Trump administration moves to ban bump stocks

[thackney]

Trump administration moves to ban bump stocks
https://apnews.com/6c1af80fb290472c89fb930e223505af

The Trump administration moved Tuesday to officially ban bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like automatic firearms, and has made them illegal to possess beginning in late March.

The devices will be banned under a federal law that prohibits machine guns, according to a senior Justice Department official.

Bump stocks became a focal point of the national gun control debate after they were used in October 2017 when a man opened fired from his Las Vegas hotel suite into a crowd at a country music concert below, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

The regulation, which was signed by Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Tuesday morning, will go into effect 90 days after it is formally published in the Federal Register, which is expected to happen on Friday, the Justice Department official said.

The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly ahead of the regulation’s formal publication and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity....

[Elderberry]

https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2018/12/18/atfs-bump-stock-ban-ready-federal-register-lawsuit-also-ready/

    Gun Owners of America to File Suit Against Arbitrary ATF Bump Stock Ban

    Springfield, VA – Gun Owners of America (GOA) and its Foundation (GOF) will be filing suit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) and the Department of Justice to seek an injunction protecting gun owners from their illegal prohibition of bump stocks.

    Erich Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America said, “As written, this case has important implications for gun owners since, in the coming days, an estimated half a million bump stock owners will have the difficult decision of either destroying or surrendering their valuable property — or else risk felony prosecution.

    “ATF’s claim that it can rewrite Congressional law cannot pass legal muster. Agencies are not free to rewrite laws under the guise of ‘interpretation’ of a statute, especially where the law’s meaning is clear.

    “The new ATF regulations would arbitrarily redefine bump stocks as ‘machineguns’ — and, down the road, could implicate the right to own AR-15’s and many other lawfully owned semi-automatic firearms,” Pratt continued. “ATF’s new bump stock regulation clearly violates federal law, as bump stocks do not qualify as machineguns under the federal statute.”

    For more information about the suit, or GOA and GOF’s recommendation for bump stock owners, please see here: https://www.gunowners.org/goa-file-bump-stock-suit.htm.

[verga]

WTF. What is he thinking, give the liberals an inch and they will take a mile. This is the first step to rending the 2nd.

[ABX]

Tread harder daddy.

[Elderberry]

The Federal Bump Stock Ban Explained
Posted on December 25, 2018 by U.S. & Texas LawShield Staff   
https://www.uslawshield.com/the-federal-bump-stock-ban-explained/

The following is a video transcript.

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker has just signed a national ban on bump stocks, expected to go into effect on March 21, 2019. This prohibition is unlike any previous gun ban we’ve seen, in that it was neither passed by Congress, nor signed by the President. Instead, an administrative agency simply changed one of their definitions in order to institute the ban.
Bump stocks will now fall into the definition of machinegun, found in 27 C.F.R. Parts 477, 478, and 479.

Previously, this term was defined as: “[A] firearm which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” The term also includes any part of a machinegun or anything that may convert a weapon into a machinegun.

Specifically, with regard to bump stocks, the new rule adds: “The term ‘machinegun’ includes a bump-stock-type device, i.e., a device that allows a semiautomatic firearm to shoot more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger by harnessing the recoil energy of the semiautomatic firearm to which it is affixed, so that the trigger resets and continues firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter.”

This new definition has the effect of criminalizing the possession of all bump stocks.

The new rule has no provision to grandfather in and register the bump stocks that many citizens already own.

More at link above

[Smokin Joe]

Specifically, with regard to bump stocks, the new rule adds: “The term ‘machinegun’ includes a bump-stock-type device, i.e., a device that allows a semiautomatic firearm to shoot more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger by harnessing the recoil energy of the semiautomatic firearm to which it is affixed, so that the trigger resets and continues firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter.”

The definition is deeply flawed.

The stock doesn't allow it to fire more than once with a single pull of the trigger.

It makes pulling the trigger more efficient by using recoil to reset the trigger and allowing the shooter to pull the trigger again, only faster, as the rifle returns to position from the recoil.

Each time the trigger is pulled, the rifle fires only once, it is only the means of pulling the trigger which is different.

I would wager that using the same technique without the hardware (putting forward pressure on the foregrip, letting recoil push the firearm back to reset the sear, and maintaining forward pressure while keeping the trigger finger static to (in effect) pull the trigger again) would be possible with a bit of practice.

Then what?

[txradioguy]

The definition is deeply flawed.

The stock doesn't allow it to fire more than once with a single pull of the trigger.

It makes pulling the trigger more efficient by using recoil to reset the trigger and allowing the shooter to pull the trigger again, only faster, as the rifle returns to position from the recoil.

