The upshot? Here’s how the government put it in a filing noted by CNN, warning the judge about the consequences of enforcing the rule as written:
'Unregulated parts could be manufactured, sold, and combined with other commercially available parts to create completed, un-serialized firearms which would not be subject to background checks, and which would be untraceable.'
That's all well and good, but it is neither the ATF's job to interpret such regs or the judge to rule in terms of unintended consequences.
It is instead the responsibility of the Congress to write clearly defined laws (right or wrong) so that their intentions are laid out fully.
This is the stuff of judicial activism. If you don't enforce a law or regulation AS WRITTEN then how on earth is the average citizen supposed to know how they should proceed, knowing that some unelected official's whim might someday land them in jail??
Bump stocks. They pretty much do whatever they want.
“’Unregulated parts could be manufactured, sold, and combined with other commercially available parts to create completed, un-serialized firearms which would not be subject to background checks, and which would be untraceable.’”
Can’t a knowledgeable gunsmith do the same in a machine shop with commercially available steel stock?