Posted on 03/23/2018 4:29:05 PM PDT by Simon Green
WASHINGTON — Firearm bump stocks would have to be surrendered, destroyed or made inoperable under a ban proposed Friday by the Justice Department.
The devices, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire as fast as a machine gun, became the focus of concern following the discovery that Stephen Paddock attached them to 14 of the 22 rifles he used in the October 2017 shooting rampage in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and injuring more than 700.
"After the senseless shooting in Las Vegas, this proposed rule is a critical step in our effort to reduce the threat of gun violence that is in keeping with the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress," said Attorney General Jeff Sessions in announcing the proposed rule.
President Donald Trump listed the bump stock ban as one of the measures he would support after February's school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
When attached to a rifle, a bump stock allows recoil action to move the weapon back and forth against the trigger finger. After the first pull, the finger remains stationary and the weapon repeatedly bumps against it: in essence, the rifle then fires itself.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms determined earlier that bump stocks should not be classified as machine guns, because the weapons they were attached to still required a separate trigger pull for each round fired.
But in proposing the new rule Friday, the Justice Department said the earlier ruling "does not reflect the best interpretation of the term 'machine gun.'"
Weapons classified as machine guns are grandfathered and may be kept if they were legally possessed before the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed. But because no bump stocks existed before the law was passed, the proposed rule said, gun owners who have the devices now "would be required to surrender them, destroy them, or otherwise render them permanently inoperable."
The proposed rule will be published in the Federal Register next week, providing for 90 days of public comment. The government can then make the rule final.
“All this would be ridiculous and comical, but it isn’t. Because making people into Felons because they have a rifle with a bayonet lug or a flash suppressor is not funny. Especially for those people who have gone to prison for it. “
Couple this with Obamacare mandating electronic medical records, and you have the Soviet-style reasons to put us in the Gulags.
I’d just love it if Gorsuch comes back to bite Traitor Trump in the a$$ if this somehow got to the Supreme Court.
Trump never aligned with the right. He’s always been a populist... to the extent that he’ll always go with whatever he thinks will make him popular. It’s all about ratings.
It was great when his populism aligned with individual freedom. And he was so in his element when attacking Hillary, because everyone hates her - even half of Democrats. But when joining in on the gun-bashing bandwagon is the popular thing these days, hey, all aboard the Trump Train...
“Firearm bump stocks would have to be surrendered, destroyed or made inoperable under a ban proposed Friday by the Justice Department.”
So as I’m wrestling with the pornographic tax return for this cuntry and the thousands I have to pay, we have to read about this crap.
We have seen better days, that is for sure. Ima go to bed earlier tonight and pray for our country and President.
I am more demoralized by the comments here than I was about the bad bill. Because the bad bill did what it was designed to do.
I can’t blame folks for being upset. I am too. Knee jerk is a bad thing though.
Sessions did this based on POTUS’s direction. If you don’t agree with this, you can’t criticize Sessions without criticizing the president also. I’ve been a Trump supporter since a couple weeks after he announced he was running, and I remain so.
I’m not saying I agree with this bump stock decision or that it is the right thing to do. But either way, keeping it in perspective is helpful. Understand that the decision to ban bump stocks is completely rational if you accept past court decisions that machine guns are illegal. If machine guns are illegal, then banning a device that turns a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon should be illegal, and doing so is simply a matter of enforcing the law, or to be more precise, enforcing the current court interpretation on the legality of automatic weapons.
Now, maybe the court ruling on automatic weapons is wrong. And, it’s certainly legitimate to question it. But it is the status quo and the de facto law at the moment. If you believe that the court decision against automatic weapons is wrong, that’s a totally legitimate point of view. But their restriction will not be overturned unless the court decision is overturned, yet until the bump stock issue was raised a few months ago, there were few challenging it or encouraging the president to do so (assuming there’s much he could do to have it overturned).
Essentially, with the banning of bump stocks, Trump is enforcing a court decision people may or may not agree with. Should Trump challenge the court decision on automatic weapons? Perhaps. But that would likely be a difficult process involving much litigation. It’s not something he can do unilaterally, and few were advocating that he do so before the issue of bump stocks was raised.
For those who are upset with the ban on bump stocks, remember that the ban on bump stocks is a symptom of the current restriction on automatic weapons. In the mean time, Trump is merely enforcing current court decision on the issue of automatic weapons. If people would like the court imposed ban on automatic weapons overturned, then they should address that issue, not the ban on bump stocks itself, which will have little practical effect for most gun users, and is merely a symptom of the questionable court decision.
Badges make shiny targets...
This is the kind of garbage you get when you have politicians who know nothing of what they speak making laws about it!
What court decision are you referring to so I can read up on it? BTW automatic weapons are not illegal.
Criminalizing and banning bump-stocks essentially outlaws all semi-automatic firearms. All semiautomatic firearms can be made to bump fire without the so-called bump-stock.
As I slip my tinfoil on and then off, I now feel no difference. I am obliged to think until otherwise proven without a shadow of doubt that many events are complete conspiracy and or cover up by government. Maybe I am cracking but I do not trust anything about this government or the fools who run it. It is not going to get any better and it will ultimately hit a tipping point unimaginable.
The trash was emptied this morning and I suspect it's now covered with about 400 or so tons of garbage.
Busy landfill, doncha know?
Screw you, Sessions...and ATF.
A bump stock does not alter the function of the rifle.
A bump stock does not alter the function of the rifle.
You’re wrong about pretty much everything you wrote. After re-reading actually you’re wrong about everything you wrote. I mean from start to finish. Amazing.
That's just the problem - there are some states that prohibit Class III firearms ownership (usually law enforcement are exempt from this prohibition), but automatic weapons are technically not banned by federal law - only tightly restricted. Per the National Firearms Act, the definition of fully-automatic firearms is also very precisely spelled out - and serves as the "test" for devices such as the bump-fire stock. So, exactly which court rulings on automatic weapons are you thinking of?
What is the precedent for a federal action that renders illegal something purchased legally (with explicit federal approval)?
Obviously a mechanical means of converting a semi-automatic into an automatic weapon. Get rid of them.
Then what's the point of it?
Exactly! Evidently, they don’t know about those tricks.
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