Posted on 12/08/2018 8:00:33 AM PST by Simon Green
President Trump made up his mind some time ago to ban bump stocks, the woefully ineffective firearm accessory regrettably used in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. Recently, though, reports from CNN and the New York Times indicate that the Trump administration is poised to implement a ban on these devices in the coming days. There are two major issues with this: they can’t legally do it, and it’s dumb.
Still, you may remember the media storm around bump stocks last year. Deserved or not, a proposition to ban bump stocks seemed to have bipartisan support, but Congress couldn’t agree on a way to ban or regulate the devices, so the momentum petered out.
Perhaps in search of mythical bipartisanship points, Trump ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to craft a new administrative rule banning the devices. This might seem odd to anyone who has managed to stay awake through a single civics class or a third of an episode of “Schoolhouse Rock.” That’s because this attempt to bypass the legislature is completely out of line with the law.
Bump Stocks Are Not Machine Guns
For better or for worse, the DOJ was given the authority to regulate machine guns with the National Firearms Act of 1934 and Gun Control Act of 1968. These laws specifically define a “machine gun,” and over the last 10 years several administrations have reviewed bump stocks and repeatedly determined that they do not fall in that category.
But, when faced with an opportunity for political expediency in the wake of the Vegas shooting, President Trump basically demanded the DOJ pretend as if bump stocks—a shaped piece of plastic—somehow now fall within the legal definition of “machine gun.” This is absurd.
Imagine there were a law giving the DOJ the authority to regulate blue cars, and that for decades the DOJ agreed with the reasonable proposition that green cars were not included in the definition of “blue cars,” and thus could not regulate them. Then imagine that a tragedy involving a green car occurs, and the DOJ is suddenly of the opinion that green is actually a shade of blue.
That is exactly what is happening here. Under federal law, a “machine gun” is a device “which shoots … automatically more than one shot … by a single function of the trigger.” A bump stock, on the other hand, functions with repeated actuations of a trigger.
If the government really wants to regulate bump stocks (which they shouldn’t), they need to do it by passing a new law, not by assigning new meaning to an old one. This whole point should be moot, though, because of the fact that bump stocks are not actually uniquely dangerous compared to other guns. Hollywood and video games have convinced the American public that the faster people can fire, the more deadly they can be. Reality, though, is a bit more nuanced.
How Do Bump Stocks Actually Work?
A gun’s usable rate of fire is limited by its recoil. Unlike a truck, bomb, or knife, when a firearm is discharged, it deviates from its course and needs to be re-aimed before it can fire again effectively. A gun that fires 10,000 rounds per minute is no more useful than a regular rifle if the gun is pointing in the air after the first shot. This is why not even our military regularly uses fully automatic “machine gun” fire in standard rifles—they’re just not nearly as deadly or effective as they sound.
In reality, there is no gun that is more or less safe when misused against innocent people. The American people think it’s reasonable to ban something like a bump stock because it is “like a machine gun” only because of a fundamentally flawed conception of how firearms actually work.
We need to remember that any time we want to ban something, it comes at a tremendous cost. President Trump is wasting not only time and sidestepping the law with this proposal, he is betraying his promise to protect gun rights—with no benefit to public safety.
“I will say this. This bump stock turns this AR essentially into an automatic weapon. NO DOUBT!
I’m not arguing the “legal” definition of “automatic” or the 2nd amendment.”
The legal definition of automatic is prcisely the issue here. Rate of fire has nothing to do with the current legal definition of a machine gun. If rate of fire is to be the determinate factor in legally defining machine guns then that must be done by congress, not a regulatory agency like ATF.
Didn’t need it during Desert Storm. Expelling all your ammo in 10 minutes and you are throwing rocks. 3 round burst or just Semi-Auto. When you only have 400 rounds and you are 2 hours from resupply, you tend to be conservative with them. And I doubt the US Military will ever start killing US citizens considering 6-10 million of them are Veterans.
Federal Register - Bump-Stock-Type Devices. There is a lot of information in this link.
923-Page Opposition to ATF “Bump-Stock” Ban Filed.
I suspect the case will go all the way to the Supreme Court. Since the legislative branch of government has ceased to work, I suspect they will remain silent and not do the job they are supposed to do, which is make the laws. Which is why the courts have garnered more power than they should have.
But President Trump is certainly not doing it on his own. He is working within the Constitution. President Trump may have directed the ATF to re-examine their ruling, but that also is legal. They did and decided that bump stocks do meet the one trigger definition. Lawsuit was filed against that ATF ruling, and is now proceeding through court system.
