Free Republic

The federal government collected fewer than 1,000 bump stocks during the run-up to a new ban in March, despite estimates that hundreds of thousands of the devices that mimic machine gun fire are in circulation, according to federal data provided to The Washington Times by the Justice Department. As the nation marked the second anniversary Oct. 1 of the Las Vegas massacre, which prodded the Trump administration to ban bump stocks, the numbers offer a cautionary tale on the scope and resources needed to enforce any sort of gun buyback program. The administration cited estimates that 280,000 to 520,000 bump-stock-type...

Full title: Relying on the Same Illogic That Trump Used to Ban Bump Stocks, a New Lawsuit Argues That Customizable Rifles Are Illegal A new lawsuit against the manufacturers of guns used in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting claims that AR-15-style rifles are illegal because they are compatible with bump stocks, which increase their rate of fire. The plaintiffs, parents of a woman who was murdered in the Las Vegas massacre, argue that bump stocks like the ones used in that attack convert semi-automatic rifles into illegal machine guns—a position that has been endorsed by the Trump administration. Therefore,...

The repercussions of the BATFE rule change classifying bump stocks as fully automatic firearms continues.  RW Arms is a company located in Ft. Worth Texas.  The company distributes firearms parts and accessories in the United States. RW Arms had a large inventory of over 73,000 “bump stocks”, when the BATFE changed the regulations and classified bump stocks as automatic firearms. RW Arms joined with retailer The Modern Sportsman to sue the federal government for an uncompensated taking of their formerly legal product under the Fifth Amendment of the the U.S. Constitution. From rwarms.com: Fort Worth, Texas (April 8, 2019)–Fort...

Retailers who had to destroy tens of thousands of bump stocks to comply with an ATF rule change have gone to the court seeking compensation. (Photo: Slide Fire Solutions)Two former retailers of now-banned bump stock devices are suing the federal government for damages they incurred after having to destroy their inventory. The plaintiffs include two companies, Minnesota’s Modern Sportsman and Texas-based RW Arms, as well as two individuals, Mark Maxwell and Michael Stewart, who in all lost 74,995 bump stocks to the ban which took effect late last month. The case, filed in a Washington, D.C. federal court, argues that...

The litany of legal challenges to the federal bump stock ban generated an injunction on Thursday.The U.S. 10th Circuit on Thursday issued a temporary stay of the pending federal bump stock ban set to take effect next week. The stay comes in the case of Utah gun rights advocate W. Clark Aposhian, backed by the nonprofit New Civil Liberties Alliance, which takes issue with how government regulators moved to outlaw the devices last year. As such, it blocks enforcement, set to take effect on March 26, only against Aposhian while his case is in the courts. “Today the Court of...

The appeal by the Plaintiffs against the BATFE in the bump stock ruling has been expedited.  The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ordered the parties to submit briefs by March 4th of 2019. That is extraordinarily fast by U.S. appeals court standards. The original ruling by the Circuit court hinged on the notion that ordinary words are ambiguous, and an agency can reverse previous rulings when the agency decides to do so.  From the opinion: Most of the plaintiffs’ administrative law challenges are foreclosed by the Chevron doctrine, which permits an agency...

Support for banning bump stocks is widespread, and it’s encouraging to see the Trump administration take action on gun safety. But let’s not celebrate too quickly. Presidents can rescind regulations just as easily as they create them, and in this case, the bump stock ban will likely be tied up in court for years. Only hours after the Trump administration released its final regulation, Gun Owners of America announced it would file a lawsuit. To ensure a ban is implemented and protected from legal challenges, Congress must still pass a law banning bump stocks and other similar devices, such as...

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin On December 10, 2018, the Department of Justice published its final rule regarding a bump stock ban in the United States. (The rule can be found at the The Federalist Pages Library section, along with the NRA’s comments on the proposed rule.) The DOJ arrived at this prohibition by holding that bump stocks are machine guns under the definitions of such weapons contained in 27 C.F.R. §§ 447.11, 478.11, and 479.11. But even if DOJ were to have the authority...

I want to point out something that needs to be considered in light of the bump stock ban. Given the wording of the regulation, many reasonably asked if binary triggers would be affected. Leaving aside the fact that the ban is based on a lie as brazen as claiming the sky is green, it turns out the new regulation does not ban binary triggers. From page 83 of the ruling: "The Department disagrees that other firearms or devices, such as rifles, shotguns, and binary triggers, will be reclassified as machineguns under this rule. Although rifles and shotguns are defined using...

Expected Live at 1:30 pm ET: White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders takes questions from the media following Michael Flynn's sentencing and a day after James Comey's second closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill. This is the first press briefing since November 27th.