Each time the trigger is pulled, the rifle fires only once, it is only the means of pulling the trigger which is different.

I would wager that using the same technique without the hardware (putting forward pressure on the foregrip, letting recoil push the firearm back to reset the sear, and maintaining forward pressure while keeping the trigger finger static to (in effect) pull the trigger again) would be possible with a bit of practice.

Then what?

@Smokin Joe you can buy short reset trigger kits that do the same thing.  This ban is just window dressing.

[Smokin Joe]

@Smokin Joe you can buy short reset trigger kits that do the same thing.  This ban is just window dressing.

Perhaps, but the wording of the ban just displays a fundamental ignorance of what the device does.

It's a pretty dangerous precedent when people who don't know what they are talking about go banning things because someone doesn't like them. Not the first time, though, considering the Clinton AWB.

[sneakypete]

WTF. What is he thinking, give the liberals an inch and they will take a mile. This is the first step to rending the 2nd.

@verga

No,it isn't. Stocks are not protected.

[Smokin Joe]

@verga

No,it isn't. Stocks are not protected.

It is when they don't understand how the device works. Read the description.
If they can justify the ban with falsehoods, anything goes. And this is being done, not by Congress, but a bureaucrat.

[sneakypete]

It is when they don't understand how the device works. Read the description.
If they can justify the ban with falsehoods, anything goes. And this is being done, not by Congress, but a bureaucrat.

@Smokin Joe

Congress isn't a gathering of bureaucrats?

[Smokin Joe]

@Smokin Joe

Congress isn't a gathering of bureaucrats?

Yeah, but they are elected. This one isn't.

Besides, this is a step in the wrong direction, like the ban on 'civilian' ownership of new class III weapons done in '86.

The nutcases and criminals will get what they want, regardless.

[sneakypete]

>>Besides, this is a step in the wrong direction, <<


Not really. The 2nd Amendment prohibits the government from denying access to military grade weapons,and you are not going to find a military weapon anywhere in the world that has a bump stock. They are useless for anything other than closet commandos having fun.

like the ban on 'civilian' ownership of new class III weapons done in '86.

THAT was and is completely UN-Constitutional,and IF we ever get another congress that is actually conservative,it needs to be repealed for cause.

The nutcases and criminals will get what they want, regardless.

Yup! They always have,and they always will. Laws are written as guidelines for law-abiding people.

[Smokin Joe]

Not really. The 2nd Amendment prohibits the government from denying access to military grade weapons,and you are not going to find a military weapon anywhere in the world that has a bump stock. They are useless for anything other than closet commandos having fun.

Nowhere in the 2nd Amendment does it proscribe having fun. I'm going to experiment with technique when I get back home and see if I can do the same thing without any gadgets. I think it is perfectly possible to develop the technique.

As far as a military purpose, full auto suppressive fire is only to make the other guys duck long enough to set up to shoot them when their heads pop up, anyway. Accurate full auto is almost a misnomer. Otherwise, it is only effective against massed targets (like Paddock had at the concert--no one claimed he was a consummate marksman).

That whole Vegas situation reeks still.

[sneakypete]

 

Accurate full auto is almost a misnomer.

@Smokin Joe

You do have a point,but it really all depends on who is doing the firing,and the weapon being fired.

Would you care to dodge full-auto fire if it were me with a BAR on a bipod doing the firing? Or pretty much anybody firing a M-2. Granted,a M-2 is a crew-served weapon instead of an individual weapon,but I think you get the point.

[Smokin Joe]

@Smokin Joe

You do have a point,but it really all depends on who is doing the firing,and the weapon being fired.

Would you care to dodge full-auto fire if it were me with a BAR on a bipod doing the firing? Or pretty much anybody firing a M-2. Granted,a M-2 is a crew-served weapon instead of an individual weapon,but I think you get the point.

I'll grant that some are better than others, and there are a few I'd hate to dodge (well, actually, I'd hate to dodge any of them).
Crew served or vehicle (including some aircraft) mounted weapons seem to have a distinct improvement in accuracy, but the true 'assault rifle' fired full auto from the shoulder, not so much.

[txradioguy]

Perhaps, but the wording of the ban just displays a fundamental ignorance of what the device does.

It's a pretty dangerous precedent when people who don't know what they are talking about go banning things because someone doesn't like them. Not the first time, though, considering the Clinton AWB.

Liberals have a fundamental ignorance of firearms for the most part.  And they have a bad habit of displaying it quite often in front of the cameras.

[Free Vulcan]

Now THIS is something worthy to criticize Trump for, not some damn tweet. Don't agree with this at all, because fabian socalists are the very definition of slippery slope.