We may not agree with the final outcome, NRA has no problem with banning bump stocks, but at least it is an orderly process. It does, however, expose the uselessness Congress has become, they no longer do their job at all. Why? Because they are afraid they will not get re-elected. Makes for a good case of term limits.
I’m not necessarily directing this to you, but I wish people would educate themselves before commenting about this. It’s not about feelings, or opinions, or need. It’s about pure, factual law. And pure, factual law does not support the ATF banning this $5 piece of plastic. If this president can do this, then stand by. When we have a dem president, which we will, gun ownership will be in serious jeopardy.
“Unless I am mistaken, you can own a fully automatic machine gun if you get the proper Federal Permit. Why not do that for bump stocks?”
I started a reply to your post but found it so logically flawed I didn’t know where to start.
The ignorance on this topic is mind blowing.
This is getting tiresome. Bumpfire stocks do not cause a firearm to fire more than one round per pull of the trigger. Each round fired is caused by a single pull of the trigger. The fact that the recoil of the firearm actuates the trigger is irrelevant to the legal definition of a machine gun. ATF rexamining their previous ruling and suddenly determining that bumpfire stocks are now machine guns is akin to John Roberts gymnastics in the Obamacare mandate ruling.
This is getting tiresome
Yes it is.
Will it be Illegal to convert a Pogo Stick into a Bump Stock?
What if you take one of those support Springs out of your Mattress and use it to make a Hillbilly Bump Stock?
Will there be classifications of Springs you can legally possess? What is the difference between a regular Spring and an Assault Spring?
These are questions that demand answers from our Overlords.
I’m waiting with bated breath for you to enlighten me.
didn’t realize that.
I am sorry, as a member of a gun club which had to ban bump stocks because of members inadvertently sending projectiles into neighboring ranges and putting other members at risk... This is much ado about nothing. Anyone who wants to waste ammunition can figure out other ways to do it.
I’m not arguing the “legal” definition of “automatic” or the 2nd amendment.
**
From a previous post:
Bump-stocks are silly toys that a guy figured out he could use as part of a cobbled-together A-Team solution to do evil in a very specific situation. It’s useful in sending many rounds down-range and cross-range while not hitting your target, when you don’t care if your firearm jams or is rapidly ruined. It works by you losing control of the weapon.
Having an unassailable firing point with many enclosed targets, no place to escape and no concealment - and in this case - almost TWO DOZEN spare longarms, and hundreds to thousands of wasted rounds which won’t be hitting any targets, and hours to days of prep time were all also required for what happened in Vegas.
The main part of banning a bump-stock that is problematic is that it is such a simple thing that it is more a concept than an item, and that definitions suggested to date include many, many, mundane items both firearms related and not - and thus extraordinarily capricious - including sticks, string, rubber-bands, beltloops, fingers in certain positions, and anything which can be substituted for those items.
To make it as short as possible, the definition of an automatic firearm is one that fires multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger. The ATF, originally and under current law, issued an interpretation that “bump stocks “ did not alter a weapon that would make fire multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger. Is your breath still “bated” (whatever that is)? A 1 minute internet search will verify this.
http://www.slidefire.com/files/BATFE.pdf
“The ATF, originally and under current law, issued an interpretation that “bump stocks “ did not alter a weapon that would make fire multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger.”
I bet all those folks killed at Las Vegas by a psycho firing semiautomatic weapons that were made to fire as automatic weapons feel much better now that that is cleared up.
“I bet all those folks killed at Las Vegas by a psycho firing semiautomatic weapons that were made to fire as automatic weapons feel much better now that that is cleared up.”
You should remove the “anti” from your screen name because you think, without out a doubt, like a liberal. You have no logic and cannot debate on merits. I have given indisputable evidence that you cannot argue with so you immediately resort to feelings. I guess you are insinuating that I should feel bad because of the law regarding automatic firearms. I do not. An evil person killed those people, not a gun, automatic or otherwise. I’m sorry, ma’am or sir, but you are an idiot and the very person I was addressing in the post you replied to.
At this point.
But the executive branch has the authority to declare an amnesty.
At the minimum, they should do so to allow the free registration of all the bump stocks.
Heck, they should do so for all NFA items, for 90 days, and say they have to do it for bump stocks because of the takings clause.
What crack?
Elaborate. (If you can)
There are no “cracks” to speak of, only ignorant people like you who like to sound intelligent in front of crowds.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.