you. “Bump stocks” are not “arms”; therefore, they are not really related to the Second Amendment. As I understand it, a “bump stock” is a thingie that anyone with some tools in his garage could build.
That being so, banning the thingie is something Congress could go, if they sobered up. (They could say it’s “interstate commerce,” like everything else.) They won’t, though: no percentage in it. Why, then, does President Donald J. Trump think he wins by banning a garage-build thingie, when the Constitution gives him no such power?
Troubles me too
But I can just hear him asking his people how to minimize the damage on this, and this coming out as a possible answer.
We all have an interest in preventing the baying wolves from putting a load of crap on what may be an otherwise acceptable bill.
We have all seen it before
“He had to do something. The Dems are out for his head.”
The Dems always will be out for his head no matter what he does, so he might as well stay hard-ass on the 2A.
Rats screamed, “DACA! DACA! DACA!”, So he gives them DACA —more generous than they ever wanted or asked for — and now they don’t want it and have stopped talking about it.
Rats tore him a new one over his bellicose talk about NoKo: “He’s going to start a war! We want negotiations. We want talks.” So now he agrees to sitting down and negotiating — exactly what they demanded — and they’re crucifying him.
No matter what he does, it’ll be wrong. He should’ve tightened up the Second Amendment instead of weakening it. What does he have to lose?
No Laz, its Trump that needs to take his tone down a notch. I wouldn’t let this slide even slightly with a D president. Trump does not get a pass because he has an R by his name.
If he wants to change his direction it’s possible that things can be patched up, though the hole is getting deep and fast.
This goes on for two more weeks or if more free states go commie, we are going to have a Category 5 S**t Hurricane on our hands.
Trump threw the gauntlet down to the NRA and told politicians to not be scared of them. What an incredible political miscalculation. If he doesn’t change course then NRA members have no option but to turn him out of office in 2020. If we don’t then we are shown to be the paper tiger he said we were, and then the uniparty leftists will run roughshod over the 2A with impunity.
THAT is the political reality. Trump has created a situation where he either has to backpedal or 2A voters have to deliver an electoral annihilation just to keep our clout intact. There is no option between those.
It pains me to point this out, but McConnell is the one doing right by us at the moment on the 2A. I also have to point out that BATFE basically doesn’t want to be involved in this bump stock business at all. THE BATFE IS MORE ON OUR SIDE RIGHT THIS SECOND THAN TRUMP OR THE FLORIDA GOP. A massive mistake has to have been made for that situation to obtain.
People around here had better stop dismissing this. This place still has its collective head planted firmly in the sand, and the weak sauce types that think the bump stock ban doesn’t matter are going to be the death of owning semi auto firearms in this country. They are part of the problem.
WAKE. UP. DAMMIT. :|
Well, you can call a spork a spoon and you’d be half right.
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