Author Topic: ATF Official Who Evaluated the Bump Stock’s Legality Pushes Back Against Critics  (Read 1501 times)

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Offline thackney

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ATF Official Who Evaluated the Bump Stock’s Legality Pushes Back Against Critics
https://www.thetrace.org/rounds/atf-bump-stock-evaluation-legal-machine-gun/
October 10, 2017

...The bump stock, manufactured by a company called Slide Fire Solutions, did something novel: It used the recoil from firing a round from a semiautomatic rifle — as opposed to a spring or a crank — to make it fire at nearly the same rate as a machine gun.

The ATF defines a machine gun as any weapon that is capable of firing multiple rounds with the single pull of the trigger. Under federal law, machine guns are strictly regulated, and have been out of production in the United States since 1986.

The question before Vazquez and his team: Did a bump stock transform a rifle into a machine gun, making it illegal?

After months of testing the devices and studying the law, the ATF arrived at a decision. It ruled that the bump stock did not make a gun fully automatic, because the trigger of a rifle equipped with the device still had to be engaged every time the weapon fired.

“We could not find a way to classify it as a machine gun,” Vasquez said. He explained the decision in detail in a document he shared with The Trace....
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Offline thackney

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-11/the-bump-stock-millionaire-and-the-las-vegas-massacre

...The story of how Cottle successfully navigated America’s gun laws to sell tens of thousands of bump stocks over the past six years says a lot about how permeable those laws are. ...

...he came up with an idea for a device that uses a rifle’s recoil, or bump, against a stiffened trigger finger to approximate automatic fire. He went down to his woodworking shop, and in about two hours he built a crude prototype out of some scrap wood, PVC pipe, and duct tape.

By mid-2010, Cottle was ready to start selling his device, but he first needed clearance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. To comply with federal law, he simply needed to demonstrate that the bump stock was itself not a machine gun. In a letter to the ATF, Slide Fire argued that its product was an accessory to help people with disabilities who had difficulty firing the AR-15, a semiautomatic civilian version of the M-16 military assault rifle. The ATF’s Firearms Technology Branch ruled that the bump stock is a gun part, one that isn’t integral to the functioning of the weapon, and as such excluded it from federal firearm regulations, according to a June 7, 2010, letter from the bureau. Two years later the ATF made a similar determination in reviewing another bump stock maker’s device....

...Within the first year, sales exceeded $10 million, and the company shipped more than 35,000 units. Slide Fire hasn’t disclosed sales since 2011, but considering the growth of the industry, there are likely tens if not hundreds of thousands of bump stocks in gun owners’ hands....

...It wasn’t long before competitors cropped up with their own bump stocks, underpricing Slide Fire and cutting into its sales. Cottle fought back in court, suing at least five companies for allegedly stealing Slide Fire’s patented designs. The fiercest battle was against Miami-based Bump Fire Systems. Its product worked just like Slide Fire’s, only it was “lighter, just as durable, maybe even more so, and a lot cheaper! Instead of $400 for a Slide Fire you can get a Bump Fire for $100,” according to company social media posts filed in court....
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Online mountaineer

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See article I posted in the Editorial category on how proposed legislation to address bump stocks would effectively ban semi-auto rifles.
From The Federalist
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Offline txradioguy

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See article I posted in the Editorial category on how proposed legislation to address bump stocks would effectively ban semi-auto rifles.
From The Federalist

That would be a dream come true for the gun grabbers.
The libs/dems of today are the Quislings of former years. The cowards who would vote a fraud into office in exchange for handouts from the devil.

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THE ESTABLISHMENT IS THE PROBLEM...NOT THE SOLUTION

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