Discontinuance of Accessory Classifications Effective Immediately: The Firearms Technology Industry Services Branch (FTISB) classifies firearms as defined by the Gun Control Act (GCA) and National Firearms Act (NFA) based on the configuration and the design features of the firearm as submitted by members of the industry. Effective immediately, any requests for a determination on how an accessory affects the classification of a firearm under the GCA or NFA must include a firearm with the accessory already installed. Except in cases of conditional import determinations, FTISB will not issue a determination on an accessory unless it is attached to the submitted...

A Franklin County judge in Ohio has ruled the Columbus City Council ban on bump-stocks is invalid under Ohio law. The ban was passed in May of 2018, as part of an series of infringements aimed at gun owners. From ab6onyourside.com: COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Franklin County Judge has ruled Columbus' bump-stock ban as unconstitutional.The ban was passed by the Columbus City Council in May. The ban was part of a series of four ordinances aimed at reducing gun violence. On Friday, Franklin County Judge David E. Cain ruled the bump-stock ban violates state law and the city cannot...

State police were shocked to find that after banning bump stocks and threatening violators with 5 years in prison, not a single resident has complied. The state of New Jersey has become the latest to ban bump-stocks for firearms, and despite strict threats to owners who refuse to turn their newly illegal devices over to police, not a single resident has complied with the new law. The legislation banning the popular A-15 accessory, Senate Bill 3477, went into effect immediately after it was signed into law by Gov. Chris Christie in January, and it gave residents 90 days to “voluntarily...

he Department of Justice (Department) proposes to amend the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives regulations to clarify that “bump fire” stocks, slide-fire devices, and devices with certain similar characteristics (bump-stock-type devices) are “machineguns” as defined by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) and the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), because such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger. Specifically, these devices convert an otherwise semiautomatic firearm into a machinegun by functioning as a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism that harnesses the recoil energy...

Videos: How to Bumpfire Effectively without a Bumpfire Stock! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIC8SMttjjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9fD_BX-afo No need for a Bumpfire stock. Amazingly fun! Accuracy is naturally compromised, though. Short handgun cartridges have the highest cyclic rate, since less bolt travel is needed. Bumpfiring is 100% legal, and safe in a properly maintained modern sporting rifle. Some gun ranges do not like it, though, because they feel you don’t have adequate control of the firearm. I am sure that could well be the case of you bumpfired a cartridge anywhere from .308 NATO on up.

Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat who was among the first to call for a ban on the devices last year, signed legislation Tuesday to outlaw bump stocks in Washington. Inslee applied ink to SB 5992, which makes it illegal to manufacture or sell a bump stock in the state after July and sets a one-year “buy back” program into effect before possession of such devices would become unlawful. The bill passed the Democrat-controlled Senate 31-18 and the House 56-41. “Devices that turn legal guns into weapons of war have no place in the hands of civilians in Washington state, and...

1.Trump Told Sens. Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin They’re Scared of the NRA2. Trump: ‘Take the Guns First. Go Through Due Process Second’3. Trump Encourages Everyone To Throw Everything Into The Bill. . . everything except concealed carry reciprocity.4. Trump Blames ‘The Video Games. The Movies. The Internet Stuff’5. Old Man Yells At Cloud...Sen. Chuck Grassley ratcheted up Trump’s rant against violence in movies a notch, or twelve.6. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Face... Feinstein leapt for joy all throughout the meeting. At one point, she appears to have jumped several inches up from her seat and affectionately jabbed President Trump with...

Bump stock prices have spiked following President Trump's directive on Tuesday that the Justice Department draft regulations to ban the devices. Bump stocks can be used to allow semi-automatic guns to fire at speeds similar to automatic guns. After Trump’s proposed ban, bump stock prices quickly rose on the firearms auction website Gun Broker, Bloomberg reported. Some bump stocks were being listed for anywhere from just above retail prices of less than $200 to as much as $1,000 with some listings having a tag that said "Get them while you can," according to Bloomberg. Trump’s decision on bump stocks...

The media frenzy over the mass murder in Las Vegas has died down faster than any other such story I have seen in the last two decades. The push for legislation to ban “bump stocks” has also died down.  It has not stopped. As expected, the enemies of an armed population are using “bump stocks” as a vehicle for much broader bans. In Illinois, the last state to pass a concealed carry permit law, the Democrats are looking to ban as many as half the guns in Illinois with the broadly worded measure.Nearly all semi-automatic firearms would fit under...

A laptop computer recovered from the Las Vegas hotel room where Stephen Paddock launched the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was missing its hard drive, depriving investigators of a potential key source of information on why he killed and maimed so many people, ABC News has learned.